On the road to Cayey, Puerto Rico--lechon boomtown

My sister has lived in Puerto Rico since 1989, and I've been visiting her regularly for years. One of our favorite things to do when there is "go to the mountains for pig." I've noticed that there are not a lot of postings about Puerto Rico on lth and that, in general, people were underwhelmed with the food. The area around Cayey, about 45 minutes outside of San Juan, is a great place for lechon. It's been surprising to see the transformation of the places on Highway 184 going up the mountain. My memories of my first visit to Puerto Rico almost twenty years ago are pretty vague, but I remember small places with outdoor seating and Heinekens and Presidentes in buckets and coolers with ice. Now the places have multiplied and have large covered seating areas (the better to deal with tropical showers) and full bars with large coolers for beer.

Leaving San Juan, you take highway 52--a four lane expressway--to the exit for highway 184. If you turn right at Highway 184 after you exit, you'll immediately find one of the largest lechoneras right off the exit. It's also got a lot of touristy stuff for sale nearby. We've eaten there before and the food is fine, but last time the music was blaring so loudly that Paco, my brother-in-law, said he would never go back. Instead, we headed left after the exit on 184 south which goes up the side of a mountain. We decided to leave the choice of lechonera to my 11-year-old son. He rejected the first few places for whatever reasons an 11-year-old does, but chose a place half-way up the mountain side that turned out to be very nice. It was away from the ones that were crowded together nearer to the exit off 52 and from the ones that were crowded together further up the hill. I expect most of these places would be pretty similar though. We ended up at Los Gemelos.









Paco took on the job of ordering, and our group (Paco, me, two kids, and Al, a friend of Paco's from Culebra in San Juan to get his car fixed) had lechon, morcilla (blood sausage) with plaintains, arroz with gandules (rice with pigeon peas), and beans.



The stand-out was the lechon. The meat was juicy, tender, and flavorful. The skin was crispy, salty, and perfect. The morcilla was also quite good although it may just be me, but I've never had a bad piece of blood sausage-- not in Spain or my hometown in Wisconsin with its German-style butcher or in Latin America. The arroz with gandules was good and moist, but Paco said that he could tell they hadn't covered it with banana leaves as they should have to make it more flavorful. And the beans were tasty as well. We (well not the kids) washed the meal down with a few shorty Heinekens. When you know it's at most 30 degrees in Chicago, there are few places better to be than in a lechonera in Puerto Rico wondering if you can take another piece of crispy skin or if you've grabbed more than your fair share.

Don't have an address except Highway 52 south out of San Juan to the exit for Highway 184 and then south up the mountain.

Great stuff, CCCB!

Exactly what I needed after weeks of Christmas food. Thanks!

CCCB wrote:When you know it's at most 30 degrees in Chicago, there are few places better to be than in a lechonera in Puerto Rico wondering if you can take another piece of crispy skin or if you've grabbed more than your fair share.

As I shovel snow and check email alerts for friends coming into O'Hare this evening, the flight has been delayed three times, I'm daydreaming of Lechon in Puerto Rico.*

Be easier if my shoes and socks weren't wet from snow.

Nice photos! Those roadside, open-air restaurants are one of the things I love most about P.R. I've done some exploring on Vieques and in Old San Juan, but I'm really looking forward to casting a wider net on my next visit--your post inspires an insatiable craving.

The New York Times did a feature on pig in Puerto Rico earlier this year.

The lechonera in Trujillo Alto called "La Nueva Ola" is also great. The cooking method is what creates the crispy skin and juicy meat. The adobo [mixed condiments] adds flavor, and the adobo at La Nueva Ola on Highway 187 is magnificent.

LECHON, PUNTA CANA DOMINICAN REPUBLIC NEW YEARS EVE 2007

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To replace CCCB's missing images above - here's mine. Just got back from PR, where an old friend showed me around and stuffed me with real food, after three days of expensive and unremarkable food at the restaurants in the El Conquistador resort. A full report of everything will appear eventually, but I wanted to throw up my pictures of Guavate. Just as CCCB reports, find 184 and go up the mountain, avoiding the first few lechoneras. Which lechonera people choose seems based more on tradition than anything else - it's where their parents brought them or where their parents had always gone.

A few are shabby, some are big and fancy, the El Rancho Original looks fanciest, with a big beautiful backyard.



But we went to El Monte, with two stories of decking, just across the street. We were early, but the music was blaring, and the elderly caballero DJ, who turned out to have lived in Humboldt Park, welcomed us on the microphone.



I shot portraits of the 2 pigs over the flames, and my friend ordered for us.



The meat was removed from the pig, and hacked up for us.




We all got a plate of arroz con gandules, or rice with pigeon peas, pasteles, sort of like a tamale made with mashed bananna, plantian and yautia (kind of like taro root) some plantains, and of course the lechon, complete with the cuerito, or crispy skin.



I didn't care for the plain plantains so much, - and I wish I had ordered some morcilla, the black blood sausage, which is mostly stuffed with rice. I got a sample and it was spicy and tasty.

But the star was the lechon - juicy, smoky, salty - makes me wonder why I filled myself with the rich, heavy pasteles when I could have had more of that meat! And the cuerito was worth roasting a whole pig for.

kiplog wrote:We were early, but the music was blaring, and the elderly caballero DJ, who turned out to have lived in Humboldt Park, welcomed us on the microphone.

Kiplog,

Small world, great photos. Speaking of small world, the pit man at El Monte appears to be using a sugar can knife, which is what Big Jim a Florida BBQ man of some note uses as well.

Enjoy,
Gary

Wife has a new gig where she doesn't have to take vacation when all the kiddies are taking vacation YAY !!!!!!

So we are headed to Puerto Rico for some R&R and good eating. We've been to PR many times but never have made the trip to Pork Highway.

Are the lechoneras open during the weekdays for lunch?