My restaurant is the only restaurant in Seattle that serves Puerto Rican food. Yup. Growing up in Olympia then working my way up I-5 to finally be in a position to open a restaurant has been insane. 
However, this lechoncito project within my restaurant that has multiple concepts wouldn't be able to stand by itself as its own concept. Why? There really isn't demand for Puerto Rican food in Seattle.
Sure, everyone has their ideas of it. They vacationed there once or twice, lived on the east coast, are actually Puerto Rican or Latino or just like the food, etc.... But, doing this in Seattle is really different.
I don't have access to a lot of the ingredients that make up Puerto Rican cuisine. I order ingredients that a lot of other restaurants don't and can't find crucial ingredients like a regular source for cilantro, aji dulce, rad avocados, fruit, root vegetables, and more.
So if people come in and are looking for a note for note Puerto Rican food experience then it's a miss. I also live in one of the most expensive cities so my prices compared to other Puerto Rican restaurants is much higher.
Now, I'm not the only one in Washington. Old San Juan in Lakewood is stellar. It has that vibe that feels like home cooking. La Isla in Redmond is another option and then that's it!
There are lots of Caribbean cuisine restaurants and frankly that is disturbing to me and has always angered me. The Caribbean cuisine blanket that goes across the food world allows everyone to just gravitate to thinking Cuban sandwiches are from Cuba, they're not!
It allows the very limited toe into the pool to mostly appease white pallets and doesn't do a deep dive into the roots of each culture in cuisine that is represented in the Caribbean.
Goya to me is not ok either. It's done a really awesome job at homogenizing flavors across cultures and not identifying who or what specific flavors can be. It's a convenience but not a standard.
The history of Latin American cuisine is vast. It covers so many cultures, times in history, is so complex that I am constantly inspired by it and am looking for more. Problem is, there is no audience for that.
Within my multi-concept restaurant you'll see a lot of cultures and food covered but not as stand alone pieces, just somewhere in a 7, 12, or 20 course menu, again, with no formal concept. It's hard to do that because people have to let you do it because they trust you.
It would make my job a lot easier if there was more curiosity into cultures of cuisine. If the same person that can get into arguments on styles of pizza, burgers, and BBQ then I would love to do a deep dive with them on plantains and how versatile they are.
How amazing root vegetables are. Spices whether served alone or in a mix and if people were told it's ok to like something spicy beyond red chili flake at an Italian restaurant.
I've been driving this ship for years now trying to poke at people in the food world. There have been awesome people in the press along the way that like what I do but it truly feels like there are barriers for Puerto Rican cuisine.
If a chef can go on a vacation to Sri Lanka, come back, barely open a restaurant, and get a James Beard nomination for that then what the fuck. Right? Right? If Rick Bayless can have an entire career then what the fuck. Right? Right?
I'm always thinking but what about Puerto food! Over the past few years there have been advancements. Puerto Rican chefs in Puerto Rico can win awards now, that's dope! But the food in the mainstream? Not really.
We're just not trendy like @rapoport said to @eatgordaeat. Puerto Rico was colonized hundreds of years ago so we prettyyyyyyyy much have the same time of being around the eyes of people.
We've been trendy forever and I'm not going to wait for the long standing magazines, food media institutions, or famous people to do our food for their clout. The problem is, there is so much money with a cuisine being discovered, highlighted, and talked about like it's normal.
Do you know how awesome cooking a whole pig is? Do you know what it takes to do to sell that to an area doesn't really want it because they're not told to like it? Arroz con gandules, epic rice dish. Oh sorry, rice with pigeon peas... Oh sorry. Yellowish rice and beans
Having to consistently explain Puerto Rican cuisine is fucking exhausting. No it's not that spicy unless you want to add pique. Tortillas aren't a thing. It's not all fried food. I'm sorry I don't know your grandma, mine didn't cook, so my food is a little different.
My food is different just like an in n out burger is different from a burger king burger and a Big Mac is different. I can tell you the reasons why but the audience just isn't there.
If I was anyone else I would have pulled the plug on doing Puerto Rican food but it's important to me and to me it is my stage and I'll play for whoever listens.
I don't want fake people to listen to us. I don't want @rapoport to apologize for dressing like a stereotype. I want him to resign and get the fuck out of the way.
I want @bonappetit to change its name each time an issue comes out with the word appetite in different languages to highlight different cultures of cuisine. They have the resources.
I want more, not less, from the food world. Because world extends beyond 10 cool things to cook for father's day!!!!! I yield my time, fuck you.
People like my foodThey say it's awesome but that only goes so far. The gatekeepers in the food world need to do a better job of highlighting food from different cultures.More people that actually know the food need to be hired rather than looking for a writer that is a writer
More people need to be sought out to highlight more cultures of cuisine. I'm tired of seeing so many white people at the helm of local and national food publications that treat food like the fashion industry. No motherfucker, we are not last season, we are every season.
We are every season just like you can always find another way to bring avocado toast into the conversation. Ask a Puerto Rican what they can do with an avocado. Pure magic.
