El Coqui, the new Puerto Rican restaurant at 5443 E. 22nd St., is open for business. We just stopped in for a Malta India, some tostones rellenos (yummy stuffed and fried plantains) and a little private chair dancing to some wonderful hip-shaking music that had a few other heads in the place bobbing along too.
The place just opened, so don’t expect seamless service. They were still trying to get the cash registers to work properly today. That said, we were treated like royalty. One employee, who wasn’t even waiting on us, even took a few minutes to explain the use of plantains in Puerto Rican food and how our dish was prepared. What a guy!
Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. Call 790-5357 for more information.
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2010.
We have eaten at this restaurant twice since its opening. I will say, their service was decent, however, the first time (Feb 5, 2010) we dined there, we were seated rather quickly, but our food took a very long time to be served. We were almost at the point of leaving, but the waitress convinced to stay. After the long wait, our food finally arrived. My wife ordered the specialty of the house (pernil, pastel, and arroz con gandules), I opted for the carne frita – fried pork pieces. Our food was really good, well made and a good portion. The place caters for kids, however, needed to add lids to their drinks. Our second visit was yesterday ( Feb 7) and was rather dissapointing. We waitied almost 10 minutes to be seated, which is understandable if you have a full house. There were plently of tables open. Once we got seated, we asked for a table for 5 and basically had to rearrange the tables myself (only have tables for 4) before the waiter finally showed up. This time, I decided to to order something different, a ham and cheese sandwich – a “caribbean sandwich”. The sandwich resembled a panini. The waiter asked me if I wanted butter or mayo, I opted for mayo. My wife had the same thing as the previous visit. When my sandwich arrived, it looked good, however, it was very dry, no mayo-no big deal I guess. My wife’s food however, was anything but the delicious plate she had last time. Her pernil looked like a reheated piece of pork, very dry and even had a weird taste. Her pastel was ok and the arroz con gandules average. The only thing different she ordered was the yuca, a potato-like dish, and believe me, that was the only part of the meal that was satisfying. I will highly recommend you try the restaurant maybe in a few months once they get their act together. The food like I said was good the first time, the second, time needed work. The service, rather lacking experience. The location is good and the place clean and nice. Give it a try, but do not have high expectations.
I loved the plantains!!! Phenomenal, but service was pretty slow with no apparent reason.
I sure hope they get it together because there is some great potential.