La Estacion

Another restaurant we wanted to try while in Puerto Rico was La Estacion. Everyone wrote really glowing reviews about the restaurant and the owners are originally from New York (or at least lived here for a long time) and decided to move to Puerto Rico to open up the restaurant. The restaurant is very close to the resort – we actually could have walked – but we left kind of late and didn’t want to risk walking on the dark roads at night. The restaurant used to be a gas station and was converted into a restaurant (you can kind of see the gas station charm when you walk in):

They collect all kinds of pig memorabilia and have it all over the dining room – a good sign to point you in the right direction of what to order! We started out with the shrimp skewers with avocado and fried plantains:

And the spicy chicken wings:

Both were really good! The shrimp was so large and fresh – larger than any of the shrimp I’ve ever had in the states! Ken really loved the chicken wings, too – they were dipped and coated in a hot sauce that was also a little tangy – we were discussing the merits of both the wing and the drumstick (I’m a fan of the drumstick because there’s more meat!) I was telling Ken how we had Bon Chon for lunch at work earlier in the week and one of my coworkers said that he preferred the wings because there was more skin, but I was never a fan of the skin in the first place and I thought it was too difficult to get to the meat with wings. Ken liked both but gave me all the drumsticks since I thought the wings were too complicated.

Ken ordered the spare ribs for his entree – they are presented on a huge piece of wood that’s larger than a cutting board:

And I ordered the red snapper (caught earlier in the day) with fresh mango and papaya salad, arepas, and a side of rice and beans:

We were talking about how I always order a little better than Ken (his words, not mine!) and this meal was no different; the snapper was light, fresh and tasted so good with the fresh salsa. I’m not a huge fan of sweet salsas but this one wasn’t too sweet (although the mango was really ripe). The arepas were more like fried pieces of dough that were just a little sweet and very delicious and the rice and beans threw me off because I thought the rice was supposed to be orange/yellowish (pardon my ignorance – Ken said Cuban style is more yellow, Puerto Rican is still white). The ribs were too heavy, especially for the temperature in the restaurant, so we didn’t even get close to finishing the dish.

For dessert, we ordered the banana dumpling with vanilla ice cream:

Ken was more of a fan than I was, but the vanilla ice cream was pretty good!

We were talking about what huge fans we are of pina coladas – we ordered so many while we were at the resort and ordered some at dinner as well. They didn’t have a full bar on Sunday night because it was actually election night and Puerto Rico banned alcohol on election nights because they don’t want anyone getting into fights. Our waiter was explaining this to us and also said that most restaurants don’t even open until 9pm that Sunday (because that’s when the election is officially over and when people can start drinking!) Luckily, they had pre-mixed the pina coladas so we could order some. Yum!