An unsung benefit of having jury duty in Essex County is getting to visit the county seat, which is New Jersey’s largest city: Newark.

The courthouse and broader Essex County operations headquarters are just peripheral from the bustling downtown, marked by many colleges and universities and further down Market Street, a ton of shops and restaurants. While on my luxurious 90-minute lunch break from jury service today, I wandered down to Halsey Street to visit a true hole-in-the-wall Puerto Rican restaurant called Taino’s Kitchen Downtown.

The bitter, whipping wind pushed me through the front door, situated at an angle, as Taino’s sits on a corner, directly across from a bubble tea shop of all things. There are about seven tables for two to four in the tight, narrow space. The kitchen sits at the back of the floor, and I imagine it’s only a handful of feet deep given the length of their exterior storefront.

When I arrived at noon, four of the seven tables were taken, and by the time I left 40 minutes later, all tables were taken, with Uber Eats drivers coming and going, talking of Michelangelo(ing?).

On Taino’s menu, the inside left spread dedicates a half page to their daily specials. I love the idea of being so certain and confident about which special dishes you’ll have during the week – so much so that it’s in your printed menu – instead of drumming up last-minute “ideas” based on what’s left behind in the kitchen over the weekend. They offer salads, entrees, sandwiches, and mofongo. There’s also a respectably brief dessert list, and their breakfast menu talks a good game (probably walks well too).

Since it was Thursday, I chose the pollo asada daily special. Entrees come with a choice of white rice or rice with pigeon peas, as well as beans, and I asked for “just beans” plus an avocado salad. I thought I was ordering two dishes, but Taino’s kindly served me one dish with chicken, beans, and a side portion of the avocado salad for no extra charge.

Don’t know what your Thursdays look like, but you gotta get to Taino’s for this pollo asado. It was the most tender, flavorful, and fantastic chicken I’ve ever had. A full half chicken rested on my plate, with crispy skin (which I didn’t eat), and I quickly dug in with a knife just to find the chicken fall apart at the delicate touch of a fork. When you sit down at Taino’s, the waitress brings over a few sauces – the essentials – you may use with your order. I sampled both: one, a creamy adobe sauce was a little too dairy-forward for me, and the other was a vinegar-based hot sauce that was tolerable and quite delicious.

The cup of beans you receive looks like a soup on the surface, but the delicious beans are just a spoonful away and rife with flavor. I felt the avocado salad, filled with red onion, crisp Romaine lettuce, tomato, and a dash of jalapeno, was more flavor-forward than I was expecting.

So enchanted by my lunch, I knew I had to order dessert just to see what Taino’s does on the sweet side of things. I narrowed down my options to the flan (three kinds) or the tres leches, inviting the waitress to help me decide. “They’re both really good,” she said. When she saw my puzzled look – signaling I was hoping you’d pick one – she said, “You should definitely get the flan.” So I did! I ordered the vanilla kind, which was brought to me in a to-go box since I told her I needed to get back to jury duty.

I’ve had flan that’s been more like a single-serving situation. At Taino’s, you get a slice from a larger pie of flan. I found the flavor profile to be complex: nutty, hints of rum, and a gorgeous, pure vanilla burst. My only ding on the flan was the texture, which was less smooth and a tad grittier than I’d experienced before.

Overall, I highly recommend Taino’s, since I sense you cannot go wrong no matter what you order there.

While out and about in Newark, I came across several murals, which almost made me cry. Kind of how I shed tears running the Branch Brook Park Cherry Blossom 10k, thinking about how long ago, someone said, “The people of Newark deserve the most beautiful park that ever was” and made it so.

I hadn’t expected to gain anything from jury service. Falling in love with Newark was a welcome surprise.

INDEED!!!!