Quesitos and Mallorcas

Every town has a panadería, and two things on the counter matter more than the rest. The quesito is a rectangle of puff pastry rolled around sweetened cream cheese and baked with a sugar glaze that goes lacquered and slightly burnt at the edges, eaten warm with coffee. The mallorca is stranger and better: a coiled brioche-like roll of Mallorcan descent, soft and eggy, dusted heavily with icing sugar, and most often split, filled with ham and cheese, pressed flat on a hot plate until the cheese runs, and then dusted with sugar again, so the whole thing is sweet and salty at once. Both are breakfast food, both are eaten standing at the counter.

What you actually see

• Quesitos - puff pastry, cream cheese and burnt sugar glaze.
• The pressed mallorca - split, filled with ham and cheese and grilled flat.
• Café con leche - the coffee they are meant to be eaten with.
• The panadería counter - where both are bought, usually before nine.

When to go

Year-round, in the morning. Bakeries open early and the pastries are best within an hour or two of coming out; by afternoon the good ones are gone. Old San Juan, Santurce and every small town have their own, and the mountain bakeries are often better than the city ones.

Honest expectations

Both are very sweet, and the ham and cheese mallorca dusted with icing sugar divides opinion sharply on first encounter. They are best warm and decline quickly, so buying a box to take away is a mistake. Tourist-area bakeries charge several times what a neighbourhood panadería does for the same thing.

Nearby

Every town has a panadería; the ones on the mountain roads are worth stopping for.