Favela Cubana

Summary

This place has a nice patio and great service. The waitress was very attentive, and the ambiance is definitely very easy-going.

But let’s talk about the food.

The mama margarita I didn’t quite like. It was rather strong and for whatever reason the fruits did not complement well. The pasionfruit caipirinha was not bad, but it wasn’t great. I’ve definitely had better elsewhere in the city. I did think that the drink was made a little strong to my liking.

The herb fries was an accidental delivery, and they snagged it away before we took a bite. It looked decent.

The blue point oysters were pretty good with a lot of juices. Good shucks on these. The mignonette I didn’t care, but the cocktail sauce was good.

The fried yucca, well, tasted like fried yucca. They were pretty crispy and decent. Can’t complain since they were part of the free check-in.

The camarao a baiana seemed decent. I did not have it, but it seemed like a standard dish.

The frango ipanema was interesting with the passion fruit sauce. I don’t think I like passion fruit sauces with my protein, at least in this dish. The chicken was pretty dry and not super tasty. I probably wouldn’t order this ever again.

The gaucho steak was actually cooked very good and tender. And just looking at this picture, you pretty much should have a good idea of how it tastes. It was served with a side of chimichurri. There was nothing particularly special about this dish, but guaranteed to be consistent.

Final Verdict

All in all, I felt the dinner here was pretty adequate. There wasn’t a lot of great things to talk about nor bad things. I think this is an average Brazilian Cuban-ish fusion place that has a decent ambiance with decent food.

Yelp Jabs

As a vegetarian the menu did not offer much to me.

There should be a vegetarian review section on Yelp.

Extremely disappointed that my party had such a poor experience here for bottomless brunch, as we had all been looking forward to this for a very long time.

That is unfortunate, but then again it’s also unfortunate that people have high expectations for a bottomless brunch. Then again it is near NYU, so perhaps my expectations ought to be different.