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GREAT AMERICAN BITES
TRAVEL AND TOURISM

Great American Bites: Classic Puerto Rican comfort food at El Jibarito

Larry Olmsted, special for USA TODAY

The scene: With its cobblestone streets, narrow sidewalks and labyrinthine open-air courtyards hidden behind building facades, historic Old San Juan is a conflicting mix of cruise ship-driven tourist traffic and longtime residents living life largely unchanged. Some streets bustle with duty-free stores, cheesy souvenir shops and national chain fast food eateries, while others are quiet and residential with little foot traffic. Calle Sol is one of the latter, and while just a few minutes from the tourist epicenters by foot, the stretch where El Jibarito resides has very little other commercial activity, and even the sign and doorway to the restaurant are understated enough so you could walk by without noticing. That would be a mistake.

The trifongo is a specialty at El Jibarito: a cup-shaped shell of mashed fried plantains and yucca, set within a larger cup and then filled with shrimp, onions and peppers.

Behind the door is the one-room restaurant, occupying one of the many former courtyards between buildings found in this very old part of the city. It features a high roof with interior walls that were once exterior, pastel-colored balconies with wrought iron railings and ceiling fans spinning lazily overhead. Down one side is a full bar - for service, not sitting - a cashier where you pay your bill, and in the back is an open kitchen. If you head to the bathroom you cross an open-air mini-courtyard, where crates of fruit, especially plantains, are stacked. The dining room is filled with plain Formica-topped tables simply adorned with oil and vinegar dispensers, ketchup bottles, and salt and pepper shakers, plus a fork and knife rolled in a paper napkin. The menu, which changes slightly by the day, is handwritten and photocopied, in English and Spanish. The spacious room seats several dozen customers, and is typically busy from lunch right through dinner: They eat on the early side here and to say it is locally popular is an understatement, while plenty of tourists find their way as well.

Reason to visit: Classic Puerto Rican specialties: mofongo, tostones, sweet plantains, pork roast, shrimp, flank steak, creole chicken, and especially trifongo.

The food: A good friend whose wife is Puerto Rican suggested El Jibarito to me, saying it would be perfect for Great American Bites – and he was right. In the name of variety and research I rarely eat anywhere more than once in a single visit, but this is the kind of place you could easily go back to several times on a trip, and after I had dinner there I needed to return for lunch (same menu). My friend described it as a Puerto Rican-style diner minus breakfast, and again was right on – it's all about simply served comfort food, the Caribbean way. The menu covers all the bases of the most traditional dishes, and all the main courses are good, portions are large, prices are low, the staff is unerringly friendly, and the Medalla, Puerto Rico's most popular beer, is served ice-cold. If you read the many reviews on travel sites you see the same phrases over and over: "down to earth," "local", "authentic," "like grandmother's," and especially "best mofongo," a native Puerto Rican side dish of mashed green plantains that are seasoned, filled with some sort of meat and fried into a sort of banana croquette.

The appetizer section of the menu is fairly limited and the least impressive, with small items that don't pack enough flavor punch to overcome their fried exteriors: alcappurias (tubular beef fritters), sorullitos (corn meal sticks), and pastelillos (mini-empanadas filled with chicken or beef). I'd pass on these next time, given that the main courses are much better, large and served with a side, such as amarillos (sweet plantains - my favorite), yellow or white rice and beans, or tostones, another island specialty, slices of green plantain pounded thin, fried and salted into bite-size crunchy ovals.

The main courses read like a greatest hits of Puerto Rican home cooking: bistec encebollado (tender cube steak with onions), pollo a la criolla (chicken in creole sauce), costillas en salsa de platano (pork ribs in plantain gravy), shrimp with garlic, and of course, pernil al horno (roasted pork) and churrasco (grilled salted flank steak), two very standard dishes. Everything was tasty, but I especially liked the garlicky roasted pork, a mix of chunks and slices, with both crunchy exterior and juicy interior meat, done simply but fresh and flavorful. Churrasco is probably the most ubiquitous menu dish most tourists will see, and theirs was as good as any I tasted on the island, perfectly flame-grilled and rubbed with just enough salt to reveal its pure beefy goodness. In other Latin countries churrasco often means barbecue or grilled meats in general, but in Puerto Rico it is always flank or skirt steak grilled over flame.

The most unique dish on the menu was also one of the best: trifongo, a lesser-seen cousin to mofongo. Instead of just green (unripe) plantain, trifongo also includes ripe plantains and yucca, all mashed together. While often shaped into a ball, some places form it into a cup shape and serve it in a wooden bowl with the filling exposed, and that's how El Jibarito does it. The big difference in this presentation is that the interior of the shell, about half an inch thick, is also fried to a crunchy consistency, resembling a coconut with the top quarter cut off. This is filled with your choice of meats – the waiter heartily recommended fresh shrimp and I concurred. It was utterly delicious, very unusual and memorable. Among the sides, I really enjoyed the sweet plantains, but the beans, not usually a favorite of mine, were also extremely tasty, cooked with chopped pumpkin for an unexpected flavor kick.

If you go all the way to Puerto Rico you might as well eat Puerto Rican food and at El Jibarito you cannot go wrong - with the choices or prices.

What regulars say: "My grandmother is from San Juan and it's like eating in my grandmother's kitchen," said Carolyn Rivera, a schoolteacher. "It's simple, but good, all the traditional dishes, and we tell everyone who visits to go here."

Pilgrimage-worthy?: Yes – whether you are in San Juan for a day or a week, this is the place to try the standards.

Rating: Yum! (Scale: Blah, OK, Mmmm, Yum!, OMG!)

Price: $-$$ ($ cheap, $$ moderate, $$$ expensive)

Details: Calle Sol 280, Old San Juan; 787-725-8375

Larry Olmsted has been writing about food and travel for more than 15 years. An avid eater and cook, he has attended cooking classes in Italy, judged a BBQ contest and once dined with Julia Child. Follow him on Twitter, @TravelFoodGuy, and if there's a unique American eatery you think he should visit, send him an e-mail at travel@usatoday.com.

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