El Caldero Sabroso

"The Tasty Cauldron"

Overview

El Caldero Sabroso (ECS) offers down-home meals at reasonable prices...unlike its glossy competitors that seem to capture the patronage of most tourists in Old San Juan. Unfortunately, ECS does not receive the attention it deserves. During our three visits to ECS, we only encountered a handful of other diners. The Old San Juan culinary scene would suffer a great loss if ECS went out of business. You can help avoid this tragedy: The next time you go to Old San Juan, eat a meal at ECS. You won't be disappointed!


Service/Atmosphere


ECS is a one-woman operation. That woman is Maria. She greets, cooks, serves -- all with a warm smile under her striped chef's hat. We never had to wait long for our food. Then again, we were usually the only patrons! If you happen to hit a busy time, we suggest ordering the pastelillos (see below for details) as an appetizer: Maria cranked them out within five minutes after we order them...and, boy, were they good! Or just hang out in the front dining area. You can watch Hollywood movies dubbed in Spanish on the little flat screen TV in the corner. Or, better yet, watch Maria at work in her little kitchen just beyond the counter where the cash register sits. We were particularly impressed by the fact that Maria still relied on such low-tech devices as her giant stone mortar and pestle -- now that's some culinary TLC!

Food


Dish No. 1: Mofongo with chicken

We sampled this traditional dish at pretty much every eatery we visited in Puerto Rico. ECS's mofongo with chicken ranked among the best, along with Mi Casita's red snapper variation. The key is the sauce. Without it, mofongo tends to be dry and bland. The chicken mofongo at ECS came drizzled with a light garlic sauce, that doubled as dressing for the salad encircling the plate. The sauce was so good that Larry-Mao temporarily overcame his aversion to iceberg lettuce!



Dish No. 2: Pastelillos


Maria translated the name of this delicious snack as "turnover." Due to linguistic barriers, there was some confusion about what they were filled with. Indeed, we weren't sure until we actually bit into them. So here's your options: beef or guava with cheese. (Belda-Mao suggested combining the beef and guava, but Maria vetoed this plan with a good-natured but skeptical look. Belda-Mao still maintains that beef and guava would have made a good combo...) We ordered both: the former as an appetizer, the latter as an after-meal dessert. Both were amazing. The beef filling consisted of (surprise!) ground beef along with little bits of potato and tomato. We don't know what was used to season the beef, but it was very aromatic, like five-spices (五香). The guava-cheese turnover had a more complicated structure. If you took a cross-section, it would look like this (from outside to inside): fried pastry crust, a pocket of some type of white cheese (maybe mozzarella?), and a core of lightly sweetened guava paste. Belda-mao fell for the savoriness of the beef mix, while Larry-mao was enraptured by the sweet-salty contrast of the guava-cheese.

Conclusion

ECS has everything a good little chan mao could want: tasty food, reasonable prices (we spent about $20-26 for the two of us), and an adorable proprietor in a poofy chef hat. Two high paws for ECS!

• Address: 366 San Francisco Street, San Juan, 00901

Special thanks to moncheoPR for the pic of ECS's sign!