By admin 
WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. (KABC) — Puerto Rico lives here.
That’s the feeling at Tainos LA, a Woodland Hills restaurant bringing the flavors, music and culture of Puerto Rico to the San Fernando Valley.
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“Puerto Rico lives here, you know,” co-owner Nicholas Varvatsoulis said. “It’s a place in LA where you can still feel a part of the culture, get a little bit of the cuisine, listen to a little of the music.”
Tainos LA is named after the Taínos, the Indigenous people who were among the first settlers of the Caribbean.
The restaurant’s menu highlights classic Puerto Rican dishes, including mofongo, papas rellenas and asopao de camarones.
Mofongo combines mashed plantains with options including roasted pork, skirt steak and fish.
Papas rellenas are Puerto Rican potato balls, while the asopao de camarones is a flavorful shrimp stew.
“There’s just so much flavor,” Varvatsoulis said. “It’s almost like there’s a dance going on.”
Varvatsoulis, his wife Odessa and her uncle, Chef Tio, got their start in the Valley with a ghost kitchen.
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“We had zero customers, zero followers, and we just opened the door, and we’d show up every day and hope to just try to get Puerto Rican food out to the Los Angeles community,” Varvatsoulis said.
About six months ago, the family opened its brick-and-mortar location on Ventura Boulevard.
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Today, Tainos LA regularly caters for the Los Angeles Dodgers while continuing to build its community in Woodland Hills.
For the family, bringing Puerto Rican culture to Los Angeles is about creating a place that feels like home.
“We’d hope to bring it all around LA at some point, but this is where we have been the last 15 years, and it’s home,” Varvatsoulis said.
Tainos LA is located at 22757 Ventura Blvd., in Woodland Hills and is open from 4 p.m. Thursday through Monday. The restaurant is closed Tuesday and Wednesday.
Thank you, Faris Taleb, for the submission.
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