Going bananas

It’s so exciting when a new cuisine comes to town!! Today we had lunch at El Coquito, a Puerto Rican restaurant that opened in June. This is a small, unpretentious “pop and girlfriend” place - Puerto Rico by way of the Bronx. In a scruffy strip mall on N. Granite Reef near McDowell, you actually feel transported to the island. The walls are painted navy blue and yellow, with a colorful striped border separating the two. Salsa music is playing, and you can see potted plants outside flanking the windows. There are photos of Puerto Rico on the walls. The menu is written on board up front.

The food, called Cocina Criolla (Creole Cooking), has evolved from foods produced by the original inhabitants, mostly seafood and fruits, added to by the Spanish who came with Columbus, then layered with flavors brought by the African slaves. Plantains, both sweet and green are ubiquitous, Golden rice with pigeon peas is a national dish. The only spicy hot note comes from the bottle of hot sauce on each table.

There are a number of appetizers. Pastelillos are thin, flaky pastry filled with hamburger or cheese, then deep fried. Bacalitos ($3.99), my favorite part of the meal, are cod fish fritters. If you rub each one with a lemon slice, then spread it with the accompanying minced garlic, it’s pure heaven. To avoid the deep fryer you could get pasteles, green banana dough filled with either beef or chicken, wrapped in a banana leaf and boiled. Or empanadillas: ground yucca or casava which has been stuffed with chicken or pork, then rolled in - you guessed it, a banana leaf - and baked.

Soup and salad is available, but we moved right on to the main course. We shared a canu, a whole fried sweet plantain (do you sense a theme here?) filled with ground beef, olives and peppers, with melted cheese. You could go for the mofongo, twice fried plantain mashed and mixed with broth, pork cracklings and garlic, topped with steak and onions ($6.99 at lunch, $9.99 at dinner).  Roast pork, served with rice and beans is a speciality.

Lots of fresh fruit drinks ($2) are available, but we decided to try the drink that the restaurant is named for, el coquito ($2.75), which means “little coconut”. Made with coconut milk, it’s thick and sweet like eggnog, served with a cinnamon stick for stirring. There’s no liquor license here yet, but you’re invited to go across the street and bring back some rum to put in it. That would be sooooo good. For dessert there’s flan and tembleque (which is coconut pudding) both $2.75. We were too full.

The place was crowded when we arrived, we snagged the last table. As a result, our server, who was most pleasant, was overwhelmed, and it was a long, slow meal. But worth the wait. Especially for the bacalaitos. I realize that what I’ve written will not sound very tempting to a lot of you, but really, it’s worth a try, if only for the novelty.

El Coquito

1617 N. Granite Reef Rd.    Scottsdale

480-947-0680

elcoquito.net

Tuesday - Sunday   noon - 9      closed Monday