Death by Cubano Cuisine

img 5510 300x225 Death by Cubano Cuisine

Palacio de los Juegos in Miami

If somebody told us that we could actually die from eating too much Cuban food at once, we would look them straight in the eye and say:

“We’ve been to Miami. We know.”Every guide book/article/TV show on Miami recommends venturing into Little Havana and seeking out a restaurant/institution called Versailles (3555 SW 8th Street).

So on the day after Christmas 2008, we went. And had a wonderful time in a parallel universe.

A few things to know first:

1. It’s pronounced Vur-SIGH-yes, in a Cuban interpretation of the famous French palace. The signing of the 1763 Treaty of Paris in the Palace of Versailles was a huge turning point for Cuba, when Spain was told to back off and let Cuba grow into its own. Which, of course, Cuba promptly did.

2. English is only begrudgingly spoken here. Our unsmiling waitress, a brassy Latino bottle blonde with dark lipstick and talon-sharp nails, responded to my broken-Spanish queries with the same patience of those who beat the mentally retarded. However, a gracious, friendly manager in a starch-stiff, forest-green blazer (that incidentally seemed to say, “1964 is calling and would like its blazer back”) made sure our meal arrived and deftly handled our bill when we finally chose to peel ourselves up from the table.

3. Nothing here comes without an implied warning from the American Heart Association. The fresh-baked bread is so white you could sled on it. One of the most popular items is a medianoche, a sandwich of spicy, layered pork cooked in its own fat. Fried onions, beans, tomatoes and plantains are the only vegetables. Be strong.

4. Our simple, delicious breakfast of fried chicken croquettes, garlic rice, black beans, scrambled eggs, and bacon, served with baskets of buttered bread and drop-dead exquisite cafe con leche (Cuban espresso with condensed milk), was $10.50…for the both of us.

The last time we’d had a breakfast so cheap, we had to drink it with a straw.

While we stuffed ourselves silly, the vintage-60s dining room (replete with frilly, scroll-edged mirrors) filled up with Cuban Miami: Sassy grandmothers in kitten heels, trophy wives just off the tennis court, white-haired lions with shirts unbuttoned to golden saints, and shiny-cheeked businessmen shaped like potatoes, speaking Spanglish between bites of medianoche.

But the real action was outside.

Versailles has an express bakery counter where you can stand around in the Miami sun sipping tiny cups of coffee and munching fruit-stuffed empanadas with old Cubano men in shirtsleeves and hats…and wait for news cameras to appear. Anytime anything happens in Cuban politics, this is where the reaction interviews go down. But judging from the din we heard, debate rages out there with or without a spotlight.

After Versailles, cafe con leche formed a hold on our lives I can only compare to a 48-hour madness. We stopped at bars, cafes, holes in the wall at mini-malls. It always tasted like rich, sweet heaven, and we’d both swear it made us more witty and attractive. I’d make it for us at home, but what if it turns out it only works in Miami?

We cut our caffeine onslaught with fresh-squeezed fruit juices and tostones (curly, fried plantain chips) from the Palacio de los Juegos (5721 W. Flagler Street, which is a lot farther along residential/industrial Flagler than you’d hope). This indoor-outdoor Cuban market (pictured above) requires either rapid-fire Spanish or lots of pointing; when it’s finally your turn, 10 more people are waiting. Enormously popular despite being squat and ugly, here you can eat garlic pork rinds right out of the fryer, order a whole cooked chicken, or, like me, sip from the world’s most gorgeous cup of watermelon juice.

Our last night in town, we were lucky enough to have dinner at Havana Harry’s in Coral Gables (4612 S. Le Jeune Rd., (305) 661-2622). Twice the size of Versailles and decorated like an upscale, saltillo-tiled Mexican restaurant, the dining room was filled with multi-generational Cuban families. We were greeted in Spanish and grateful that we’d taken the extra time to put on our last clean clothes of the trip. It’s not fancy, exactly, just extremely respectable. Jeans and t-shirts might feel a little wrong here.

Either way, we had come not for fashion but for the vaca frita. In short, this is an ungodly massive plate of tender, shredded beef, lovingly steeped in garlic and spices until, even when the dish is plated, the seasoning gives off its own heat. Paired with soft, pan-fried plantains and the national dish of Cuba, Platillo Moros y Cristianos (spicy black beans and white rice), this is our idea of a huge meal.

But here, we were solid amateurs. All around us, people were scarfing down starchy appetizers like empanadas and croquetas, having entrees as big or far larger than ours, then chasing it all with dairy-based desserts. Beer and mojitos were free-flowing, but it was all we could do to finish our half-pitcher of sangria. We regretted only that we hadn’t worn our comfy pants to dinner.

And to think, some folks in Miami eat like that every night. The whole idea begs the question:

“Who the hell wants to live forever, anyway?”