Tsk, tsk, tsk. It’s the restaurant in El Convento that you want to eat in. The best meal I have ever had in my entire life was in the Patio Del Nispero. No hyperbole. Ooh, I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.
The lady at the Budget car rental place at the airport put a scare into me about driving in Puerto Rico. True, there are a lot of reckless drivers around, but on the whole, it didn’t seem all that different from crazy Washington, D.C., drivers. Also, people tend to drive a lot slower than we do here, so most problems are more easily avoided.
Regarding driving … getting in and out of Old San Juan requires a lot of patience! Once you’re there and have found a parking place (El Puntillo seemed to be the easiest place), you can walk just about anywhere. Unfortunately, the main tourist office was closed for remodeling and we didn’t find the new location until our last day, so we didn’t know that the trolley bus was free. But we had hardly noticed it, anyway, because we were too busy walking everywhere.
Just as a matter of luck, the day we went to San Cristobal (I erred when I said San Sebastian above), they had a one-hour folk dance and music presentation in the evening. That was a nice surprise.
The tapas bar right at the top of the main steps? It did look good, and we did peek in – absolutely beautiful place – but it was too rich for our wallets.
Patio del Nispero is in the courtyard. It is kinda pricey, though. (Or maybe I’m just biased. The head chef is a relative of mine.)
Did you have the snowcones or the sorbets themselves? The snowcones are made of shaved ice chips and syrup… those are my favorite!
I’m glad you had fun with your trip (and with your food!)… 
And what exactly did you expect after eating all our good dishes, when you went to Taco Maker???
You didn’t go to La Bombonera? They have excellent mallorcas… mm, one (or two) of them slightly toasted with butter and covered in powdered sugar, with some coffee or juice on the side…
If you reaaaally liked street food (and pork), I think you better ask for a map next time you go there and go get someone to paint you to the beach places that have kiosks selling that type of food. 
I think they were sorbets … just scooped out of bins complete.
Well, I didn’t expect anything great, but expected something at least as tolerable as Taco Bell!
Actually, La Bombonera was recommended in our guide book, and on our first night in Old San Juan, we went there to get mofongo. We must have arrived too late in the evening, because they were out of all pork dishes and all mofongo. I settled for a simple ham and cheese sandwich and french fries, and it was simply the best $2.75 meal I’ve ever had.
Yes, we should have done that. We were disappointed to find Isla Verde beach bereft of food vendors. We also had planned to try to seek out a local produce/meat/seafood market, but that was another thing we didn’t get to.
One small thing stood out – once, when trying to make our way through to Old San Juan, we were stuck in traffic in front of a small building that was decorated to look like a pyramid with huge Egyptian-style sculpture out front. It was a very interesting looking building and as we got closer we saw that it bore the name “Goddess, a Gentlemen’s Club.” Well, I was very curious about that place, an ancient Egyptian-themed strip club?
I had a crab alcapurrias from a street vendor near the harbor! Loved it! But the vendor didn’t come back after Sunday! 
We’re not really rum people, and I’m a complete teetotaller, but we got sucked into the DonQ “museum” across from the piers. My wife tried a free pina colada, and didn’t taste any rum at first, so the bartender poured a whole bunch more on top. She found it completely undrinkable and tossed it. We bought several $2 tiny bottles of DonQ Citron as gifts for people whose gifts we don’t care to give much thought to.
We quite enjoyed watching all the people flying kites at El Morro. It was great to see that Old San Juan isn’t just a tourist trap for outsiders.
Taco Maker is a horrible place, even for Taco Bell standards. Had I known you were into junk food, I would have recommended El Meson, a local chain of sandwich shops that are really nice (and cheap)
I am glad you devoted some time to Old San Juan and liked it. We enjoy it very much and go there at least once a month.
Did you go to Piñones? It is a road that has about 3 miles of kiosk after kiosk with everything deep fried and porky and mofongoish. The fact that you are not posting from a cardiology ICU tells me that you didn’t, but I still have to ask.
KarlGrenze (or any other local), is there such a thing as a produce/seafood market anywhere on the island? I don’t think I have heard of such a thing, and I would love to know if there were one. I know several towns have their “Plaza del Mercado” but the ones I have seen are kinda meh.
ETA: ascenray, did you go anywhere outside the Metro area? Arecibo?