On Saturday, I ventured out of the vast metropolis of San Juan and took the 52 south all the way to the vast metropolis of Caguas. The reason for the twenty something to thirty something minute drive was for art… and food. Art first, food later. Since August, “Cromática, Caguas a Color” has been happening in this city. The initiative comes with the intention of turning abandoned buildings into art installations while breathing new life into them by attracting (and educating) people of all ages about the art and history of Caguas. The largest one, which is a warehouse, is the epicenter and headquarters of Cromática. It’s called “Kalaña” from Sofía Maldonado, a well known artist in the Puerto Rican art scene and the leader of the team of artists that made Cromática a reality. This is just one of 6 artworks that are scattered around the city’s downtown area. You can clearly see them as they pop out of the urban landscape with their bold colors and concepts. Check some of them out below:

Kalaña by Sofía Maldonado

Sobrearquitectura by Omar Torres-Calvo

Sobrearquitectura by Omar Torres-Calvo

Fachada/Cianómetro by Guillermo Rodríguez

Sin Señal by Quintín Rivera-Toro

Hopefully Cromática won’t become a one hit wonder and will continue to grow while revitalizing Caguas in the future. The muralist art scene is very concentrated in San Juan with some stints in Arecibo and Culebra but… I think that this is a lengthy subject for another time. Lets talk about food!

Not too far from Cromática HQ was Food Truck Palooza, an event that brought some of the top food trucks in the island on one parking lot. The food truck scene has been consistently growing in the past 3 to 4 years with many different concepts and types of cuisines. It was a very rainy Saturday and at 5pm sharp it started to rain heavily so I’m not sure how many people attended. I was out of there by 6. From what I saw the Meatball Company had a long line along with Yummy Dumplings. Both have very unique offerings and are really delicious. I decided to go with trucks that I haven’t been to before. I’m a food truck explorer that’s always looking for new stuff to eat. This time I went to La Gastrovan and Cosechas. La Gastrovan is a pretty new truck and they incline to the gourmet criollo “heavy on the meat” cuisine.

I ordered the “Chancho” sliders which consist of pulled pork with maduros and goat cheese. I’m not a fan of maduros but I really liked the sliders.

Chancho sliders

The dish worked out perfectly. None of the ingredients felt overpowering.

Then I went to Cosechas, which is a Caguas based food truck that does modern criollo cuisine and ordered a mini steak sandwich with Parmesan fries.

Mini bistec sandwich with parmesan fries

The sandwich was good. It had fresh ingredients but the fries weren’t homemade or they didn’t taste homemade. I think that after a food truck like el Ñaqui graced us with their presence and their amazing fries, other food trucks should step up to the plate and go homemade. A great example of homemade awesomeness is Bluefin from Aguadilla. They were also at Food Truck Palooza and they’re fries are dope. Seriously, they have crack or something because they’re AMAZING. Conclusion: Cosecha’s fries turned me off. I wandered into Lemon Submarine, the cute little yellow truck that sells huge cups of lemonade (a trend that has been exponentially growing in the last month or two). I saw they had ginger lemonade (I LOVE GINGER) and ordered one. I regretted it once I saw them pumping syrup into the huge cup. It didn’t taste like ginger at all. Having ginger syrup or any kind of flavor syrup when you can make your own is LAZY. Please, if you’re thinking about going into the lemonade trend, GO NATURAL.

Overall it was a good day with minimum damage to the wallet. The food in total cost less than $20 and Cromática was free. It was also my first time visiting Caguas and I enjoyed the city.

How about you? Did you get to visit Cromática? How about them food trucks? Got any recommendations for me? Tell me below!