Hamden Puerto Rican restaurant uses family recipes to draw customers

“There’s no Puerto Rican restaurant listed here,” Leli Henry said. “As assorted as Hamden is, I felt like this was missing, this was required.”

There is an whole relatives guiding the restaurant: two of Henry’s daughters and her son do the job there, she mentioned, and La Isla’s recipes come from Henry’s spouse and children.

“I discovered to cook dinner from my mother,” stated Henry, who named her mothers and fathers as a source of inspiration for the restaurant.

“This is a way for me to honor my mother and father,” she stated. “My mothers and fathers arrived to this nation 46, 47 many years ago.”

Her father died when she was just a few yrs aged, Henry mentioned, leaving her mother to elevate the youngsters.

“This is my way of producing them very pleased,” she claimed.

Indicators of Henry’s Puerto Rican heritage fill the cafe — not just in the foodstuff, but in the decor. On a wall tucked to the suitable of the counter is a colorful mural that Henry claimed her cousin, Lion LaViera, painted.

It exhibits a lady on the seashore dancing bomba. The Puerto Rican flag adorns her skirt, while her head wrap bears another image — the flag of Loíza, the city Henry reported her relatives is from.

Even though Henry’s loved ones also encouraged La Isla’s food items, she had to make some improvements to their traditional recipes. Considering that her partner is pescatarian, she reported, she adapted a lot of of the dishes, including the rice, beans and appetizers, to meat-no cost versions.

The range of appetizers involves empanadas, plantain cups, tostones and alcapurria, or inexperienced banana fritters.

The menu also attributes a variety of meat-primarily based entrees, from the famous stew chicken to baked chicken with yucca, which is Henry’s personal favored.

Henry’s aunt makes the dessert. Last 7 days La Isla available passionfruit flan, Henry mentioned, although two unique flavors of tres leches cake — strawberry and pineapple-coconut — were being up for grabs Friday.

In the meantime, the chef powering the savory dishes is Vinoda Singh. She and Henry’s daughter applied to run a soul food restaurant termed Singh’s Cabin in Willimantic until eventually the COVID-19 pandemic harm business enterprise.

Late Friday morning, Singh was busy planning for the lunch hurry. Standing at the stove, she juggled her duties, from stirring the bacalao and beans to boiling potatoes and trying to keep an eye on the chicken in the oven.

At a desk nearby, Henry’s daughter was hard at perform, spooning fritter combine from a foodstuff processor into large bowls.

Reactions from consumers have been constructive so significantly, in accordance to La Isla group. The cafe has been promoting out each individual day, Henry mentioned.

“I’ve listened to I cook dinner like someone’s grandma,” stated Singh. “That’s type of what we were likely for.”