Panderia - Pan Del Cielo

 

340 Prospect Ave
Hartford, CT 06106
(860) 233-0170

I love the sandwiches here.  I get El Cielo, which is pork, pastrami and beef on a toasted flatbread for $6.  One sandwich is so big, it would last all day if I could control myself.  The only problem is it takes about 5 minutes to get a sandwich.  Great, easy to access location.  Very friendly people.  I usually try to get a sandwich here early in the morning when my chances of getting called away are slimer.  I did get called out once, and they just kept my sanwich in the bread warmer for me.  Lots of great bakery treats here also.  This place is more expensive than Los Cubanitos, but the portions are bigger.

Oh all the places I eat at in Hartford, this is my favorite place to come when I am off-duty. I bring my daughters here for sandwiches quite frequently.

Los Cubanitos

867 Park Street
Hartford
(860) 247-7844

This is the cheapest place in the city to fill your belly. Start with the sandwiches. Here for $ 2.00 is a pork sandwich. They have a refrigerator full of freshly premade sandwiches, which they quickly reheat in the microwave and then toast with a pull down toasting machine. Takes only a couple minutes. For $2.25 you can get chicken, for $1.50 you can get a Cuban (Ham, cheese and Pork) or a Ham and Cheese.


While there the other day, I got a pork tamale for $1.25. The tamale made of cornmeal and pork comes steaming hot, cooked in a corn stalk. They also have pastries here. There is aways a line of people waiting to get sandwiches, but the line moves fast.



75 cents will get you this Guava filled pastry.

A. Dong Supermarket

A Dong Supermarket
160 Shield Street
West Hartford, CT
(860)953-8903

Open until 8:00 P.M.

The A. Dong Grocery on Shield Street is a grocery from a different world. As soon you walk in the door, you can see roasted ducks hanging from their heads, next to roast pork and sometimes even a roasted boar's head. There is a Chinese bakery, which excellent pastries, a produce section that has vegtables and fruits you may have never seen before. The seafood section has unusual fish, too. They had live eels there one day, another time some kind of live buffalo fish the size of small pigs, and another time a bin of live blue crabs. There is a cold drink section that offers drinks like fungus and Lychee. There is an entire supermarket row just of different kinds of tea -- tea for the colon, tea for the liver, tea for the back, tea for the sex life. You name it, they have a tea for it. This place is an adventure just to walk through.

I go there sometimes for the roast duck. $7.95 for half a duck, chopped up with or without the head and packed into an aluminim foil pan. If they don't have one already sliced up, you can watch the woman behind the counter take down the duck and then make quick work of it with her meat cleaver. The barbequed pork here is so much better than what you get from a Chinese restaurant. It is fresh cooked her on premesis.

Note: I have yet to try the boar's head.

Mr. Snapper's Restaurant

1450 Albany Avenue, Hartford
Phone (860) 241-0619

Mr. Snapper’s Restaurant on Albany Avenue sells small porridge for $2.50 and fried dumpling for 60 cents. This small meal will keep you full until lunch time. The porridge is smooth, tasteful and has a hint of cinnamon. They have different flavors of porridge on different days, but it always seems to be plantain when I go in there. The fried dumpling is thick, soft and filling. Dumplings are basically flour, milk and butter mixed together and deep fried in oil.

Mr. Snapper's also has a full range of Jamaican dishes such as jerk chicken, ox-tails and curry goat.