Even though this restaurant is known for having good mojitos, I was in the mood for an Old Fashioned. All of us ordered at the bar for our first drink, while we were waiting for a few stragglers to arrive. Once we were ready to be seated, we had to close our tab at the bar. My friends, and I both felt that the bartender was kind of a pain about closing our tab. He would not let you pay for our drinks separately and made the whole paying experience a pain.
Finally, once seated, we were ready to eat. I ordered my second Old Fashioned of the night, and when it arrived at the table, it wasn't the same as the first. I had to ask the waitress to have it remade because of its abundance of soda water (Old Fashioneds aren't even supposed to have soda water in them). She was very willing to help out in this matter, and actually asked me which bartender had made the first one, since apparently one of them was better at making drinks than the other. Interesting!
When we received our menus, I noticed there were completely separate menus for the Cuban food and the Italian food. I had read Yelp reviews before dining here, and had heard that they were separate, but kind of had hoped that there would have been some type of fusion between the two. But, they literally were completely separate. I definitely think this is a little bit weird, but a little bit cool. Its nice that as a diner, you have the option to go either way and so do your dining companions. At the same time, it would be more exciting and interesting if the two types of foods were combined in some way with different influences from each culture. I have gone to a restaurant where Mexican and Italian were combined, called Matilda, and thought it was more unique in this way because the Mexican dishes had some italian spices in them, and vice versa.
Cuban Menu
Italian Menu
We were given delicious bread and olive oil for the table, which they actually continued to bring us throughout the night. It was nice, because the dish I ordered had an amazing sauce for dipping!
Super Soft Bread and Olive Oil
As a group, we decided to order a few appetizers and sharing dishes for the table. We went with the traditional Cuban sides: Calamari salad, Yucca Frita, and Sweet Plantains. The Yucca Frita were tasty, but not as good as I am used to. I am used to eating my Yucca fries in the style served at Pio Pio or Tina's Cuban Cuisine. I mush prefer the Yuca fries from those places because they feel less fried, and have a lot more Yucca, and remind me more of steak fries.
Yucca Frita
The Sweet Plantains I loved! They were huge and very juicy :)
Sweet Plantains
The Calamari Salad was tasty, but not meant for sharing in such a large group. Each person got about two bites of calamari and 2 pieces of vegetables. But all in all, it was tasty, but I think I would have preferred more of a ceviche style dish.
Calamari Salad
For my main entree, I decided to order off the Cuban menu since I can order Italian anywhere. I ordered the Ceviche Caliente because I had seen a picture of it on Yelp ahead of time, and I love seafood! Meanwhile, it came out looking completely different from the pictures I had seen. It was very soupy and was actually missing the potatoes that the menu had mentioned accompanying the dish. Three of us had ordered this dish, and all of us were missing it! When we advised the waitress, she felt extremely bad, and brought out a bowl of potatoes for us, which actually were like icing on the cake! They were so delicious! The actual dish, was very good, but felt like it was missing a starch to soak up the soupy sauce. I felt like rice would have been a nice addition to this dish. Otherwise, the general flavor of the dish made me happy.
Ceviche Caliente
Bon Appetit!
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