Every now and then, poor time management leads me in a delightful direction. This happened on a recent vacation to San Juan, where I had to scramble for a last-minute dinner reservation. I settled on a wine bar, El Vino Crudo in Old San Juan, not even pausing for a beat to pore over the menu first, as I’m wont to do.
Upon my arrival, my eyes darted to the menu’s handful of vegetable dishes, and soon after, puffy ras el hanout-dusted cauliflower florets drizzled with two kinds of chutneys and a tamarind raita hit the table, followed closely by a platter of charred asparagus spears atop a layer of romesco, garnished with crunchy almonds and caper leaves that looked like eucalyptus.
With each bite, I thought about recreating a spread of shareable plates for myself. We have wine bar at home! (Required viewing: the “We have McDonald’s at home!” bit from Eddie Murphy’s 1987 stand-up special, “Raw,” which I won’t link to for language.)
Then, the requisite vibrant vegetables dishes. Yewande Komolafe’s recipe for roasted vegetables with cashew romesco is well within the neighborhood of the asparagus dish I fawned over, though I’d like to combine her sauce with Melissa Clark’s recipe for roasted asparagus with crispy leeks and capers to get even closer to it. And Nargisse Benkabbou’s vibrant roasted cauliflower (above), with its cilantro-packed chermoula and its cooling yogurt base, feels like a delicious cousin of that restaurant dish I so enjoyed.
When the wine bar’s at home, there’s no spiel from a server recommending three to five plates per person. You can certainly stop here. But I’ll always recommend ending on a sweet note. For that, why not Clare de Boer’s springy strawberry and sesame swirl soft serve?
