We stayed for a couple of days in an Airbnb in Santurce, south of the expressway, and then for a week at the Sheraton by the Convention Center (my partner was attending a conference, I tagged along). We did not have a car, and did not take public transit. The hotel had a shuttle to Escambrón beach and Old San Juan, and we took that a few times. As is typical these days, we tried to eat well, but not fancy. Food is on the expensive side in PR, and our proximity to tourist zones did not help. I’ll list the highlights and briefly summarize the rest.
Our Airbnb was too minimally equipped for me to even make coffee, but we had a good breakfast routine in Santurce: we walked past 787 Coffee (where apparently one can spend $9 on a latte, or $34-47 for 10oz of beans) to Café Comunión, with a good flat white and a great soundtrack, and then to Levain Santurce for quality pastries (around $6 each).
The Convention Centre is geographically isolated by water and expressways. My partner had her hotel breakfast buffet paid for but it would have cost me $25, so I made coffee (Aeropress, hand grinder, beans from Hamburg) in the hotel room, and had bananas and yogurt to tide me over until lunch. It was a 15-minute walk (with some elevation changes) into Miramar (to the west) to get to a decent supermarket, and 20-25 minutes to a reasonable selection of food choices on Calle Cerra and nearby. I did that walk often. Top of the list is the Lena Eh food truck, whose chef, Rubén Guzmán, has a James Beard nomination this year. (The other one from PR is the chef at Orujo, Taller de Gastronomia, a much more expensive tasting restaurant a block away.) We went three times (it is only open three days a week, or I might have gone more often).
Across the street from the food truck park is Pollos Schnarneco, which looks like a fast-food chain restaurant, but is one of several concepts by prominent local chef Raúl Correa. While the chicken sandwich was good, the highlight was the porchetta sandwich ($11), full of flavour enhanced by the salsa verde, and with loads of crispy skin. We went twice.
Our best restaurant meal was, improbably, at Kemuri on the adjacent Calle Eduardo Cerra (maddening street naming!), which served Japanese comfort food. This set of kare raisu topped with karaage was $29 (so maybe three times what it would have cost in Japan?). The curry was not from a box; it was balanced and quite tasty.
The pizza at La Santurcina was quite good, though we may have escaped the dreaded soggy crust just by ordering one without tomato sauce or fresh mozzarella (mushrooms and fontina, $23). Quality selection of craft beer (cans/bottles).
The one place we ate in Old San Juan was Taberna Lúpulo, which is primarily a beer bar (and a very good one, with over 40 taps) but with quality bar food. After ten months in Portugal, I was thirsting for good craft beer on draught, so we went twice, and I went once by myself.
Pictured below is their Cubano sandwich ($13, big enough to share) but we also had their tripleta burger sliders (ground beef/chorizo/sausage, $14 for four), blistered shishito peppers ($13), and I had a chicken gyro, which was a notch below but still a generous portion, reasonably tasty, and a bargain at $8. The beer is not cheap ($7-10 for 13oz, or 8oz for higher ABV or fancier pours) but the selection (we could see the rotation through our visits) compensates.
The best tacos we had were at Acapulco Taqueria Mexicana in Ocean Park. Good flavours from the al pastor and cochinita pibil. The server said proudly, “We make our corn tortillas fresh every morning,” and we were like “You let them sit around for several hours?” though of course we didn’t voice that.
I enjoyed my two visits to Lucía Patisserie and Café in Miramar. It is only open three mornings a week. Viennoiserie was good (also around $6 each) as was the Basque burnt cheesecake I tried. They also had savoury stuffed croissants, lemon and fruit tarts, cinnamon rolls, cookies. Coffee was only decent (on our last morning, my equipment packed away and beans exhausted).
That concludes the highlights. I’ll post this now and follow up with the also-rans, for information.