For my second birthday dinner, I met violaleeblue for the Puerto Rican Tasting Menu by Chef Anthony Nichols at the Chef’s Dinner Table in Little Italy. The food was delicious. The flavor profiles were mostly tastes that I was familiar with but the food itself was new and different. The standouts for me were how Chef Nichols made alcaparrado into a salsa (why hadn’t anyone done this before?) and the pastelón, which was very different from my mother’s piñon – same dish but different regional name – and yet it immediately reminded me of her dish.

When I first suggested the dinner to the NYC group, violaleeblue was the first to say that she was in but could only do Friday (they were also doing the dinner the night before – my actual birthday). She bought a ticket and I went to buy a ticket and they were sold out! Of course, violaleeblue offered her ticket to me but I said I’ll email them first. I told them it was my birthday, etc and the response email started with, “¡Ay, bendito!,” which is a very Puerto Rican expression. So I thought, “¡Boricua!” and I knew I was in. He squeezed me in and also waived the $55 membership fee since it was my birthday. Sometimes it pays to be Puerto Rican.

I wore my tuxedo dress with wine tights and maroon Kate Spade loafers (but there isn’t a photo of my bottom half).

The table setting was gorgeous and obviously more than 26 people – I don’t know where I got that number. Most of the diners were Puerto Rican and at one point a woman came over to take a photo of the entire table. Since violaleeblue and I were at the end, she chatted with us for a bit. Immediately told us where her people were from and I told her where my people were from. I told violaleeblue that when PRs meet each other, first question is always where are your people from. Later, when we were leaving and waiting by the elevator, we got into a conversation with others waiting and violaleeblue asked one woman if she was Puerto Rican and she said, “Yes, I’m from The Bronx but my mother was born in…” and told us where her parents were born and I laughed and told violaleeblue, “See?”

She was the first to arrive and hesitated in the hallway because they were busy cooking and setting up. Ronnie (one of the owners) didn’t realize she was there for the dinner because there is another business on the floor. Later when I introduced myself to him and thanked him for squeezing me in, he mentioned that violaleeblue was outside for a bit and how she was so early and we joked about Puerto Rican time and that coming in while people are setting up is not considered rude for us. He was talking to me in Spanish, which I understood, but I responded in English, so he switched to English.

(When I first arrived, I asked for the ladies room, the waiter told me it was a Japanese toilet, so I should push all the buttons.)

The dinner started with cocktails at 6pm and we didn’t sit down to dinner until about 7:45pm, so we had plenty of time to watch them set up. We had a choice of Sancerre and Tempranillo for wines and there were some spiked vodka cans. At dinner they poured us each a glass of red and a glass of white. Ronnie told us what they were but I’ve forgotten. The red was a Spanish wine that had won some awards over French Bordeaux. And the glasses were bottomless and were kept getting refilled even if you only drank a bit. At the end of the meal, Ronnie went around and distributed small glasses of dessert wine. 

violaleeblue also got a history lesson on Puerto Rico from me – only because she asked the questions and not because I was going on and on. Since we were sitting together at one end of the table, we mostly spoke only to each other. It got very loud and if we were sitting across from each other, like most couples, we would have had to yell across the table and probably would have spent more time speaking to the people next to us instead.

Food as listed on the menu

The meal was delicious and Chef Nichols gave me the both familiar and exotic in one meal. 

Later, I was looking at Chef Nichols’ IG and what he describes as foundational Puerto Rican flavors (along with recipes) and I noticed that some names and recipes were different than with what I grew up with and people were arguing with him in the comments. I don’t think the others were wrong. Chef Nichols did explain that there were things not available to our grandmothers, so they may have done a dry rub on the pernil instead of a wet rub. His citrus mojo was what I always considered a Cuban mojo, as did others in the comments. Chef Nichols’ argument was that the Cubans didn’t invent citrus and citrus may have been too expensive for our grandmothers. But being from Salinas, the mojo isleño, which was born in Salinas, is the tomato and onion-based sauce used mostly on fish that the people in the comments were arguing is the real Puerto Rican mojo. I think a lot of this can also be chalked up to regional differences like any country plus what ingredients are available to you both on the island in the diaspora. Even an aunt will make the same dish differently than your mother. Every Christmas on Facebook, there are endless arguments over what really is coquito and that if it is made with eggs, then it is ponche. My mother made her coquito with eggs and that is what she called it and I will not harbor any feelings otherwise. And the difference between pastelón and piñon – both are referred to as Puerto Rican lasagna but my mother made it so differently that I always referred to it as a Puerto Rican meatloaf.