I wanted to love this place. I am not a cigar smoker, but thought the idea was really niche and a good idea for the area and thought cuban food is not something you see often here, so I went to check out the food and just see what it was about. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to love it; I didn't. The waitress was lovely, attentive, and sweet natured, the atmosphere is calm and trying very hard to give up upscale, but just didn't quite hit the mark. I will say it was very clean, seriously, it had the cleanest public restroom I have seen, so definitely winning there. This is where the winning stops. The menu at its best is upscale bar food. Alot of the names and descriptions on the menu describe Cuban food, but the food actually presented is not. I ordered a steak salad with oil and vinegar dressing, my friend had a chicken salad with ranch and Cuban dusted fries. The chicken salad gives you and option of crispy or grilled. She opted for the crispy. When it came, the chicken was a Tysons frozen chicken patty someone put in the fryer cut up in bite size pieces and tossed on top of the salad. My steak, while cooked exactly right, had zero flavor. Straight up tasted like oil. Both salads were made out of wilted, slightly brown iceberg lettuce, 3 small pieces of cucumber
, 2 cherries tomatoes halved, 3 green cherries tomatoes halved, a bunch of purple onion, a tablespoon of pre shredded (like the kind u get from great value) cheese, and 3 slivers of shaved carrot. My dressing was oil and vinger. There was no vinegar in there. It was a straight cup of evoo. No flavor or seasoning anywhere. Not on the steak, not in the dressing. Nothing. I actually picked the steak out salted and peppered at the table and put A1 on it just to have flavor. Did not finish the salad part at all. My friend did not eat her chicken and ate 1/2 the salad part and pushed it away. The Cuban dusted fries when we asked we were told the dust was a sweet with a spicy back kick. It was a whole bunch of dry wing dust on top of some oily soggy fries. We love potatoes and didn't even eat half the plate.
We then decided maybe try dessert, trying to find something worth coming back for. I literally said to my friend "it is difficult to find a good dessert around here and theirs sounds "fancy" let's give it a try and just see if they can redeem themselves.
I can't remember the exact names of the deserts, but it was something like bannana foster cheesecake and mine was suppose to a tres Leche cake. The description of the cheesecake indicates that the bannanas on the cheesecake are to be caramelized and then drizzled in bourbon. What we got was a piece of frozen new York cheese cake with cold bannanas cut up placed on top, with Hershey syrup drizzled over the top and a quick squirter of readi whip. NO bourbon, no carmelization anywhere. My tres Leche cake was described as a chocolate tres Leche cake with melted chocolate over the top a cinnamon mocha liqoure that was to be poured over top table side. What I got was a piece of very dry crumbly white Duncan Hines cake, with prepackaged cream cheese frosting, hershey's chocolate syrup and caramel syrup drizzled under the cake directly on the plate. A quick squirter of reddi whip, and a huge dusting of cinnamon spice. When I questioned the waitress as to why it wasn't chocolate, where is the tables idea liquore service? She looked confused and just said that is the cake. Neither of these are as described or what we ordered. She agreed and did refund our dessert.
About 10 mins after leaving and being in the car both of us felt heavy in the stomach and indigestion, which is weird from a salad. We believe it was all the oil on the chicken, steak, and my dressing.
I want you to succeed. I think more businesses need to around here, but if you are going to you need to ensure your head chef is purchasing the proper high end ingredients, understands the menu, and cares that his product matches or exceeded the description provided. A restaurant lives and dies by a well trained, attentive chef.
