Thursday, May 8, 2014

Some Bottles for Everybody...



Bottles
5 Tabonuco Street
Guaynabo, Puerto Rico

On the final evening of our trip to Puerto Rico, my girlfriend's father took us out to one of his favorite places. We went to a place called Bottles, a place known for its wine and beer selection as well as their use of fresh ingredients from their market in the same location as the restaurant. It was packed when we got there, so we had to wait a few minutes past our reservation, but we were seated soon thereafter. It was a very interesting concept. You could get up from your table, walk around the wine selection, and pick something from the store for your table. We contemplated this for a bit, but we decided on ordering a Puerto Rican beer that I had somehow managed to neglect in my previous three visits to San Juan called Magna beer.  Much like the other Puerto Rican beer called Medalla, it is a very delicious lager. 




We decided to order a few dishes and share them all. We made up our minds to order the veal chiccarones, the mixed berry salad, the chicken marsala and the codfish. I don’t really know if there are different versions of chiccarones in different cultures, or if just refers to the fact that the meat is fried, but these were very different chiccarones. They were really like little veal rib chops that had been fried. Believe me I am not complaining because they were absolutely delicious. The crispy skin on the outside paired with the juicy veal on the inside and the sweet and sour sauce that they were tossed with were a small piece of heaven. I downed quite a few of them before I turned to the salad.



We had ordered the mixed berry salad, but it was more like a mountain. I was shocked by the sizes of the portions they gave us, but it is always nice to feel like you are actually getting what you paid for. There was all kinds of ingredients in it ranging from mixed greens, tomatoes, avocados, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and onions. It was quite good, but there definitely wasn’t enough dressing on it for my taste. It was pretty dry in a lot of the areas that I ate.



The chicken marsala and the cod came out at the same time. Both were very delicious renditions of these dishes. The chicken marsala was very rich. The marsala sauce had reduced down quite a bit so that it had almost become a glaze. I also loved the addition of the capers to the sauce because they added a nice pop of salty flavor to the sweet flavor of the marsala sauce. The cod was really fantastic as well. It had a light dusting of breading on it, as well as a bunch of herbs on it. The flavor was salty and had a nice bit of texture to the outside of the tender and flaky fish. 



When we had a chance to look at the dessert menu, we all looked at the same thing with hunger in our eyes. We ordered the Chunky Monkey Baked Alaska because it looked and sounded amazing. It was a dense brownie, topped with banana ice cream and then the classic peaks of torched meringue on top. I loved the flavors of the dessert, and I always love seeing baked Alaska on the menu, but unfortunately the brownie was just too hard. I don’t know if they had it in the freezer before they brought it out, but it was very dense and very hard. Had it been a bit softer or maybe warmed in the oven before it was topped with the ice cream and meringue, it would have been much better.



Three pints for Bottles. I really enjoyed the food that they served and the atmosphere of the place is really fun. I would definitely recommend it to you all and I will certainly look to go back the next time I am in San Juan. Give it a try and let me know what you think! Cheers!

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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
I am a food lover living in Philadelphia.

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