Vianda — Restaurant in San Juan

Vianda was recommended to me by a restaurant manager at another establishment so I chose to give it a try. I was greeted and promptly seated at the bar. There was a heavy set man at the bar that was on his cell phone. Minutes later, Gabriel came up to the bar to wait on me. I ordered the el ye guayaba drink and 3 other food items.

While Gabriel was working behind the bar, I noticed another female waitress that frequented the bar to talk to him. In preparation for my drink, Gabriel placed an empty martini glass filled with ice near my place setting. After mixing my drink, he takes the glass filled with ice, dumps the ice, then places it on the other side of the bar where the waiters would retrieve their drink orders. Him and the other female waitress have a conversation as he pours my drink into the glass. Neither of them are wearing masks.

The female waitress gets a stirring spoon to taste my drink, THEN Gabriel gets a stirring spoon to taste my drink. He then turns around serves me my drink and returns the same spoon he used to taste my drink back in the cup with all the stirring utensils WITHOUT rinsing or washing the spoon.

I have never witnessed this before at another establishment or bar. Even if this is a common practice, it is unsanitary and unprofessional. If he is concerned about the quality or taste of the drink and I'm at the bar, then I should have been asked to taste it. I informed Gabriel that I was not comfortable with being served a drink two people tried. He responds by saying the female is another bartender and they taste each others drinks. He then asks me if wanted a different drink and I said yes.

The other bartender returns to the bar where him and Gabriel converse in Spanish about the drink. The other bartender re-makes my drink and says it's on the house. He then leaves the bar for several minutes and heads to the back of the restaurant.

Gabe continued to make several other drinks. Possibly close to 10-15. He actually used the same spoon he used to taste my drink to make/stir several other drinks throughout the night. Out of all the several other drinks he made he only tasted one other drink. The female/waitress didn't taste another drink while I was there.

I would never recommend this place to anyone. I did not feel welcomed nor valued as a customer. Had I not ordered three items from the menu as soon as I got there, I would have just walked out after seeing two people taste test my drink.

I also asked Gabriel where was the manager and he answered "she's walking around here somewhere".

I've rated 2 stars because the food was good. Overall...

Expecting some serious culinary chops when I got here (given the numerous recs, including on CN, Eater, and Bon Appetit), I expected to be wowed. It wasn't awful, but most of the items we had were not deserving of the praise heaped upon it by the aforementioned publications. My first problem is a problem that we had with much of the food we ate in PR--over-salting (as someone who actually really likes salt in their food and often adds salt, this was unusual and I wonder if it is just a "thing" in Puerto Rico). The mushroom toast, which seemed overpriced given that it was a big piece of toast with some ground up mushrooms and sliced button mushrooms with about 8 shiitake mushrooms on top (not sure which part of this was the "Marmelade"), was oversalted, and the bread over toasted (or the rind simply too hard) so that it could hardly be cut or easily bit into at the edges. My Tom Kha was a tragedy. The rice was served on the side, and the pork belly looked basically poached in the broth, which (you guessed it) was also over-salted. Sad little shiitake mushrooms floated alongside nearly absent flecks of bok choy. The pork belly itself was bland and texture overly soft, with not even a whisper of crispiness--a crime against pork belly. I've had more interesting pork cuts served in ramen. Given the reputation of this restaurant, i expected an interesting interpretation of Tom Kha, not a half rate literal take with soggy pork belly. My suggestion for this dish would be to (after cutting the salt in the broth) place the rice in the bowl, up the bok choy and the shiitakes for a much drier dish, and give the pork belly some crispiness, and let that lend the savory richness to the dish, rather than letting the super salty tom kha broth overwhelm the dish. My husband had the eggplant--it was much less salty but was basically eggplant parmigiana, just thin sliced. It tasted pretty good. Also good was the cocktail I had--a gin based drink with a passionfruit shrub. I'm a sucker for shrubs and it was very shrub-heavy. The burnt rosemary on the dried orange garnish was almost too much but that shrub was killer and i drank it all. The desserts looked good, but i was so disappointed by our app and main that i just didn't want to be disappointed anymore. I don't know enough about this food scene to know what Vianda's competition is, but I do like their ideas and with refining, they could be very good. But for now, three stars only (and that is mostly for the cocktail and competent execution of...

One of the best meals we had in Puerto Rico. The dishes here are creative and constantly changing. While some options have visible influences of Puerto Rican cuisine, the ingredients are all local and particularly fresh. The sweet potato dinner roll to start reminded me of the best possible iteration of airplane bread. It was warm and faintly sweet, with a fragrant butter to pair. For appetizers, the carpaccio aguacate used perfectly ripe ingredients that felt like they were right from the garden. The zucchini and pumpkin seeds add texture and complexity while staying fairly light. The tuna crudo featured some very fresh tuna belly, wonderfully soft in texture. The soy sesame vinaigrette is faint, and thus plays a secondary role to the avocado purée. The radish and fried tempura pearls were great for crunch. The pork terrine made from pigs head was a pairing made in heaven with the shallot vinaigrette purée. It was a perfect balance with all the components: the pork was slow cooked to perfection, immensely flavorful while being so soft and tender, then fried crisply on one side. The fattiness of the pork was complemented and broken up by the purée, then accompanied with gala apples for further contrast. The kim chee fried rice with pork belly wasn’t as recommendable as the other dishes. It felt like as if I combined my leftover Thai curry with leftover Cantonese roast pork, in addition to the leftover kimchee fried rice. It tastes good because of the flavor explosion from all the umami, but it’s confusing; not harmonious and a little chaotic. The roast pork skin could’ve been better dehydrated to not be as sticky. The eggplant parm was not ideal. It reminded me of first class airplane food: the flavors were strong and came together aggressively, and it reminded of lasagna. Any intricacy of the eggplant was removed by an oily and thick panko breading topped with melted mozzarella. The pesto with pistachio was well done though, and it worked with the...