Salsa and Meringue Spin into Salsa and Habichuela at Blend Cafe

Take a DJ who mixes sounds from turntables, give him the inspiration of his Dominican mom’s cooking, a year of solid culinary training at The Genesis Center and apprenticeships in Rhody restaurants and you have a different blend: Welbi Genao and his own mix of American and Latin cuisines at Blend Café.

“I wanted to take the Latin buffet style meals and turn them to á la carte,” Genao explains. “And I wanted to do it with supplies I could get locally.”

So a breakfast/lunch menu offers Baffoni chicken tenders with a ricotta waffle or house-rubbed pulled pork on “the ultimate Cuban” (pork from PV Farm Stand) or a biscuit bacon jam burger (PV Farm Stand’s beef, local greens, house-made biscuits) or an El Mayimbe (“big chief”) omelet, with Dominican salami. Not to mention the very popular Blend Burger, with salami, a fried egg and guacamole on a brioche bun!

The dinner menu offers sandwiches as well as entrées, such as Blend’s sofrito roasted chicken and “el churasco,” a grilled skirt steak stuffed with peppers, onions and a house-made sauce. Many entrées are served with yucca fries or habichuela, Dominican-spiced pinto beans.

House-made desserts might include a luscious plantain with walnut tres leches cake.

745 Reservoir Ave., Cranston. 401.270.5533