Now, I’m not saying I am looking for good Cuban cuisine in Orlando. I’m not in Orlando. Don’t have any reasonable expectation of being there anytime soon. But let’s say that I were in Orlando and that I really, really wanted great Cuban cooking. And that you weren’t annoyed by my use of asterixes.
Where then would you go?
This got started because, feeling nostalgic for the vacations of youth (of which dire poverty and joblessness render impossible a repetition), I borrowed a library vacation books, including one on Disney World. As it happens, I went to the Bongos Cuban restaurant in Downtown Disney once. I found it absurdly delicious.* However, the guidebook dismissed it and reccomended you find other places outside the Big Diz’s property demarcation.
“Wait,” I thought. “Better Cuban cuisine? Can that be done? Would not my soul be forcibly evicted from my body from the mere taste of something better?” To answer (myself), the possibilities forced me to admit it would indeed be worth risking death for try something even better.
Now, I don’t live in Orlando or anywhere in Florida, and I can assure you it’s hard to get a good Cuban sandwich around here, let alone serious Cuban cooking. There was a place, but it’s gone from its absurdly bad location.
*I had a Churrasco: tangy, juicy, and impossibly tender steak. Salted plantains, crisp but not thick or tough. The rice alone practically made me collapse and weep for Divine Mercy on the floor, although to be fair I put a little Chimmichurri sauce on it as well.