El Nuevo Authentico was one of the many fast-casual establishments we visited just a hop and a skip from Playa de Vega Baja. It's a brick-and-mortar establishment with outdoor and indoor seating serving "tacos" (actually what we'd call empanadas!), beautiful golden alcapurias and other typical Puerto Rican snacks filled with various types of seafood as well as beef and chicken; "vasos" with seafood; jugos naturales; and various other seafood and non-seafood dishes with mofongo or other sides. (Menu here: https://l.ead.me/bbZiCZ)
There was a fellow at the "door" (chain), possibly the owner, who allowed people in and out of the restaurant and who seemed actively unfriendly and unhelpful to us. But once we sat inside, our waitress was very nice. We speak horrible Spanish and she was kind enough to indulge us, but also kind enough to switch to English when our attempts fell flat.
You can either order your food to eat out front at three tables or sit down within the restaurant for service. We sat on the cordoned off patio with bar stool style seating.
My vaso des camarones was nicely made with large shrimp marinated with onion and sweet peppers. It was fairly sized for $10.
The non-seafood snacks are jaw-droppingly inexpensive for New Yorkers (about $2 for most), but if you stick around for large plates (e.g. fried snapper), these are more spendy -- around $25-30. The non-seafood-eating contingent enjoyed their chicken and beef "tacos," thrilled that they didn't have to eat any vegetables. read more