This is the Cocotazo restaurant, located inside the market in the neighborhood, and if entering here is like being in a little piece of Puerto Rico, Frances Robles is the owner and chef of the restaurant… It was her grandmother Evelina Carmona, who taught her how to cook and give that Creole flavor to all your dishes.
“Here we serve a well-made dish called coquí, which comes with pernil, rice with pigeon peas, and Puerto Rican turkey salad.because they come with apple, a regular salad, sweet plantain and also a little piece of cake,” says Frances Robles, from the Cocotazo restaurant.
All the decoration of the place is decorated just like your grandmother’s kitchen…
“Here we have a photo of my grandmother, plus my grandfather who continues to cook there in Puerto Rico, who is very young and the cabinet or let’s say this for Tita comes from my grandmother’s kitchen cabinets in Puerto Rico where I grew up and where I I found the love of cooking,” Frances Robles continues to say.
To celebrate the Three Wise Men, Robles prepares tasty arroz con dulce every day, a traditional Puerto Rican dessert, whose flavor is achieved with patience and a special ingredient…raisins bathed in Puerto Rican Rum.
“A very special flavor, one is not going to get drunk because there is not much, but it gives the raisins a flavor and we are going to say that it takes the sweet rice to another level.”
And although all the ingredients are obtained in New York, the rice is brought from Puerto Rico.
“Here I have two cups of medium rice. I prefer the rich rice that is Puerto Rican and what I make and I leave it in water for at least 24 hours before making this dish”
Once in the cauldron and with all the ingredients, it cannot be neglected and you have to mix and move the spoon constantly so that it does not stick.
Frances Robles, cocotazo restaurant
“I started cooking from the age of nine with my grandmother, she first taught me to make rice, white rice. After that she taught me to make cakes, the Puerto Rican cake is not necessary at Christmas or the three wizards either. .
…and he also learned it from his grandmother.”
And although making the sweet rice does not imply a greater expense, everything else, Robles says, is through the roof.
“Everything is more expensive, the pork that we make here, everything is very expensive. It makes me sad because as a business, having such an expensive cost, I have to pass it on to the costumers, but that hurts me, but everything is very expensive,” concludes Frances Robles. .
Happy king’s day!
