Review: At El Encanto, sit down and enjoy your Caribbean oasis

Excellent cooking and snazzy surroundings at new Virginia St. Puerto Rican spot

Puerto Ricans are by far Buffalo’s largest Latino community, which has made boricua cuisine like pastelillos, pernil, and plantains an essential part of our collective menu.

As long as we don’t mind eating the actual food someplace besides the restaurant, that is. Despite all the fine Puerto Rican cooking in town, there aren’t many places you can enjoy a sit-down, full-service meal with friends. El Encanto is the answer.

Melissa Morales, born in Ponce, on the Caribbean island’s southern coast, grew up in Buffalo after arriving in the United States in 1989. In 2017 she opened El Encanto on Niagara Street, in Riverside, closing in 2021 after the pandemic complicated matters.

Now El Encanto inhabits the first floor of a shiny new apartment building on Virginia Street. La Plaza de Virginia is a three-story senior apartment building developed by Hispanos Unidos de Buffalo, a Latino-focused non-profit founded in 1989.

The afternoon sun makes the dining room’s tropical colors glow. Crimson hibiscus, parrots, and plants line the space. Head to the register to scope out the daily selection of fried dainties akin to those found in beachside snack shacks and elsewhere in the Island of Enchantment.

Ever enjoyed the deep-fried turnovers called pastelillos? El Encanto offers five flavors, including pizza (cheese and tomato sauce, $2.50), pollo (chicken and cheese, $3.75), and steak and cheese ($4.50). When we sat down to eat, ours were fried to order, arriving hot.

Relleno de papas, stuffed potato ($3.50), is a mashed potato softball with a seasoned beef core, floured and fried for a light crust. If you have to grab an afternoon’s calories on the go, I commend it to your attention.

Speaking of calories, Puerto Rican cooks bond with their Buffalo cousins in a love of golden brown deep-fried deliciousness. Boricua fried chicken, chicharrones de pollo, is hacked-up bone-in leg quarters. Seasoned with sazón spice blend and deep-fried, it’s not breaded or battered. When it comes to crispness, the skin and spice does all the work.

Carne frita is pork shoulder cut into chunks, tossed in sazon, then into the deep-frier.

For the full picture, the El Encanto Sampler ($25) brings mini-pastelillos in beef and chicken, carne frita, chicharrones de pollo, and the chewy corn dough sticks called sorullitos.

Carne frita plus mofongo ($15.95) presents the crispy pork nugs atop plantains fried then mashed with garlic. The fruit’s faintly sweet natural starchiness takes the satisfactions of meat and potatoes to the islands.

While the carne carnival deserves exploration, fruit, vegetables, and rice – fortified with pigeon peas in boricua fashion – deserve their own celebration.

Deep-fried, plantains soften into bronzed banana candy called maduros ($4.75) that only need a sprinkle of salt to emphasize their natural caramel. Tostones ($5.50) are another fried plantain option, this time pressed into discs for a chewy chip good for scooping up shrimp ceviche.

Yuca frita ($6) features potato’s more personable cousin, cassava. Chunked, boiled, and fried, simmered with onions and vinegar, it’s a character you ought to meet.

Entrees like the pernil plate ($17.95) offer a choice between white and yellow rice, which is much more interesting, fortified with pigeon peas and green olives. Pernil, pork shoulder roasted low and slow until it sweetens, and maduros, are brightened up with a salad, which arrives with a cruet of dressing.

Beyond the basics, El Encanto offers entrees of canoa de pollo or carne molida, roasted plantains stuffed with chicken or beef ($13.95). Seafood offerings include whole deep-fried red snapper ($24.95) and ensalada de marisco ($23.95), ceviche-ish shrimp salad.

Drinks include frappes ($4.50/$6.50), milk-plus-fruit, in flavors like strawberry-coconut, mango, and peach, and coladas ($5.50/$7.50), dairy-free fruit drinks like agua frescas, in parcha, or passionfruit, plus pineapple, guava, and more.

When winter’s numbness seeps into your bones, remember El Encanto. Then plan your escape to an oasis of tropical colors and Puerto Rican flavors for your own Caribbean getaway.