Baru Puerto RIco

I cooked two nights that we stayed at the apartment in San Juan and we ate out two nights.  We enjoyed our meal so much the first night that we went to the same restaurant the second time.  The restaurant was Baru They served tapas with a Puerto Rican twist.

The outside of Baru

At first Dave was unsure, but when they lead us out to the courtyard he was sold, he does like to eat outdoors, and it was a lovely cool inner courtyard.

Enjoying our first dinner

The bread basket arrived and there were three types of bread all warm and delicious (this is always a good sign) I ordered a beef dish with roasted potatoes and Dave scallops in a cream sauce.  Unfortunately the photo of the scallops was hopeless, but they were wonderful probably my favourite of the two meals that we ate there.  The scallops were large and meaty and cooked perfectly not rubbery at all and the creamy coconut curry sauce was amazing.

Old San Juan

We spent most of our 4 days in San Juan in the old city.  This is really quite a small area of about 8 blocks  by 10 blocks, so you can walk everywhere.  It is on a peninsula surrounded by the Sea and at each end there are old forts built by the Spanish to fight off invaders. These were still being used by the Americans during the cold war, but are now just museums.

One of the forts El Morro

El Morro was to the West of the City and therefore was a great place to watch the sunset.  On Saturday evening before going for dinner we walked over to view the sun setting. The large grassy area in front of the fort was full of locals picnicking, enjoying the cool breeze and flying their kites.

There was a festive atmosphere and everyone was enjoying the cooler temperature and the sky was full of kites.

View from the eastern fort

An apartment and lunch in Old San Juan

At the end of our trip I did a little cooking as we had a kitchen and I invented a salad based on the local ingredients that we found.

San Juan lunch Salad

We had rented an apartment here is the link in the heart of Old San Juan.  San Juan is a wonderful old city with roots to the very beginning of Colonial times in North America. The streets are very narrow and parking impossible, do not, I repeat do not, drive in to San Juan. Our apartment was beautiful with an enormous deck which is where we spent most of our time.

The beautiful large deck

As you can see the neighbours across the street are very close and we made friends with them, during the 4 days that we stayed here. No one has glass in their windows and the 3 young men living across the street shared their music with us every evening, as well as stories of their lives in San Juan.  They were American Coast Guards posted their for a couple of years. We were easily able to talk across the street.

View from deck

The lunch of the iguana

While still down in Rincon we went a couple of the blocks from the hotel for lunch one day.  There was a local restaurant that we had seen from the road, that had tables overlooking a river/canal which had really appealed to Dave. He is all about a nice outdoor eating area.

View of "eating platform" 

Any way we ended up driving even though it was a 10 minute walk, as away from the beach it was baking hot.  The deck unfortunately was closed (I think because it was unsafe and we might have ended up eating our dinner in the river not overlooking it.) But there was some outdoor tables in the shade so we took one of those.

While we were waiting for our dinner to arrive, listening to a tape of a Ricky Martin concert, I noticed a large lizard in the grass.  When the waiter noticed my interest, he beckoned me round the back of the restaurant where there were about 5 of them.

Several Iguana apparently friends with the birds

A close up

Pomarrosa Coffee plantation

While we were up in the mountains we wanted to visit a working coffee plantation, and at the Casa Grande they had some pamphlets for Pomarrosa Coffee plantation so we drove the winding mountain roads for about an hour until we reached the plantation.

Gourmet Coffee Pomarrosa

we drove up the drive way where Kurt was waiting to greet us, as we had phoned ahead.  Kurt is an expat from Germany, but he has been living in Puerto Rico for 40 years and is passionate about coffee, food and Puerto Rico.  He led us to an octagonal structure where there were a couple of  tables, and coffee making apparatus.

I always say the most important ingredient in great food is love and passion, Kurt certainly poured both these in to his coffee.  We had both drip and espresso, and I divined correctly that adding cream (which I normally always do) would be blasphemy here.

Casa Grande Puerto RIco

For the second stage of our vacation in Puerto Rico we headed up to the mountains for a respite from the heat and we thought the sun.  In fact apart from the torrential downpour when we arrived the rest of our time in the rain forest was remarkably dry.

Rain forest living up to it's name

We were staying at Casa Grande which is an old coffee plantation up in the mountains close to Utuado. They call themselves a retreat and it certainly is.  There are no radios, televisions or phones, but there is internet in the main building.  As soon as we arrived I signed up for a reflexology foot message. Jennifer took me to hut away from the main buildings.  Often when you go to a spa they pipe in the soothing noises like waves crashing on a beach or a rain forest, well here the noise of the rain forest noises came free, it was uterley peaceful and relaxing.

Hammock on deck of cabin

The cabins were scattered around the property and each one had a deck with a couple of chairs and a hammock.  I spent a very peaceful couple of hours reading in this one.  There was also a swimming pool set in the grounds.

Food carts of Puerto Rico

Having so recently been to Portland where food carts are a big thing, it was interesting to find that in Puerto Rico they are a way of life.  Maybe this is where the idea came from in Portland; any way they are everywhere here selling pinchos (kebabs) roasted pork, and all manner of deep fried things.

Food cart

Some food carts reminded me of the ones in Portland, like the one above.  And others are smaller with a barbecue and cooler along the side of the road like the one below.

Some were just outside someone's house on the side of the road, maybe they just made a little too much dinner that night. But one thing they all had in common was a shady spot to sit and enjoy the food. Most of them moved unlike the carts in Portland, you would see them one day and then they would not appear again for a couple of days. I am not sure if they were taking a couple of days off or if they went somewhere else.

We stopped at this one for a cold drink, but they had some wonderful chicken pinchos it was very tempting.

Shipwreck Bar and Grill - Pig roast

On the night that we blew into Rincon we met 4 couples from New York that had rented a house down the beach, They shared their Rincon secrets, including Sunday night pig Roast at Shipwreck Bar and Grill.

As far as I could tell there are no indoor seats just shade or sun, but since it never seems to get cool here that is fine.  As we arrived the pig was just ready and look what greeted us.

Eat your Heart out Pete

A friend at work introduced me to her husband about a year a go and almost the first words out of his mouth were that he wanted to have a pig roast.  I though of him when I saw this, and yes we should find a way to have a pig roast this summer.  Our timing was perfect as they were just cutting the first chunks off. I could not wait.

OMG look at that skin

Villa Confresi - Rincon Puerto Rico

I found the hotel Villa Cofresi Like I find almost everything these days (except my car keys) on the internet.  It had very good reviews on trip advisor and was locally owned and operated.  Also it said that most of their guests were Puerto Ricons.

Dave enjoying a Pirate special at Villa Cofresi

The rooms mostly seem to have a view of the ocean and the very large bar area is open to the beach and is humming most of the day and all of the evening.

View from the bar

The beach in front of the hotel was not private, but most of the people on it were from the Villa Cofresi.  We got the use of the loungers and most importantly the beach umbrellas.

This was my view for most of the day, in fact we kind of skipped lunch it was so pleasant on the beach.