Cafe Central

If you are looking for authentic tasty Puerto Rican food than this is the place for you! This place is nothing fancy, almost hole in the wall but you go there for the experience of the food and very welcoming service. The pork there is unbelievably delicious (I don't usually like pork). Also I ordered a plate with shrimp which was very good too. We will definitely be coming back here for their rich in flavor food!

Great Puerto Rican authentic food. A no thrill place, but the food is super tasty and the service is super friendly. I had the pork mixta and it was delicious! One of the best slow roast pork I have ever had.

This was the worst meal I've ever had.

My friends and I met up down the street at Lush to buy wine, and then we considered the 3 BYOB options right at that corner - Shaman, Habana Libre, and Cafe Central. The first two were packed, so we tried Cafe Central, because the reviews are (I have no idea why, now) decent on Yelp.

First, there was no one in this place. One family at a table near the door, and my group of 4 at the back. That's it for patrons - it should have indicated the quality of the food, but we convinced ourselves that perhaps it was just a little gem we'd found.

Wrong. The food was by far the worst I've ever had. The fish was painfully dry. It was like eating corrugated cardboard. Absolutely tasteless and a horrible, brittle, dry texture. The fried chicken was similarly dry. The shrimp creole, which costs like $13, had like 3 pieces of shrimp in it and was not good. I even tried the Mofungo as a side, which someone mentioned on here was "finger licking good." Not even close. I couldn't get past one bite of it, let alone eat enough to cause me to lick my fingers. One of my friends tried a bite as well, and couldn't even finish the amount she had on her fork. It was just that gross.

We also had side salads. How on earth do they manage to make even a SALAD dry?! It's made out of vegetables, for crying out loud, so it almost takes effort to make it that bad. They didn't bring it out with ANY dressing, and when we all started looking around in confusion, the server asked us, "Do you want dressing?" Yes, of course we do. What kind of dressing did she bring out? Bottles of Wishbone or Newman's Own. Straight to the table. It was like being at a freaking backyard barbeque, except that I would have been ashamed to be friends with anyone who could make food this awful.

In short... don't go here. Just don't. It's not worth your time or money, and it's a cruel thing to do to your taste buds. Just deal with the wait at any other place on this street.