El Mercado

El Mercado
704 Park St
Hartford, CT 06106
(860) 247-6449

Open Seven Days a Week (until 7 PM, 5PM on Sunday)

If there is one place you visit in town for a Hartford ethnic food experience, it is El Mercado on Park Street. El Mercado means "The Market" in Spanish. El Mercado has a Spanish grocery store and four latin restaurants which are mostly cafeteria style with steam tables of preprepared food.



El Gran Dominicano (Dominican)



El Tepeyac (Mexican)

Antojitos Columbianos (Colombian)

Authentica Sabor Peruviano (Peruvian)

I confess I have only eaten at the Domincan and Columbian stalls so far. For years I ate only at the Dominican because I made friends with the woman who ran it. I had gone to the Dominican Republic twice on medical missions, so when I shared this with the people at the restaurant, we became friends and I always practiced my Spanish when I went there. That restaurant closed when the owner got another job, but it has been replaced by another Dominican stall, and the food is still quite good. My favorite order is roast pork (be sure to ask for a piece of skin), yellow rice, yucca and tostones (friend green plantain).

Here is a photo of roast pork (cerdo asado), yucca and tostones:

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.

Seashore Jamaican Restaurant

 

Seashore is on Garden Street just off Albany Avenue. It has excellent seafood soup and conk soup – great to have in the winter. It comes in a Styrofoam cup. Careful of inhaling little flakes of scotch bonnet pepper which give the soup a strong kick.

They have some excellent fish dishes (Jamaican’s love whole fried fish), but fish in general should be avoided when working on the ambulance as unless eaten quickly and disposed of, it can significantly stink up the ambulance. I go here quite reguarly. The service is fast, the food very good. It's location makes it very convinient to hit from Saint Francis.

Joe's Crab Shack

2074 Park Street, Hartford, CT
(860) 231-9545

Joe’s Crab Shack on Park Avenue next to the 7-11 has great chowders and bisques all ready to go. A small clam chowder for $2.50 will warm your belly in no time. They also have Seafood Chowder ($2.75), Lobster Bisque ($3.75) and Corn and Shrimp Bisque ($3.75).

The seafood chowder is filled with thick chunks of fish, scallops, calamari, shrimp. Here is a picture of it:




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