Monday, April 25, 2005
Cuizon: Where salsa is in the air
By ERMA CUIZON
BIRD BY BIRD
YOU arrive at the door and a pretty girl greets you, “Hola!.” Then you get reminded of Cuba’s El Dictador Diablo, Fidel Castro, and you remember how you met Cubans in Florida who are not evil but muy gracioso, like this pretty Filipino girl at the door of the new Café Havana in Ayala Cebu.
I’m not a gourmet (and heavens, not a gourmand!) but I have timeless favorites of food preparations and, standing there in the newly, softly opened resto-bar, I felt that I was in the right place. There at one table for lunch at the café owned by Larry Cruz, one of three (the others in Malate and Greenbelt, now in Cebu), I smelled gambas, paellas, lenguas, for starters….
I have my own favorite choices of food and wine borne out of habit. Like white wine, instead of red, and gambas for aperitif, and the old childhood memory of a personal taste for Spanish cuisine evocative of Grandma’s estofados, among others. So when I sat there dining at Café Havana in Ayala, old memories came through a sensation in the tongue.
It was lunch but we were told there’s music, and perhaps dancing? in the evening (live bands on weekends) to go with the Cuban cuisine and the Cuban national drink called mojito, which is a rum-based cocktail. And my head played away Father’s favorite dances, like salsa or rumba, mambo, cha-cha, also samba?
A restaurant by day, a salsa place by night, it is.
I told myself Café Havana, one of only three Cuban restaurant-bars in the country, could cater to a certain age market in Cebu, too, that yearns for Caribbean music suggestive of the Spanish, even as the café would also bring out the modern Latino Cubano sounds.
Take my word for it (I usually don’t offer this) but under Pescados y Crustaceos is a yummy Spanish Caribbean Salmon with Mango Mambo Sauce and savor it. It’s fillet salmon with mango and grain mustard, a blend of the Spanish and the Caribana, served with black squid ink rice.
Then perhaps a pepper steak as main.
For dessert, try Smokeless Cigar, whose name has been inspired by the gesture of Fidel Castro’s giving up (finally) smoking big cigars.
But even if you don’t try out Hot Baby Octopussy under Tapas, consider the thought of you wholeheartedly consuming sautéed baby octopus with garlic, capsicum, jalapeño and Cuban spices.
And would the taste of Lengua Estofado Fidel be yummy, too?
Of course, you’d know that the owner Larry G. is a writer influenced by Ernest Hemingway, who was well loved by Cubans. In the menu, there is Pepper Steak Hemingway under Platos Pincipales and Pasta Papa Hemingway under Pasta Havana.
Much of the romantic city of Havana, in terms of taste, is here among us these days.
(emc@sunstar.com.ph)
(April 25, 2005 issue)
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