Its barely our second day back from a 4 day vacation to St. Kitts in the Caribbean. Four lovely days of sun, sand and siestas…of picture perfect sights and the not so wanted tan (not for our already brown skins, that is). You could say that this was a good enough break to get me back to write again, but it was actually the one evening spent in San Juan that got me quite inspired enough to write home about. And San Juan wasn’t really the actual vacation destination. I started writing this on my phone as I was sitting at the restaurant waiting for the food to come, so I was on a roll:)
We didn’t really expect to find Indian food in St. Kitts and in Puerto Rico. Let’s just say I didn’t. I should’ve known better. There’s always an Indian restaurant where there is Girish. This is my foodie husband who has acquired this unusual skill of practically “sniffing” down Indian food from miles away, in the remotest of destinations. It must be the business traveller in him or the craving for home-cooked food , that has evolved into this unique species (Iphone toting and Google maps led) who can find himself a desi restaurant in the middle of a desert. That was just a metaphor, but we actually haven’t experimented that in a desert yet so Girish, gear up for your next challenge:)
Anyways, to make a long story short, we had a night’s layover at San Juan, Puerto Rico enroute from St. Kitts. We decided to make the most of our one night by renting a car and driving around San Juan and of course, to find a good restaurant for dinner. A quick Iphone search yielded Tantra and this other interesting place called Bangkok and Bombay. Tantra was the farthest from our hotel so we decided to pick that just to drive around the city and take in what little we could in those few hours. An Iphone menu search for Tantra yielded an interesting description of a restaurant with an Indo-Latin inspired menu. We were intrigued and made our way to what we found out was the “restaurant row” in the heart of old San Juan. What followed was an interesting culinary experience. Not bad at all for something we stumbled upon over one night in PR.
A unique decor with a blend of East Indian, some Oriental (Buddhist?) mix, a large Ganesha, a humongous cobra atop the bar countertop, various Thai or Vietnamese inspired statuettes, ancient Indian artefacts and Indian culinary utensils on the walls, and a very inviting hookah bar like lounge area greeted us. Bollywood music videos were playing on the plasma TV which is probably a common sight in many Indian restaurants but there was something attractive about this particular setting given the ambience.
I am a vegetarian but love browsing menus just to sample the creativity of the evolved food conoisseurs out there. Shark Tikka, Seafood Rasam, Plum Duck Taco sounded very intriguing and very, very creative, so we made our way through perusing the vegetarian fare. We ordered the Artichoke tempura with a Madras-chili (rajma) accompaniment, and an Avocado uthappam (which we later realized was fish-based) and had to politely return it. So much for reading the menu:)
The presentation was equally interesting so I went ahead and included it here.
For the main course, Girish and I ordered the vegetarian sampler for two, which included, palak paneer, rajma, chana, masala dosa and sambar rice.
I asked if we could substitute the sambar rice for the kerala veg kurma with khichdi, and to my pleasant surprise, they gladly obliged. Four stars for service and flexibility, I thought. I’ve always wanted to review and savor good food but at times feel that my vegetarianism comes in the way of sampling all that I want to try… the service here put me at ease. Great service and flexibility with the menu in restaurants speaks a lot about their philosophy and practically opens up a whole new world for foodies, vegetarian or not. I was impressed, to say the least.
Sure enough, the kerala kurma and khichdi was the highlight of the meal. You could tell by the food that the chef’s specialty was South Indian cuisine, the Venn pongal or Khichdi had that authentic South Indian flavor and it was impressive that the chef had maintained that homely flavorful taste in a fusion cuisine such as this .
We learnt later that Tantra supposedly has the best martinis in San Juan, we didnt sample any that evening, but I was intrigued by a “blue cheese martini” on the martini menu..again the creativity was brimming.
Overall, a great find for us tourists and a place I would recommend and visit again when we travel to San Juan next.