SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — It was a few minutes north of 4:30 a.m. and we snapped awake with the bed shaking — swaying, really — side to side, like something from “The Exorcist.” Hitting my feet, the floor seemed to do the same, like it might in a funhouse, or on a moving Subway.
There had been a magnitude 5.8 earthquake in southern Puerto Rico a few days earlier, and it was apparent we were in the midst of another one. A bigger one. A quick scan of Twitter confirmed it. 6.4 magnitude. The biggest to hit the island in nearly 102 years.
The power was gone. Residents of the building were congregating outside by the pool, pacing, talking on their phones. After our sympathetic nervous systems cooled down and the norepinephrine deluge slowed, it was clear we weren’t in immediate danger. The damage was and is extensive in the southern part of the island, near the epicenter, with damages estimated to be $150 million and economic losses of $3.1 billion. Thus far the Trump administration has placed onerous restrictions on relief funds that were originally allocated for Hurricane relief but held up for more than a year, and only released after the earthquakes.
After a week of aftershocks, the ground seems to have stopped shaking. The power is mostly back on, but thousands remain homeless on the southern coast near Ponce. Paper towels won’t fix this.
Locally, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, the Independent Brewing Co. in Squirrel Hill will host a brunch fundraiser with Puerto Rican fare prepared by acclaimed chef and island native Jamilka Borges to benefit ConPRmetidos, a nonprofit that funds development projects that will rebuild Puerto Rico’s infrastructure for a sustainable future.
Just as Americans eventually poured into New York after 9/11 and New Orleans after Katrina, continued tourism will be a major part of a recovery. The island was finally getting post-Hurricane Maria traction — tourism accounts for 10% of the island’s GDP, according to Discover Puerto Rico
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We flew in late Monday night and after getting the rental car and checking in at the Airbnb, we grabbed a late snack at El Hamburguer, the wonderful greasy spoon hamburger shack on the edge of Condado Beach, where they serve up $4 sliders the size of tennis balls with onion rings and yucca fries.
But, the morning after the quake, we weren’t exactly sure when or from where our next meal was coming or how long we’d be without power.
It made sense to hit a place based on generators: the Lote 23 food park in the city’s Santurce section. There, 13 mobile vendors sell everything from fried chicken to tacos, pizza, cocktails and, in a silver aluminum Airstream trailer called Pernilería Los Proceres, chef Mario Juan makes sandwiches with pernil — Puerto Rican-style roasted pork shoulder — so good it made time stand still. I seriously considered a return trip just for another “Marti, Yo” Cuban sandwich: overflowing and succulent local pork on lightly toasted and buttered fresh bread with a slice of ham and cheese and pickles.
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The iconic blue cobblestone streets of Viejo San Juan complement the Spanish colonial buildings painted in a riot of colors in this quarter that dates to the 16th century. It is jaw-droppingly gorgeous.
Outdoor cafes line the streets, as does high-end shopping and art galleries. At night those give way to five-star restaurants, chic cocktail lounges and nightclubs.
That’s cool. But gimme the places with some grit.
Directly across from the city’s grandest old hotel, El Convento, and adjacent to the San Juan Bautista Cathedral is El Batey, which has to be high in the running for one of the greatest dive bars in North America. It is a dark, dank cavern of a place, with nearly every inch tagged with graffiti or covered with subversive stickers. The light fixtures are adorned with cascading business cards from around the globe, stapled together. The beer is cheap and cold, and you will meet and converse with a friendly cast of characters that would otherwise never be under the same roof.
After a night there, a diner was the salve, and 70-year old Cafe Manolin did the trick. A elderly waiter bearing a striking resemblance to Don Rickles delivered said platter of salvation: beans and rice, a delicious Puerto Rican mofongo (mashed plantains and shredded chicken) doused in hot sauce, with a side of fried plantains and crackling fried chicken. A cup of almost chocolatey coffee topped off the meal.
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I knew we were in the right place when I saw the pink cartoon pig painted on the wall and the man with a machete behind the counter.
An hour’s drive due south from San Juan is Guavate, a small village ensconced in the mountainous and bucolic hills along Route 184, a road known colloquially as La Ruta del Lechon — The Pork Highway — as it is littered for miles with pockets of Puerto Rican barbecue shacks. This is as good as it sounds.
Half of the fun is simply the drive — the scenery away from the city is beautiful. Owing to the quake, most of the shacks were closed, but the consensus gold standard, Los Pinos Lechonera — made famous by both the late Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern — was open.
A steady stream of customers made their way through the open-air establishment, seeking the meat and crispy skin of the Puerto Rican pigs spit roasted, then machete-chopped and served with sides like black Morcilla and fried plantains.
They give you utensils, but it is infinitely more fun to grab a hunk of the of the juicy, tender, and smoky meat by hand and dip it into the spicy herbed vinegar in a paper cup.
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About a 45-minute drive southeast of San Juan lies the 28,000-plus acres of lush vegetation of the El Yunque National Forest. It is the only tropical rainforest in the United States National Forest System and the United States Forest Service. The roads are steep with some hairpin turns, like driving on Pittsburgh’s Sycamore Street for miles.
As we traversed its trails and clay-mud paths to get a better glimpse of waterfalls and jungle vistas, in my mind I was Indiana Jones or, at the very least, Jack Colton from Romancing the Stone. Nevermind that I was bypassed by seniors, a mother admonishing her whining son to “get it together” and in one case a man using a doggie coat harness to carry his daschund like a briefcase.
Per my iPhone pedometer, we ended up hiking 4 miles and climbed the equivalent of 60 stories, and it was a total blast, even for this husky lummox. As a firm believer that the best beer is one that’s earned, the moderately hoppy, orange-hued Ocean Lab IPA — brewed in Roberto Clemente’s hometown of Carolina — went down quickly while we sat at the bar at Don Pepe, a lively little restaurant on Route 3 in Rio Grande, just outside of the Park.
So too, did a bevy of Puerto Rican snacks like mashed yucca stuffed with crab meat, grouper ceviche in a nest of plantain chips and chorizo in wine sauce with peppers.
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Despite the abundance of rustic and traditional fare, there is no paucity of refined dining and among the island’s best is Vianda, just past the edge of the boisterous fun of La Placita.
San Juan native chef Francis Guzman and wife Amelia Dill met in San Francisco before moving on to work at internationally acclaimed New York restaurants. They returned to San Juan and opened Vianda in March 2018.
It is sleek and sophisticated yet comfortable and unpretentious. From the jump, the food and drink were a master study of subtly contrasting flavors and textures and exquisite mouthfeel.
There was the almost effervescent Rye-Cao Old Fashioned, made with recao, an island herb, Ezra Brooks Rye and orange bitters; a visually stunning crudo of soft, clean local Wahoo with crisp radish and creamy avocado; “Pig Head Carpaccio” that was membrane-thin sliced head cheese with finely diced pickled vegetables that melted like a funky butter atop house sourdough; and the silken and rich Risotto de Morcilla — it looked like a bowl of dark chocolate rice pudding — that had a light heat from roasted peppers and was topped with light and crunchy chicharron.
Service was impeccable, and Chef Guzman and Ms. Dill stopped at each table. It was a meal that we’ll savor and remember.
As we dined, a stout man with a white beard wearing hiking shoes, a tan working vest and a ballcap breezed past our table. World renowned chef Jose Andres, who came to the island after Maria and fed hundreds of thousands with his World Central Kitchen, returned to help with earthquake relief. He spoke briefly to the owners and to friends who were dining.
As of this writing, he remains in Puerto Rico. There is work to be done.
Dan Gigler: dgigler@post-gazette.com; Twitter @gigs412
First Published: January 16, 2020, 12:30 p.m.
