La Isla

• Cuisine(s): Latin American, Puerto Rican
  Hours: Mon-Fri: 8am-2am Sat-Sun: 24hrs
  Price: $
  Payment Types: cash
• Attire: casual
  Features: Delivery, Takeout, Wheelchair Accessible
  Serving: Dinner, Late Night
  Alcohol: None
• Reservations: Accepted, Not Accepted, Not Necessary
  Parking: Street

Description

New York has scores of cuchifrito spots: down-home restaurants generally serving large Puerto Rican communities that specialize in fried bits of pig and other good things sizzled in oil. La Isla proudly displays fried tongue, pork ear, pork tripe, and blood sausage in its large window facing the street. Inside, a lunch counter lines one wall, and many people are eating oxtail or beef stew. Aside from the traditional pig bits, the cuchifritos area also holds pastelillos, stuffed potato balls, and bacalaitos, or salt cod fritters. Those bacalaitos are crisp, UFO-shaped treats dyed yellow with annatto and seasoned with garlic and onions, the dense, cake-like interior turning up silken bits of salt cod with almost every bite.