Venerable Lechonera Serves Up a Feast

El Nuevo Bohio (The New Hut) is located at 791 E. Tremont Ave. The holiday season is the restaurant's busiest. (Photo by G. Pinto)

[Ed. note: this article appears in the latest issue of the Tremont Tribune, which it out on streets now.]

By FAUSTO GIOVANNY PINTO

At El Nuevo Bohio, pernil is prince. It is also in high demand, the hands-down favorite among all who visit the Puerto Rican restaurant.

“If I don’t have pernil, these people will kill me,” jokes manager Roy Fernandez.

Patrons come from all over for the pernil or roast pork, which is served with your choice of a side, a piece of crispy chicharron (pork skin), and a side of mojito, a crushed garlic sauce. They flock there from the five boroughs, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, and upstate New York, as did recent newcomer Dan Shapiro. This was the second time in two months that he’d made the trip down from Rockland County.

“The atmosphere here is very easy and the roast pork tastes better than any other place I’ve been to,” said Shapiro, who likes to add a plate of white rice and red beans as well as chicken soup to his order.

Bronx News Roundup, July 21

Veterans at the Bronx Veterans Affairs Hospital, in Kingsbridge, are learning to channel their post-war tension into music as volunteers teach them to play musical instruments.

Ruben Diaz Jr., ex-Yankees Roy White and Darryl Strawberry and Yankees scout Cesar Prescott, gathered to remember late team owner George Steinbrenner before a baseball tournament on Randall’s Island yesterday.

Don Coquí, an authentic Puerto Rican restaurant in New Rochelle, is celebrating its first anniversary this month. Its owner, Jimmy Rodríguez, is the founder of Jimmy's Bronx Cafe and the son of the founder of Marisco del Caribe in the Bronx.

The city Administration for Children's Services will fund Rosalie Hall, a center for pregnant teens, for another year. Although the number of beds must be reduced from 16 to 10, the funding may allow the center to provide birthing services and full-time residency for young mothers and their children.

Christopher Benfey, a professor at Mount Holyoke and contributor to the New York Review of Books, wrote about his experience attending “Emily Dickinson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers,” at the Botanical Garden on the New York Review of Books website this morning.

The Point, a community development organization in the South Bronx, which reclaimed vacant land in the city for a 400-square-foot garden, is setting an example for Detroit and other American cities. The Center for American Progress released an article about the benefits of urban farms today.

Bronx native Latisha Ryer, 35, was arrested on charges of possessing and selling crack cocaine in Port Jervis today.

The Daily News reported that teens jumped fences to swim in the Bronx River yesterday, in spite of the recent deaths in the area.

Bronx News Roundup, Feb. 10

We hope everyone is staying warm in this blizzard! Here are some of today's news stories to read while you're snowed in:

The front page of today's Daily News had more on the biggest Bronx story this week: Council member Larry Seabrook's indictment, that was unsealed Tuesday. The 66-page document lists a number of offenses, according to the article--from funneling large sums through suspect nonprofits to claiming $177 on his expense report for the cost of a bagel. Read more here.

For those of you who were worried about those chickens in Highbridge, fear not: the Daily News followed up yesterday's story, about wild birds who've settled down in a lot on Edward L. Grant Highway, with today's piece on a nearby business manager who vows to find a safe home for the flock.

The boys swim team at Bronx Science made the Public Schools Athletic League semifinals.

The New York Times city room blog ran a story yesterday about two new supermarkets coming to the Bronx--one in Norwood and one near Tremont Avenue--as part of the city's FRESH initiative, a program to encourage new grocery stores in underserved areas.

The Times also ran a review of this Ghanian restaurant on the Grand Concourse in Fordham Heights.

A prisoner escaped police custody yesterday at the Bronx Criminal Courthouse on East 161st Street, after changing clothes to impersonate another man. Police are still looking for 22-year-old Michael Bautista, who was being arraigned at the courthouse for assaulting his girlfriend and a police officer.