In Which We Went On Vacation And Feasted On Lechon

Hello, friends! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? The holidays came and went, and we were lucky enough to spend two weeks in Puerto Rico, re-upping our stores of Vitamin D, spending time with family, seeing new things, and gaining at least 5 pounds.

Not only did we eat our way through a cookie decorating party, Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas dinner, a 30-person cookout, and New Year’s Eve dinner, we also took a field trip into the hilly interior of the island. Lush, verdant, and beautiful, the landscape would be reason enough to visit these hills and valleys, but we went for one thing and one thing only: lechon.

Lechon (whole roast pork) is traditionally exclusively a Christmas food, but over the past couple of decades, the town of Guavate has become a so-called “Lechon Valley.” Also known as plain old “El Guavate,” the entire stretch of road through the town is lined with one lechonera after another. Driving into El Guavate is truly a pork-lover’s dream. The air smells of roasting meat, and live salsa and merengue music blare from many of the restaurants. The ambience is one of all-day street party, and just think! It is all for the sake (and in honor) of pork!

But enough waxing rhapsodic on what Lechon Valley is like. The most important facet of the whole experience is obviously the food, and man was it good. The picture above is our dinner plate, which was piled high with habichuelas guisadas, arroz con gandules, morcilla (blood sausage), guineos en escabeche (pickled green bananas), and various typically Caribbean root vegetables like yuca/cassava and taro/yautía. Dessert was flan, tembleque (coconut pudding), and rice pudding.

This was not fancy dining: the food was served family-style, we ate off of Styrofoam plates with plastic utensils, drank out of plastic cups, and to be honest, the lechonera we ate at would probably never pass a health department inspection, were it subject to such a thing. But OMG. This meal has been haunting our dreams for the past week and a half and we are determined to find somewhere (anywhere!) that serves even halfway decent lechon here in Philly.

Alma de Cuba and Cuba Libre both serve lechon, and while we’re sure it’s tasty, it’s not Puerto Rican lechon. We used the ever-handy Find-a-Food Search which bore results for a couple places, but only one was Puerto Rican.

So just where can you go when you are desperately seeking lechon? Cafe Colao in North Philly is one place that for sure serves lechon. While the pork was the incontestable star of the meal, the sides were nothing to scoff at, so Porky’s Point or Freddy & Tony’s are also great places to check out the next time (or first time!) one is seeking plaintain and pork-based dishes. Buen provecho!

Alma de Cuba [MenuPages]
Alma de Cuba [Official Site]
Cuba Libre [MenuPages]
Cuba Libre [Official Site]

PS. After the jump, a picture of whole pigs roasting on spits. We thought we’d be nice and leave it up to you to view this photo.

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In Which We Went On Vacation And Feasted On Lechon