Last week I was in Havana. Arrived with an appetite and left bent over. I love eating in Cuba, though by all accounts Cuban cuisine has not yet arrived. Travel books deride the state-owned restaurants that dominate, focusing instead on 12-seat privately-owned paladares that are tucked in improbable places throughout the city. Even then, reviews are generally luke warm, with the best loved paladares receiving more acclaim for their atmosphere than for their menu. The travel books are, for the most part, correct. Great food is hard to find in Havana, and certainly anything approaching haute cuisine is an extreme rarity and out of place anyway. So my approach to eating in Havana is to eat fresh and simple. Start with with is on the street. Ice cream sold in windows for 3 Cuban pesos (15 cents) is refreshing and always good. Last week I ate a mamey ice cream cone. Delicious. If you're lucky you will stumble upon a window selling guarapo--freshly squeezed sugar cane juice, ice cold. Look for a line because there is always one but it moves fast. One peso. That's a nickel for a 12 ounce glass. I usually drink two glasses a day. If you're lucky there will be a shooting range next store where you can take a shot at Cuban's least favorite US politician. Slices of pizza are ubiquitous on the street as are ham sandwiches. Old men and women hawk paper cones of peanuts--small, dark roasted, for about one Cuban peso but if you're a yanqui the price sometimes goes up a bit.
Eating in restaurants is uneven and I usually eat too much. The pollo asado is usually reliable. (The restauarant Aljibe is famous for their chicken and worth a visit. Very touristy though.) Fish (pescado) is usually snapper (pargo) and all too often overcooked and too buttery or too bland. Good shrimp, especially camarones aljillo, is common. I like it at Meson de la Flota, near the Plaza Vieja. I especially dig the lechon asado (roast pork) and it's at its best at Palenque, out near the Palacio de Convenciones.
My mistake this trip was eating too much on the front end and then going to Varadero for a day and staying in an all-inclusive resort. Common sense said stay away from the buffet, but we tried it anyway for the convenience. Bad, bad idea. My traveling companion S was in bed for 36 hours. I got by with only a few bruises. Stay away from all-inclusives. Unless you are a fan of cheap cruise ship food.
