Hamden Puerto Rican restaurant uses family recipes to draw customers

“There’s no Puerto Rican restaurant right here,” Leli Henry reported. “As varied as Hamden is, I felt like this was lacking, this was essential.”

There is an full relatives driving the cafe: two of Henry’s daughters and her son perform there, she explained, and La Isla’s recipes come from Henry’s family.

“I learned to cook from my mother,” mentioned Henry, who named her mom and dad as a supply of inspiration for the cafe.

“This is a way for me to honor my moms and dads,” she mentioned. “My mothers and fathers came to this state 46, 47 yrs ago.”

Her father died when she was just three decades outdated, Henry explained, leaving her mother to raise the kids.

“This is my way of making them very pleased,” she explained.

Symptoms of Henry’s Puerto Rican heritage fill the restaurant — not just in the food stuff, but in the decor. On a wall tucked to the proper of the counter is a colorful mural that Henry mentioned her cousin, Lion LaViera, painted.

It displays a woman on the seaside dancing bomba. The Puerto Rican flag adorns her skirt, although her head wrap bears an additional image — the flag of Loíza, the city Henry claimed her loved ones is from.

While Henry’s household also influenced La Isla’s food stuff, she experienced to make some improvements to their classic recipes. Considering the fact that her husband is pescatarian, she said, she adapted many of the dishes, like the rice, beans and appetizers, to meat-cost-free variations.

The choice of appetizers incorporates empanadas, plantain cups, tostones and alcapurria, or eco-friendly banana fritters.

The menu also attributes a variety of meat-based mostly entrees, from the famed stew rooster to baked hen with yucca, which is Henry’s particular most loved.

Henry’s aunt makes the dessert. Past week La Isla offered passionfruit flan, Henry said, although two unique flavors of tres leches cake — strawberry and pineapple-coconut — have been up for grabs Friday.

In the meantime, the chef guiding the savory dishes is Vinoda Singh. She and Henry’s daughter made use of to run a soul meals restaurant named Singh’s Cabin in Willimantic right up until the COVID-19 pandemic hurt organization.

Late Friday early morning, Singh was active making ready for the lunch hurry. Standing at the stove, she juggled her tasks, from stirring the bacalao and beans to boiling potatoes and retaining an eye on the rooster in the oven.

At a desk close by, Henry’s daughter was tricky at perform, spooning fritter combine from a food processor into massive bowls.

Reactions from customers have been constructive so considerably, in accordance to La Isla team. The restaurant has been promoting out every single day, Henry claimed.

“I’ve heard I cook dinner like someone’s grandma,” claimed Singh. “That’s variety of what we were heading for.”