Cheap Lunch! J and R Restaurant

Roast pork lunch special: $5. Eat up, big spender!

Cheap Lunch! In which we find good eats in cheap places.

J&R Restaurant
468 Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn
718-788-8437
How cheap? $5

If there was ever a day for a cheap lunch, this is it, agreed? J&R Restaurant is a very old-school Puerto Rican spot, with a Pepto Bismol-pink counter, pink plastic stools and fake pink roses on the tables. The stern older woman behind the counter has a very serious beehive hairdo, and is also very serious about the telenovelas that play on the television in the corner.

By the window, there are craggy piles of cuchifrito, the various Puerto Rican soul food-ish snacks—gigantic balls of fried plantain, pasteles and dark links of blood sausage.

The lunch special, an enormous plate of yellow rice with pigeon peas, beans and meat sets you back five dollars. You have your choice of roast chicken, beef stew or roast pork. I got the roast pork. The rice are beans here are very good, and the pork is faintly gamey in a good way. The woman behind the counter got out a whole roast pork leg, and hacked up some meat and crisp skin for my plate. It can use a sprinkle of salt, but on the whole, a quality pile of meat.

And, because I never know when to stop, I also ordered a salt cod fritter. They cost $1.50 and are the size of a small pancake. Hot and crunchy on the outside, gooey with salt cod and herbs on the inside, this is a very, very good fritter.

Salt cod fritter