Soda, Estudio de Cocina

One of the things that a master chef finds passion in the kitchen is the room for creativity and enjoying these unique experiences.  It is an opportunity that they have to blend flavors, create different styles and stimulate the senses of those who are a lover of good food.  We can see these features strongly reflected in restaurants devoted to tapas.  And one of these restaurants that is devoted to this is Soda, Estudio de Cocina (Soda, Kitchen Studio), located in the vicinity of Miramar.

#PizzaLovers: The Cheesecake Shoppe

For those who love pizza, to find new places to try this delicious food is an adventure.  It is not just about finding a nice place, but also enjoying an excellent service and scrumptious food.  While it is true that in the metro area there many places to enjoy a good pizza, you can also find hundreds of restaurants outside the metro area where you can witness a fantastic culinary experience.

Conuco Restaurant

Vieques Island has managed to create a number of gastronomic experiences that has created an impression to its guests, both tourists and locals, who are looking for an unforgettable experience where they can enjoy the combination of flavors, styles and environment.

One of the restaurants that has been captivating the attention for locals and tourist is a restaurant called Conuco.  A restaurant located at North of Vieques in the town of Isabel II, on state road 110 Luis Muñoz Rivera.  Conuco is an interesting name which, according to the Royal Spanish Academy, means “portion of land where the Taino Indians where dedicated to farming”.  It is a perfect definition that goes with the restaurant since it is located on a small land that hides a beautiful and natural terrace. 

La Casita Blanca

Many people think that in order to enjoy a delicious meal one would need to eat in an elegant restaurant: to sit on a table with a white tablecloth, to have shiny glasses ready to be filled with wine, look over beautiful centerpieces and a cloth napkin covering your silverware while listening to a slow music from Beethoven.

However, all of those things are not needed in order to enjoy a delicious meal. You can enjoy an unforgettable meal in many places: an elegant or casual restaurant, a food truck, in your mother, grandmother or aunt’s house, but, above else, in “fondas”. If we talk about “fondas” then we must mention La Casita Blanca (the Little White House): a small “fonda” located in Santurce. La Casita Blanca is a very picturesque place that transports you to the time where families and neighbors would come together to eat. It is because of this that WE LOVE “FONDAS”! Because we feel like we are in our grandmother’s house, who which are universally acclaimed as the best chefs in the world because nobody cooks better than grandma!

La Casita Blanca is located in the heart of Santurce in Tapia Street, Villa Palmeras, operating for more than three decades maintaining the same quality and service from the beginning.  It is always full of people who come to enjoy the unbelievable smell coming from the kitchen.  As soon as you arrive to the restaurant, you will meet a cow at the entrance to welcome you and with that image you will start getting an idea of the experience you are about to witness.  Inside the restaurant, you see the wood tables covered with tablecloths with floral or fruit designs. On the table, you will find a bottle of hot sauce that they personally make, the traditional Goya salt, because if it’s Goya, it’s got to be good (a slogan they use) and a handful of napkins held by a particular object: a plantain.  You will also see several shelves filled with books and newspapers, and ancient artifacts such as a television, a radio, a cash register, lamps made from aluminum bowls and paper bags, plants giving a touch to the interiors and classic clay figures.  This place has a huge personality.

Rice with chicken Stew | Steak with onions

Now, what we are interested is in the food, and, yes, the food is delicious.  Although the menu from La Casita Blanca is not an extensive one the selection that they have is more than enough to enjoy diversity.  The menu is written of a small black board and you can find meat stew, fried meat, fried cutlet, fillet of grouper, steak with onions, chicken stew and more as main courses.  Prices range from $7.95 to $14.50 USD, which is quite economical considering that they are located in a busy area in Santurce.  When it comes to drinks, they have soda, juices and the Maviada: which is a mavi sangria.  Even though the drink is a bit strong, it does not change the fact that it is tasty.

Something special about this place is that when you arrive they serve you fried codfish and chicken soup, courtesy of the house.  A typical Puerto Rican tradition in the old days when in the houses you visited you were received with these type of snacks.  To finish your meal the traditional way, they give a shot of anise chichaito with three coffee beans, in honor of health, love and money.  La Casita Blanca is a treasure in Santurce, a place you can’t miss.  It is a humble place that offers excellent service and delicious food at an affordable price. If you haven’t had an experience like this, we invite you visit La Casita Blanca and let yourself be treated with excellent service with a Puerto Rican culinary experience, just like our grandmother used to do.

About the place:

La Casita Blanca has very limited parking areas around the restaurant, to which we recommend to park nearby.  The hours of operations are from Monday to Wednesday from 11:30 am to 4:00 pm.  Thursday from 1:30 am to 5:00 pm.  Friday and Saturday from 11:30 am to 9:00 pm and Sunday from 11:30 am to 5:00 pm.  Their telephone number is 787-726-5501.  The coordinates to get there are 18.4434346,-66.0558456.

If you want to see more pictures, you can go to our gallery on Pinterest HERE.

 

#PizzaLovers: Pirilo Pizza Rustica

Are you a pizza lover?  If your answer is yes, then here we will share an option where you can eat a delicious pizza and have a good time in a unique location in the metro area.

Pirilo Pizza Rustica is a restaurant located on 201 Fortaleza Restaurant in Old Juan and, just like the name, the restaurant has a rustic atmosphere where the elements like the wood, bricks and pictures.  You will meet Pirilo: a fictional character who is the owner of the restaurant and through the restaurant you will know its history, see his belongings and look at message of his three passions: his mother, Genova (the love of his life) and, obviously, pizza.

The restaurant has 2 floors; both will provide bars and waiters in order to provide you an excellent experience.  It’s a pretty popular place among locals and tourists; so much that there are always guests on site.  We highly recommend arriving early to sign up and get a table quickly or to make reservations as well.  The first floor tends to be crowded and a lot noise, but the second floor, not only has a lovely view of the streets of San Juan, it is also more quiet and private, plus it has space for large groups.

In terms of their menu, we can begin by saying that they have a great selection of drinks; among which are mojitos, sangrias, piña colada, wine, sodas and over 50 beers, including local, internationals and craft beers.  A peculiarity of their menu is that the drinks can b be with ginger, almonds, juice, egg or avocados, which makes it interesting.  The Genova Sangria is spectacular as it is made with ginger, almonds and sesame seeds.

Moving to appetizers, the restaurant has an extensive list of tapas such as potates, garlic bread, parmesan cheese, hash mamposteado, fried cassava, dumplings, ravioli, humus, salads, and many more!

For the main course, they offer linguini, gnocchi, ravioli, lasagna chicken, meat or vegetables, skirt steak, sandwiches, soup, calzone and, of course, pizza.  They have a variety of over 20 pizzas and amongst them are the classics: cheese, pepperoni, sausage and pesto.  To elaborate more, they also 7 cheese pizza, seafood pizza, vodka pizza and banana pizza, however, for those who are meat lovers we would highly recommend the Sin pizza! The pizza that we tasted was half La Pampa and half Pirilo; La Pampa’s ingredients are: tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, Argentinian sausage, skirt steak and chimichurri sauce.  Pirilo’s ingredients are: tomato sauce, mozarrella cheese, ground beef and plantains.

Obviously, we can’t forget the dessert menu where you can find: cuatro leches cake (4 milk cake), carrot cake, cheese flan and hot brownie with ice cream.  The food here is divine!

The restaurant is open from Sunday to Wednesday from 12:00 in the afternoon until 12:00 midnight, and from Thursday to Saturday it is open from 12:00 in the afternoon until 2:00 in the morning.  Kindly be advised, it does not have a private parking but there are a variety of public parking lots where you can leave your car.

It is a good experience and the food is exquisite.   Do not miss the opportunity to visiting this corner in Old San Juan.  You can see more pictures in our gallery on Pinterest HERE.

#PizzaLovers: Little Italy

Like we promised, every month we will be sharing our experiences in different pizza restaurants around the island.  For you not to miss any post, keep close attention to #PizzaLovers.  Today, we will talk about Little Italy.

Little Italy is a very good place to eat pizza and it is located in 2424 Loiza Street in Santurce.  The decoration of the restaurant is beautiful with bright colors. Their tables and chairs are red like the walls with big mirrors and sunflowers on the table.  You can enjoy their menu by sitting outside on the balcony, but if you prefer a more private and quiet experience then you can enjoy the dinner inside.  However, the restaurant is quite small with room for approximately 12 or 14 people.  At the end of the restaurant is where the restaurant is located and, most importantly about the restaurant, is the wood-fired oven.  It is a unique experience to observe the food preparation and how it is cooked in the oven.

Their selection for the drinks is extensive: they different flavors of sangria, like strawberry, pineapple, mango and mint, papaya and basil, ginger and cranberry or cranberry and acai.  Just like the sangria, their martinis also have different flavors, like strawberry, pineapple, papaya and mango.  If you are a beer lover, Little Italy offers local, international and craft beer; they also offer wine.  If you do not consume alcohol, they have a variety of soda and smoothies; such as strawberry, mango, pineapple and papaya or green tea, chamomile tea and mint tea.  Since we are a fan of the sangria, we chose the acai sangria and it was very good.

If we go to a pizza restaurant, it is obvious that we are going to order pizza.  So, to be fair, we decided to order pizza and pasta, just to try different options from the menu.  One half of the pizza that we order was “The Miele & Prosciutto”, which the ingredients are prosciutto, caramelized onions, walnuts, goat cheese and honey.  The other half was “The Mimina”, which the ingredients are chopped tomatoes, sausage and pesto.  As for the past, if you are going to create one, you can choose between spaghetti or tortellini, choose your preferred salsa (aioli, pesto, marinara, alfredo, carbonara, Bolognese, pink or vodka), proteins and vegetables.  The pasta we ordered was tortellini (which is paste made of cheese) with aioli sauce (sauce with olive oil and garlic), sautéed bruschetta, ham, chicken, bacon, basil, onion, pepper and pieces of plantain.  Both dishes were delicious, but we must say that there can be only one winner and the pasta stood as the best.  The combination of flavors was exquisite, it was well prepared and the portion is large that you can actually share.  I recommend it a 100% because it was delicious.

Last but not least, you can’t miss the desserts, which include the Capre e Oleo, which is goat cheese flan with mint and touch of olive oil.  They have the Torta Italiana, which is a cheesecake made with mozzarella cheese. Also the Dolce Pizza, which is a pizza with strawberries, Nutella, nuts and ice cream.  As well the Cioccolato, which is the famous how brownie with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.  Due to a recommendation that was given, we went with the Capre e Oleo and, unfortunately, the flavor of the mint was stronger than the flan itself and the olive oil did not add as much flavor as you would think it would do. Sadly, it was not our favorite dessert however, for next time we will definitely ask for the Dolce Pizza or the Cioccolato.

In short, it was a very pleasant visit where we could appreciate the beautiful decoration, enjoy the wood oven, taste a scrumptious meal and spend a good time.  We very much liked the menu as it was a variety of meals to enjoy.  As for the service, we would have to come back to evaluate them again because at first the service was 110/100, but once they brought us the main course we felt the service was somewhat neglected.  However, we believe in second chances and we know that anybody can have a busy or bad day. The truth of the matter is that we will return to eat at Little Italy: a small pizza restaurant with excellent variety.  Little Italy is open from Tuesday to Friday from 5:00 pm until 10:00 pm, Saturday and Sunday it is open from 12:00 pm until 11:00 pm.  Should Monday be a holiday they open from 3:00 pm until 9:00 pm.  Kindly be advised, there is no parking available, they only have a small space in front of the restaurant.  However, there are places around to park.

For more pictures, you can enter our gallery on Pinterest HERE.