Cuba

Summary

This is the first outdoor restaurant experience in the COVID-19 temperament where we had waiter service. We were walking around looking for something to eat with a friend, and this was nestled in a small street with a group of restaurants. It had space and tents set up to span all of their tables. I won’t talk much about the ambiance at this particular restaurant because I loathe eating outdoors in humid NYC heat in the city. So let’s go straight to the food.

Our vegetarian friend got the croquetas de setas, which are béchamel croquettes with porcini mushrooms. They look pretty good based on the pictures, but I did not taste it because I dislike mushrooms. They did eat all of it though, but commented that it was salty.

They also got berenjenas rellenas, which is eggplant gratin stuffered with roasted vegetables. I am not crazy about vegetarian food, so hopefully this picture is worth 20 words!

I ordered the lechon asado, which is shredded roasted suckling pig, with tender cassava and rice. The shredded pork was exactly how I’d expect. It was full of pork flavors, succulent, tender, juicy, and very satisfying. It was slightly oversalted, but the rice and cassava complements that pretty well. The cassava was tender but with not much flavor. Regardless, I think the star here was the pork, so if you haven’t had pork in a while, this would be an excellent dish to order.

My partner ordered the ropa vieja, which is shredded skirt steak braised in salsa criolla, peppers, onions, and tomatoes. It was served with rice and beans (pictured at the top). I am guessing the skirt steak was served in a plantain type vessel. The skirt steak itself was very flavorful, tender, and somewhat saucy.

For me, I think you can’t go wrong with the lechon asado. Cubans definitely do the pork dishes well! Not pictured, we also ordered a passion fruit mojito. This was pretty good, but really nothing special. It does satisfy the quench somewhat on this hot humid day. Keep in mind that the menu is much smaller than expected, but I’m pretty sure they picked their best dishes to offer.

Final Verdict

Cuba NYC is a great outdoor COVID-19 restaurant to go to if you are near Washington Square. The menu is much smaller than the typical affair, but you can’t go wrong with the dishes that we ordered.

Yelp Jabs

We got the Cubano sandwich and beef sandwich. My bf tried both sandwiches in the past and said he the quality went down since then, so I’m not sure what happened.

Hmm, are we in a pandemic, or is everything back to what it was? As much as I would like every restaurant to have the exact same experience and quality in this pandemic situation, that would be completely unrealistic. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt that the boyfriend has ordered takeout before and has a level of expectation for takeout quality when it’s eaten. So yeah go figure, this Yelp Elitist still hasn’t realized that restaurants and suppliers are trying to get by through these hard times.

You want great Cuban food? Go to Rincón Criollo in Queens, NY.

It would be funny but sad if this person intentionally went all the way into the Manhattan to get Cuban food. I am just guessing that most people in Manhattan won’t have unrealistic expectations for Cuban food compared to the ones out in Queens, let alone where (Corona) this suggested restaurant is.