Our first taste of Cuban food came early in our trip – in Miami, the night before our flight to Cuba. The Latin Café was across from our airport hotel. The menu was large and varied with all-American food plus a selection of south-of-the border offerings.
The Latin Café apparently doesn’t have a liquor license, so cocktails weren’t an option. I’d hoped for my first mojito of the trip. Instead, I got sangria and Rick ordered a glass of champagne.
The most adventurous dish we ordered was yuca, also called cassava, a root vegetable that was prepared with onions and a citrusy sauce. We took it as a good sign that we both liked it!
Our first meal in Cuba was lunch the following day in Cienfuegos at a restaurant called Las Mamparas.
This meal set the tone for most of our meals in Cuba. We were offered a choice of chicken, fish, or pork. Cubans rarely eat beef. Cows are for milk and milk is for children.
The side dishes were chef-selected and often served family style.
Typically, the meal began with a salad. Most often the salad was not tossed like American salads. It was a small selection of vegetables, almost always including shredded cabbage, arranged in a pretty manner on a platter. Oil and vinegar would be passed around in cruets.
Besides the salad, we often got rice with black beans (traditionally called Moors and Christians), fresh fruit, and dessert.
I’ll share more details about food in a future post. The meals got a bit more varied when we reached Havana.
Here are my previous posts about our recent trip to Cuba:
- Photos of Entering Cuba
- Book review of Cuban Revelations by Marc Frank
- Photos of the Palacio de Valle
- Book review of Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
- Photos of downtown Cienfuegos
