Cuba Visited 3/26/2011 4 Forks

Cuba 222 Thompson St., (between 3rd St & Bleecker St), New York, NY 10012

 I've never been to Cuba (although if they ever lift the travel embargo it will most definitely be on my top ten travel destinations) but if this restaurant is any indication of how the food is there, I would totally love it there.  A bunch of girlfriends and I went there on a crowded Saturday night for a bachelorette party for my good friend Neera.  We were seated downstairs which was nice because the house band is upstairs and while it makes for a nice lively addition for the restaurant, it can be deafening loud.  But unfortunately, after being downstairs for a bit you start to realize it's still also ridiculously loud as well.  I only heard about every 4th word of the girls who were seated about an inch away from me. 

But on to the food...the menu has a great selection of upscale appetizers, seafood, meat, chicken, and paella.  Our table ordered a bunch of appetizer to start and I got the paella valenciana ($22) as an entree.  I saw the paella at another table and thought it was small enough portion for 1 person but given that I had been eating cupcakes and cheese all day, I would have been better suited to have shared it with someone else.  We started with the ceviche mixtoa ($11), croquetas ($8), montadito de chorizo ($8) and a variety of other appetizers that I didn't get to try.  The ceviche was delicious.  The fish and scallops were incredibly fresh and it had the perfect amount of cilantro and lime juice and red onion.  It was definitely one of the better ceviche dishes I've had in the city.  The croquetas were filled with ham and came with a tomato salsa.  They were fried just right and the filling was creamy and flavorful.  But I actually could have done without the tomato salsa.  It didn't really add any real value to the already delicious croqueta.  The chorizo dish was almost like a bruschetta type of dish.  It had bits of chopped up chorizo and chimichurri sauce on a small piece of soft bread.  It was good and the bread was super soft, but it didn't blow my mind.  What did blow my mind was their moojitos.  I loved that it came with actual raw sugar cane in the glass and it was the perfect mix of sugar, mint and rum.  The two best places I've ever had mojitos were in Mexico and Miami and now I can say at Cuba NYC.  Equally as delicious was my seafood paella.  Don't let the size of the dish fool you.  It looks like it's a perfect size for one person but if you get any appetizers before hand, you realize after that first bite that you will not be able to finish your dish.  There was a good number of clams, mussels and calamari and the rice was perfectly seasoned with saffron.  I was a huge fan of this dish and ended up taking half of it home with the intention of eating it for lunch the next day.  Instead, I ended up finishing it at 2AM that night because I had such a craving to finish the rest of it (ok and because I was drunk too). 

The only kind of bummer food wise was the dessert.  But to be honest, similar to Asian food, I don't think that Latin/South American food is really well known of great sweets.  We ordered the flan (I mean, you can't not order flan in a place like this), warm chocolate cake and tres leche de coco (each $7).  I actually liked the tres leche dish the best.  It was a nice light sponge cake with fruit topped on it.  It felt pretty refreshing after eating a pound of rice and seafood.    It wasn't very impressed with either the chocolate cake or flan, they were just ok. But to be honest, I was so full at that point that I probably had almost no capacity to really truly appreciate any kind of food. Overall, we had a great time and it was a super festive environment.  I totally recommend it for a fun night out.  But if you want to go to a place where you can have an actual conversation and to be able to hear your dinner companion, this probably isn't the place for you.