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| - BOTTOM LINE: Sol Caribe is a new restaurant. It is a find and I suggest you give it a try. Help it get started, and treat yourself before it is so busy you will have to wait for a table.
Understand that Sol Caribe is a neighborhood ethnic restaurant, and I have rated it as such. Here's how a smallish plain-looking cafe with simple food rates five stars in my book:
1. It is very clean, bright, and comfortable despite the plastic chairs.
2. The service is friendly and highly competent (our server knew the ingredients of every menu item), possibly because Sol Caribe is basically a husband-and-wife enterprise.
3. The menu, classic Puerto Rican, has quite a number of interesting choices.
4. The food, although simply-prepared, is also universally well-prepared, and this is the biggest factor for this type of restaurant -- "can the cook cook?".
5. Prices were consistent with the type of restaurant (less than $10 for entrees), with appetizers and sides on the inexpensive side ($2-$3).
Specifics on the food:
The appetisers consist of a half-dozen choices. The ones our party tried were all top notch, including empanadas and a meat-filled cigar wrapped in a mixture containing plantain. (Plantain appears in many dishes but it doesn't get boring because the preparations are so different).
The main courses were interesting and tasty. The signature mofongo is a mound of plantain again, mixed with garlic and oil, and very tasty. It comes either plain or with your choice of chicken, pork, or shrimp on the side. For us, the small bytes of fried chicken were tasty and moist. The roast pork was plain and looked dry but was actually very tasty. It would still benefit from a sauce, such as a mojo. The only miss of the night was the steak and onions, a classic dish which suffered because the meat itself was tough.
Each main course comes with a side, each of which was stellar. We liked the plantains, both fried and sweet, and the rice with pigeon peas.
We had room for only one dessert between the four of us - a tres leches cake that was topped with coconut and shouldn't have been. It was ok but by then we were not really interested in any more food.
Hint: Sol Caribe is not really hard to find. From McDowell, turn north on Granite Reef (which is 1/2 mile west of Rt. 101), and the restaurant is 1/2 block up on the right.
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