Cubana Cafe
There's a sign up for this place right at the intersection of St. Marks and 6th Ave, right by the old Royal Video. Anybody know anything?
Comments
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This should be on the Park Slope board.
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Not much to know other than it's the same folks as the Cubana Cafe on Smith St. and in the Village. If "Cuban" food, done by French Canadians, and having no actual resemblance to actual Cuban food is your thing, then you're in luck.
They'll get a token visit from me to see if they've improved any, but I sincerely doubt it. -
Subject: Ate there
Go! -and even if you don't like flan get the flan so you can suck up the home made caramel sauce with a straw. Everything we had was great, the cooking falls short of that line where gourmet turns from tasty to intellectual, thank god! Mashed Plantains, Plantain chips, Guacamole. Yeah. I'll be back weekly. Wide menu, well made, great atmosphere, and the waitstaff wears the best outfits. Cute/classy cuban art on the ladies, peppy and attractive "Got Mojito" Ts on the guys. When they get through their opening jitters I see this place being really fun. -
If that wasn't a shill, it was a great impression of one
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I do not think Beet is suck! Beet is not suck!
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When will the owners of restaurants learn that if they come here, identify themselves and ask us to give their place a try, it will go a lot further than shilling?
I now have no interest in trying this place. -
wow, that wasn't a shill at all... (cough, cough)
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You know what gets me??!?! Why don't they just offer us a coupon/discount!
"Hey, brooklynian come check out our restaurant and get 10% off"
or buy an ad on the site. Shills are so lame and have the opposite effect. -
i was really waffling about whether to try this place but when i heard about the waitstaffs' outfits i was sold. i mean, the guys are wearing peppy and attractive "got mojito" t's! i love this place already. it's also my biggest pet peeve when cooking crosses the famous line between gourmet and intellectual.
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i love waffles
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it's open for limited hours, in case anyone's wondering. menu looks exactly the same as the other locations.
if you've never met an actual Cuban before, you'll love the food. since they're a block and a half away, i'll see if they've raised their game in the past few years. i don't see it being an everyday destination, cute t-shirts or not. -
Let us know if they serve the flan with a straw. That would be precious.
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I'm married to a Cuban straight out of Miami - we'll eat there and report back!
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the cubana cafe in soho isn't bad at all.
i will definitely give this one a try. -
Just got back from here. It was pretty crowded.
Service was very good other than our particular waitress not being very good with English and us worthless with Spanish. Very quick service, which was nice.
The food:
Chicken soup was great. It tasted really fresh.
Chicken empanadas were kind of meh, but not bad.
Stuffed poblano (OK's report since this is what he had)--very good. Shrimp and 2 or 3 cheeses.
The tres leches was the best I've had (but I've not had a ton, fwiw). I will be back for this many times.
Flan was pretty good, but no straw needed
Great texture and worth having again and definitely now Jell-O flan like I've had other places. -
I went on Friday night and has a mixed experience. This is not strictly Cuban food, more of an amalgam of latin-american fare set to salsa music.
It was super crowded which didn't bother me at first, but the waitstaff kept bumping into the back of my chair; I think I just got a bum seat.
I liked that they started with free Guac and chips, although that is NOT Cuban. They did have plantain chips, which were great with the guac. I ordered the ropa vieja, and the hubbie got the palomilla - technically palmilla is made with steak, theirs is chicken. The meat of my rv was quite good, but was dissaopointed by the rice and beans: the rice was thick, like the kind you get in a mexican restaurant, and the black beans were not black! There was no Sazon, just red beans in soup. We also ordered a side of plantains that came with a spicy mango salsa which I did enjoy. Technically, it should have been partnered with mojo, but as I said before, this is not legitimate Cuban food. We did get the flan, and it was lovely, although mi esposo would have liked more of a burned crust on top.
In the end, the food was fine, but nothing to write home about. It's not "real" Cuban food. I'll stick to Bogota Bistro. -
Palomilla with chicken? I'd love to see them explain that one. I always thought "palomilla" referred to the cut of beef.
To their defense, my favorite Cuban restaurant in Miami, Larios, has a popular dish called "Vaca Frita de Pollo," which is chicken cooked in the smae pan-friend style as Vaca Frita. Sometimes, it doesn't have to make internal sense.
However, Cubana Cafe......A Media Noche is not "half a Cuban sandwich." A Media Noche is the same ingredients as a Cuban sandwich, but on a sweeter, yellow bread. Cuban restaurants do not call their rice and beans "arroz con habichuelas." They call it "arroz con frijoles."
...and, I swear, if your default rice and beans happens to be yellow rice and black beans, then I've given up all hope for you.
Bogota occasionally has a Vaca Frita on their specials which absolutely hits the spot. You all need to order and request it so that it makes the permanent menu one day. -
I walked by yesterday to look at their menu and they serve quesadilla's. NOT CUBAN! Why on earth would they call themselves a cuban restaurant? I'd never been to the place on Smith or in the village, so I got excited that food from the homeland was arriving a block away from my house. Now I'm disappointed and will probably never go. It's almost insulting....
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I mean.....the quesadillas don't even bother me that much. I'm fine with co-opting from other cultures. Every Cuban place on the face of the earth now serves a Tres Leches cake, which I don't ever remember as originating as Cuban. However, serve the quesadilla when the rest of your menu is absolutely 100% Cuban. The reference point for what Cuban food seems to be to this place is Cafe Habana and Habana Outpost.......except those spots never claimed to be Cuban and are actually named after a place in Mexico. Whoops.
How many Cubans are actually on this board? Bring up a place like this and, suddenly, half of us realize we're Cuban. I thought it was only me and Alafanardia.. -
well the 2 of you and I make 3.
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Do you have to be Cuban to have an opinion about Cuban food?
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wonderroom wrote: well the 2 of you and I make 3.
Soy una Frubana - half-French and half-Cuban -
I'm realizing I must be Cuban also, because I'm agreeing with J0518 about pretty much everything on this thread. At the risk of coming across like those annoying people from California who bitch about what is or is not an authentic burrito, I will say that I have lived in South Florida (most of my life) and eaten Cuban food up and down the Florida coast, and restaurants like the one in this thread are just not Cuban. I'm sure they're run by nice people, but they don't have the technique down and their food is not Cuban. But real Cuban is mysteriously rare in NYC, so these folks are not alone. I like a place called Havana Alma de Cuba on Christopher St. in the West Village, but that's about it.
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Flexichick wrote: [quote=wonderroom]well the 2 of you and I make 3.
Soy una Frubana - half-French and half-Cuban
but what percentage of you is soy? -
Karl the Druid wrote: [quote=Flexichick][quote=wonderroom]well the 2 of you and I make 3.
Soy una Frubana - half-French and half-Cuban
but what percentage of you is soy?
almost 0% -
I'm married to a Cuban, does that count?
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Zebra wrote: I'm realizing I must be Cuban also, because I'm agreeing with J0518 about pretty much everything on this thread. At the risk of coming across like those annoying people from California who bitch about what is or is not an authentic burrito, I will say that I have lived in South Florida (most of my life) and eaten Cuban food up and down the Florida coast, and restaurants like the one in this thread are just not Cuban. I'm sure they're run by nice people, but they don't have the technique down and their food is not Cuban. But real Cuban is mysteriously rare in NYC, so these folks are not alone. I like a place called Havana Alma de Cuba on Christopher St. in the West Village, but that's about it.
there's a few good places. if i'm not mistaken, Havana Alma de Cuba is or, at least, was owned by the same folks who own Cuba on Thompson St. by Washington Square Park. Both are very good, I agree. Guantanamera down in Hell's Kitchen impressed me as well. I think they're both slightly overpriced, but they're not as ridiculously overpriced as Son Cubano or Victor's.
Perhaps Cafecito down on Alphabet City has raised its game, but I wasn't too impressed when it first opened.
There's a newer place up in Harlem...name escapes me....that I haven't tried yet. There's also the classic dive, El Sitio, in Queens.
A lot of crap in NYC, though.....agreed. A whole lot.
Nothing for me beats a trip over to Union City for food with some real soul at El Artesano on 42nd and Bergenline. Hasn't changed one bit since I was a kid. -
how is the cuban sandwich?
they have take out? -
Just ate here last night and wanted to add that the prices are really very reasonable and to my mind make up quite a bit for a lack of ideological purity in the menu.
(I know relatively little about Cuban food. The worst Cuban food I ever had was in Havana. But to be fair, the worst Chinese food I ever had was in the People's Republic.) -
the place was packed when i walked by on saturday. looks like a very welcome addition to that area to me.
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