La Taza de Oro

This past Saturday, after spending the day cooped in the apartment, we headed down to Chelsea to sate our spanish craving at La Taza de Oro. This hole in the wall is one of three Puerto Rican restaurants that we frequent, although we do visit Taza more often because the rice and beans is more flavorful. Unfortunately, we've yet to match the tasty Puerto Rican food that my sister-in-law makes. We may need to do some searching up in Spanish Harlem.

Upon arrival, we did have to wait briefly for a table. The place is like an old style coffee shop with basic tables, a counter with stools, and yellow walls. There was some Latino artwork on the walls with a business card to call if you were interested in buying any. I didn't remember that being there before so it might be new.

The menu contains many standards as well as specials that change depending on the day of the week. Saturday night included the oxtail which is absolutely one of my favorites. So with the oxtail, we also ordered the bistec encebollado (steak and onions) and the culetas fritas (fried pork chops).. Normally we order tostones (fried green bananas) on the side but since the wife wasn't that hungry, we went with my preferred maduros (fried sweet plantains).

This must have been a bad night for the restaurant. Don't know if the regular cook had the night off. The fried pork chop was still good: fried just right and very flavorful. The steak was tough and dry. Normally, I do describe Puerto Rican steak as "cooked shoe leather" but Taza de Oro usually does a reasonably job. Not tonight. The oxtail, my favorite, was also off. Tasted slightly sour...maybe it was bad? Even the maduros were wrong. It looked like the cook couldn't decide between cooking maduros (soft and sweet) and cooking tostones (hard and flat). Very strange. Each dish also came with the requisite huge portion of rice and beans. We always go with white rice and pink beans and they were good as usual.

I'm not quite willing to write off one of my favorite Puerto Rican spots, especially at their dirt cheap prices. I'm sure we'll be back but if they fail to please again, we'll have to head up to Old San Juan in Hell's Kitchen.