Where to: Las Palmas in Harvard Square.
Why: For fresh empanadas, towering sandwiches, and bowls from a Roslindale favorite, now a storefront at the Garage on Mt. Auburn Street. Las Palmas isn’t a complete Cambridge newcomer; until recently, it was based at MIT and later inside Harvard’s Smith Campus Center.
The backstory: Seila Green, a former education registrar, bought Las Palmas in Roslindale in 2016, hoping to spotlight the foods she grew up eating and loving in the Dominican Republic: empanadas; yellow rice and stewed chicken. Her mom worked for the original owners, so it was a natural fit.
“It was very hard for me to find the same quality of food that I was accustomed to eating — my mom’s cooking. It’s very different when you buy food elsewhere. So I wanted to really tell people: This is how we cook; this is how we eat. It has a lot of flavors, but it can be also healthy. I think there’s maybe a little stigma where people think that Caribbean food, or Dominican food, might be greasy or not very healthy. That’s not true,” Green told the Globe in July, right before opening this location.
It was a fortuitous move: Since college students have returned, business has boomed (so much so that empanadas were sold out on my visit). The space is bright — pleasantly jarring so close to the slightly seedy, shopworn Garage — with a jaunty sign out front announcing: “Welcome to the Dominican Republic!” Inside, there’s lots of faux greenery, window paintings depicting island scenes, and a clubby neon pink sign beckoning passersby: “Talk Spanish To Me.”
The food: Empanadas ($3 for chicken, beef, and veggie) are the signature; a smiling woman behind the counter apologized profusely that they were out of dough when I tried to order an assortment. Oh, well, next time.
“We don’t store or freeze anything; we make them fresh for the day,” Green explained, so plan to arrive at lunchtime (I made the mistake of visiting in the midafternoon; they’re typically open until 6 p.m.).