Ivette=s Restaurant
ASabor de la Isla@
2829 River Road (@Niagara St.) 447-4403

by Laura McClusky & Mike Niman
Buffalo Gazette Culinary Arts Critics

Regular Gazette readers may have noticed that, at least in an epicurean sense, we tend to head south when winter hits.  Luckily we live in Buffalo C a city with an abundance of southern and tropical restaurants. 

 For the new millennium, we went to Ivette=s Aflavor of the Island@ Restaurant.@  The island is Puerto Rico, though Ivette=s cooking shares characteristics of Dominican and Cuban cuisine as well C in fact it was a local Cuban-American friend who steered us to Ivette=s.

 Ivette=s, located at the point where Niagara Street turns to River Road where Buffalo=s Black Rock neighborhood meets the city line, is open for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, featuring both standard Buffalo fare such as Subs, Wings, Pancakes, Eggs and Beef on Weck, as well as a diverse Hispanic Island menu.  Ivette, refers to her menu as being ASpanglish.@

 We stopped in at dinner time and ordered a Pernil (Roast Pork) Dinner ($6.75) and a Combo Fritter Platter ($8.95) featuring Relleno do Papa (Stuffed Potatoes), Alcapurias (Green Banana Fritters), Pastelillos (Deep Fried Meat Patty), Tostones (Plantain Chips) and Carne (de Cerdo) Frita (Fried Pork).  What we got was a full table of food.

 The Pernil is served with your choice of White Rice and Beans, Yellow (Spanish) Rice and Pigeon Peas, or Baked Potatoes.  We opted for the Yellow Rice, which was moist and full flavored, though not caliente (spicy hot), with a medley of spices.  Like the Pernil served in other restaurants, it is a shoulder cut of pork.  Ivette, however, serves it sliced like Roast Beef or Ham, preparing it delicately spiced with it=s own juices so that it is moist and flavorful while also being lean and not too salty.  It is tender as well.  It=s also available as a sandwich ($4).

 The Stuffed Potato ($1.50) was the highpoint of the Fritter Platter.  It=s spiced mashed potato formed into a ball around a pre-cooked ground beef filling, then lightly deep fried.  Ivette=s Meat Patty also stands out as the tastiest in the area.  The secret is a light layer of cheese, which melts, keeping the otherwise lean ground beef  filling moist.  Again, Ivette uses a medley of Puerto Rican spices here, giving her Patty a distinctive flavor.

 The tostones, thick slices of fried plantain, were served with a tasty dipping sauce, which, incidently, is also available as a house salad dressing.  These are not sweet ripe  plantains, but instead are potato-like savory green plantains.

 The Fried Pork was dry.  But this is the nature of Fried Pork.  It was also lean and flavorful, yet not greasy.  Although we prefer the Pernil, we can also recognize that the Fried Pork seems done just right, so if you want Fried Pork...