Anxiety Mixes With Adobo On Grand Ave

First sauté the peppers, garlic, and onions. Add your basic Caribbean spice mix, Adobo, then bring the pot of water to a boil. Pop in the gandules, or pigeon peas, add the arroz, the rice, cover, and cook on low heat for about an hour. And voila!, as they say in Spanish: arroz con gandules.

Jose Jiminian cooked up a batch of the dish Tuesday at his J&J restaurant at 244 Grand Ave., where he has been preparing comfort food, practically this national dish of the Dominican Republic, for the last ten years.

Despite the popularity of the dish, in the past three weeks since President Trump’s inauguration, anxiety, fears, and rumors about immigration crackdowns are keeping many customers in their homes. Jiminian said he has seen a 40 percent slowdown in business in the commercial heart of New Haven’s immigrant community in the Fair Haven neighborhood.

A similar slowdown ranges from 25 to 50 percent up and down Grand Avenue, at businesses of all kinds, explained community immigrant advocate Lee Cruz, who joined this reporter at J&J Tuesday for a late breakfast/early lunch.

“I’ve just got to keep going,” said Jiminian, 40, who took over running the restaurant from his parents. ​“But it is really bad.”

The arroz con gandules, on the other hand, is really good! And worth coming out for.

It’s a strong and salty dish. I balanced it with the plantains, which Jiminian said were so ripe (or maduro in Spanish) that they were simply dropped in the fryer for a short period of time. They came out sweet but not mushy and did the job of balancing very nicely.

At times of political and emotional discomfort, culture-anchoring comfort food, like the arroz con gandules, served up in the home-style atmosphere of J&J, can help reduce tension.

Jiminian said business has been so slow he has had to cut down the hours on his six employees. Prices are not going down either. 

“That plate,” he said, pointing to the dish before me, ​“if chicken or some meat were added, it would sell for nine dollars.” If his costs go up 10 percent or so, then the same dish could climb closer to $11 to $12. That is a lot for his customers.

If fewer are coming in, if they are staying home, as he hears, out of fear of ICE, a vicious circle of anxiety results that benefits no one.

The 40 percent drop off in J&J’s business, Jiminian said, is a shame because over the last six months or so, Grand Avenue has improved and grown more lively. ​“I’m hoping it will get better,” he said.

J&J restaurant at 244 Grand Ave. is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday; 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday; and closed on Sunday.