Prices are per person for a main course at dinner.

In San Juan you'll find everything from Italian to Thai, as well as superb local eateries serving comida criolla (traditional Caribbean creole food). All of San Juan's large hotels have fine restaurants, but some of the city's best eateries are stand-alone, and smaller hotels also often present good options. There is also a mind-boggling array of U.S. chain restaurants. No matter your price range or taste, San Juan is a great place to eat.

Mesónes gastronómicos are restaurants recognized by the government for preserving culinary traditions. There are more than 30 island-wide. (Although there are fine restaurants in the system, the mesón gastronómico label is not an automatic symbol of quality.) Wherever you go, it's always good to make reservations in the busy season, mid-November-April, in restaurants where they are accepted.

Puerto Rican cooking uses a lot of local vegetables: plantains are cooked a hundred different ways -- as tostones (fried green), amarillos (baked ripe), and chips. Rice and beans with tostones or amarillos are accompaniments to every dish. Yams and other root vegetables, such as yucca and yautía, are served baked, fried, stuffed, boiled, and mashed. Sofrito -- a garlic, onion, sweet pepper, coriander, oregano, and tomato puree -- is used as a base for practically everything.

Beef, chicken, pork, and seafood are rubbed with adobo, a garlic-oregano marinade, before cooking. Arroz con pollo (chicken with rice), sancocho (beef or chicken and tuber soup), asopao (a soupy rice gumbo with chicken or seafood), and encebollado (steak smothered in onions) are all typical plates. Caribbean lobster, available mainly at coastal restaurants, is sweeter and easier to eat than Maine lobster, and there is always plentiful fresh dolphinfish and red snapper. Conch is prepared in a chilled ceviche salad or stuffed with tomato sauce inside fritters.

Dress codes vary greatly. For less-expensive places, anything but beachwear is fine. There are many casual family-owned restaurants where dress is unimportant. Ritzier eateries will expect collared shirts for men and chic attire for women (jacket and tie requirements are rare). However, Puerto Ricans enjoy dressing up for dinner, so chances are you'll never feel overdressed.