It all began with a quick stop for some Medalla Light beers and some appetizers, but after taking a look at the menu and seeing the food our fellow customers were eating, it became apparent that Bananas in Esperanza would become our dinner that night in Vieques. Bananas, like Duffy’s from the night before, is kind of like a beach bar with mainland American influence.

But again, it all began with some appetizers. The first was their Mofongo Spring Rolls, which were basically a spring roll shell filled with mashed plantains, manchego cheese, bacon and caramelized onions with a horseradish sauce. We didn’t order without the onions, because, well, travel and fortunately the taste was nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, the bacon was pretty tough to find as well and these ended up just kind of tasting like fried plantains with cheese. Not a bad thing, but not as good as they could have been either. But we also ordered the Jerk Chicken Rangoons, which were basically dumplings filled with jerk chicken and some mango ginger chutney for dipping. These also sounded much better than they tasted, with much less flavor than I had hoped for, but enough to give me hope for the main course.

And the main course was truly something. I ordered the Tripleta Burger and while I know you may be getting upset at me for once again not getting something truly local, I have to explain to you what comes in the Tripleta. It begins with a really solid (and perfectly medium-rare cooked) beef patty that certainly seemed to be made in-house. Then it is topped with roast ham, pulled pork, swiss cheese and fried plantains. The pulled pork was surprisingly amazing, which made up for the fact that the fried plantains were just plantain chips. Moreover, it all just worked perfectly as a burger, especially with the great BBQ sauce it came with (that tasted weirdly similar to Kansas City’s Gate’s Hot BBQ Sauce).

If you’re looking for a good burger in Esperanza, Bananas is far superior to Duffy’s. It’s a little more costly, but definitely worth it. As for the appetizers, they’re good for getting in touch with the Puerto Rican side of the restaurant, but otherwise it’s best to just skip to the main course.

Upon arrival in San Juan, I had pretty much only one goal: to eat well. You see, I had been to San Juan before starting a meat blog, and I knew that I had missed out on some good stuff. Thus I convinced my friends to follow me to El Jibarito in Old Town. There was a decent wait when we arrived so we knew it had to be a good place.

The set up of El Jibarito looks more like a cafeteria than a restaurant, which added to the charm. I decided to not to order their namesake sandwich and instead went with the Pollo al Ajillo (Garlic Chicken) with mofongo (mashed savory plantains) as my side. This wasn’t the classic stuffed plantains, but it was still pretty spectacular. The garlic chicken was nice and tender with a crazy-good flavorful sauce that was perfect for dipping the mofongo in. And that mofongo, by the way, was pretty great in terms of texture and flavor.

It tasted like how I assume a meal would have been in a Puerto Rican home, and I assume eating in a Puerto Rican home would be delicious. El Jibarito may always have lines, but it was worth the wait for me.

Once upon a time, a friend of mine hooked up with a Puerto Rican lady. Afterwards, he proclaimed that he was “in foreign territory…literally.” Unfortunately, as an American he failed to realize that he was not in foreign territory at all. At least not since 1898 when the US won the Spanish-American War. Similarly, Puerto Rican food is so different from other regional American food that it almost feels like foreign territory, but after eating Mofongos in North Hollywood I realized this is some regional food I’d like to see more often.

The namesake of the restaurant, mofongo, is an interesting little culinary concoction that basically consists of a mashed green plantain bowl. Inside the bowl goes an almost stew-like mix of whatever type of mofongo you order. For my mofongo, I ordered Pollo Guisado, which translates to stewed chicken. The mofongo comes with Maduros (ripe, sweet plantains) or Tostones (fried flattened green plantains) and a little side salad. I was so concerned with choosing which side that I completely forgot to order without the salad, but ended up going with the tostones.

It was only after I opened my to-go package that I realized I had been stuck with a side salad. Fortunately it was sectioned off from my real food and didn’t spoil anything. Despite this, the most powerful thing I noticed after opening my box was the amazing smell. The combination of garlic, chicken and smashed plantain is overwhelmingly amazing, but not as amazing as it tastes. The flavor of the chicken is truly indescribable and other than the garlic, I couldn’t put my finger on any other specific tastes that stood out, but all of the flavor mixes together into something that would ordinarily be way too intense to eat. That’s where the plantains come in. Being unripe, the plantains don’t have a very strong flavor, but do a great job of balancing out the flavor and adding a unique texture. The slow-cooked chicken is so tender that it nearly strings away with the fork and with all of this combined it is something amazing.

Then there are the tostones. These guys are like little crispy plantain pancakes and are perfect for two things. The first is to dip into the mofongo because they actually don’t have a lot of flavor. The second is toe eat them as a sort of dessert to cool off the taste buds after such an intense main course. Either way, they are awesome.

And so is Mofongos. Now I’m no Puerto Rican expert and not even a Caribbean expert, so I don’t have a lot to compare Mofongos to, but just comparing it to other meals of my short life, it ranks pretty high up there. It’s a very unique meal to experience and if you like chicken, garlic and plantains, you really can’t go wrong with the Mofongo de Pollo Guisado.