Puerto Rican Fried Fest

For my last day in Seattle proper, we explored the Ballard neighborhood. After checking out one cute ass store after another, we got some lunch at La Isla, a puerto rican restaurant. I've eaten all kinds of ethnic foods, but I've never actually eaten puerto rican food before. So this was a first.
The place is pretty small, and the tables are packed quite close together. There is also outdoor seating. Everything is bright and colorful with ethnic art all over the place. We got there fairly early, and it was pretty much empty, but it started filling up quickly.
We got the plato de aperitivo, which was a sampler of their appetizers. We picked ours with shrimp empanada, veggie alcapurria, bacalaito, and tostones. The shrimp empanada kicked ass. I really loved it. The alcapurria was pretty good too. The bacalaito I did not care for. It's a cod fritter, and to me, it just seemed like fried hard fish. The tostones were good too, but fairly plain.
For our main dishes, we both ended up getting empanada lunch specials. A got the papa empanada, which is made with a potato filling. She got plain rice.
I got the ground beef empanada, which was good, but nothing exciting. I preferred the shrimp one. I got mine with their rice and beans, which was quite amazing. And the sauce accompanying the empanadas is good too. But really, did I need so much?
Service was good, prices were quite reasonable. Although perhaps everything was a bit too deep fried for me, it was a fun introduction to puerto rican food. I would definitely try it again, but perhaps I'll venture into the non fried category.