050: sea tea

Steph happens to be one of the best cooks in my life right now. She's no master chef but the ingredients are perfect and the execution is dead on. What else do you need in a meal?
We all mashed this at her place on new years eve.

Blessed salad.


avocados are key.


the turnip-carrot combo was lovely because of the sugariness of the carrots. the immaculate rice got bukkaked with soya only moments later.

mmm.

049: cake shop girl

Back home, I'm a big fan of hot oats or fancy cereals, but I know too well how stoked Central America is on their eggs. It's definitely the freshest option and helps out with the energy needed for biking. A friend of mine recently divulged he had never eaten eggs until this winter and was shocked that he actually loves them!

Omlette con queso. This set my standards a little high...


This was the egg sandwich we ended up getting, that thankfully was not encased in slabs of cake.


God, another omlette con queso... with fruit, bread roll, and guava juice.


There was a brief excitement over these jugs of watermelon juice at a breakfast. The brevity may have been attributed to:
1) lacking flavor and overly watery,
2) water! holy coli, we're not supposed to be drinking the tap stuff,
3) Cuban hotels just suck at food. I'm over it.


Omlette con queso, pineapple, bread and these little turds that I thought were tater tots but were actually just breaded nibs of creamed spam with flecks of real ham. Oh and nice milky tea. mmm.
Then we grabbed some breadsticks and set off on a hike to a waterfall where we spotted rainbows!


Colour themes. I'm such a dork.

048: killa bee that be holdin down his honeycomb

Not much of a dessert person by nature, but apart from the ice creams a few posts down, here are the sweet things we mashed in Cuba.

Some soft-serve in Old Havana. Vanilla-caramel. Actually pretty dope.


Sometimes, restaurants or casas give you fruit before your meal. I guess it's a slight cultural difference that we tend to eat fruit after. Still, have you ever eaten sliced guava? Me neither.


A pretty epic rice pudding.


This was new to me. Apparently marmalade con queso is a regular dessert there. Translation: liquified jam with CHEESE. This one was mango but we also had guava at a couple places. It's supposed to be a beautiful contrast between the salty cheese and the sweet jam but I was just too revolted.


Shared this. The brown slabs in the corner are the nut bars Jose was crazy about. Also, grapefruit, rice pudding, ice cream and a random white slab of nuttiness.


These flans were the dessert at the same place with the spoon con queso. Guess which one was mine. I hate wobbly foods, so this was pretty gross to me.


Cuba is known as a cheap country but unless you stay at an all-inclusive or have access to civilian pesos, that is not the case! This pastry was the best value I got the whole trip (and on the final day. alas). Still haven't figured out what was inside... best guess is appley coconut paste. Either way, it was phenomenal.


Chow!

047: remember when i used to eat sardines for dinner

While I would love to bike around the Cuban countryside all day, listening to Gulag Orkestar or Song Islands, at one point we stopped to go to the beach. Though I've done all that bronze cross nonsense, I'm not too into swimming. Digging my toes into the rising and falling tide was enough for me.


Set up camp in a little hut that looked out over the expansive powder blue sea.


Lovely Jose had a sac full of food which he emptied onto the table. But I'd never seen a combination quite like this: bread rolls, chicken hot dogs, green tomatoes, sardines, guava jelly, mayonnaise, and a piquant red sauce.


Starving, I crafted a hot dog and sardine sandwich with tomates, some mayo and the red stuff. I'd never eaten a sardine before so I pulled out that little thing that looks like a SPINAL COLUMN and tossed it aside. All in all, to a starving foodblogger with heatstroke, this sandwich tasted fine. The sand still stuck in my camera is not fine. Canon will be receiving large package soon.


Later, we cut off slabs of the guava jelly and ate it between bread for dessert. Delicious and not atkins-friendly.


**Two days later**
We stopped for a picnic in a town square and the boys began unpacking the same food. Check out brave Jose, opening a tin of fish with a large knife. Also, check out his bandaged finger. What a champ.


Bowl of seasoned sardines. Jesus.


My reason for posting this picture is to make you feel sick. Did it work?


Later, I asked our local guide David how he maintained high energy yet we never saw him eating (especially not any hot dog or sardine sandwiches). He chuckled and stealthily ran across the street and came back with a pizza! Guess what kind? Ham and cheese!

046: twisted tongue

If you've read my blog for a while, you can tell which meals I feel good about and which I just wanna post and get out of the way, so as not to feel sneaky. Which is how I felt about 90% of the dinners I ate in Cuba. This post is more just to display the lack of culinary diversity, not exemplary vs. poor technique. I also feel need for a disclaimer: most of this is hotel food, and while I'd rather eat in people's homes, this was usually the only option. More interesting grub will follow.

roast chicken is the easiest thing for a tourist to order but it was fine and moist enough.


this meal was a long time coming. the bus carrying our luggage had to overcome some obstacles getting to the hotel, but after that, we had a buffet feast with wine. two types of rice was good. the thing on the right that resembles potato salad with gratuitous noodles, however, was not.


turkey, rice&beans and mashed yucca with a glass of cristal: Christmas Dinner


a salad of cabbage, cukes and beets


this huge meal was Xmas day lunch: turkey, cukes, cristal, chips and rice& beans that was apparently shaped with a mold. sweet. ate this overlooking a gorgeous swimming hole.


happy people swimming


this was a bizarre one. our gorgeous hotel in Soroa had an outdoor grill, where I got this shrimp & olive shish kebab (could there be a more perfect skewer for me?). the flaccid mass of pasta on the bottom left was a Cuban interpretation of canneloni: the interior was rice, beans, peas, bits of carrots. truly bizarre. as I was in the land of ham and cheese, cold cuts were obtained along with pickles and more olives. ha. you can tell a lot about someone by what they eat at a buffet (our lovely bus driver Jose filled his plate with grapefruit, pineapple, bananas and nut bars) and based on these findings, I will cease to have a readership.


grilled fish at a sports bar in Havana. meh. I suspect it was dredged in salt.


one of our last dinners: turkey with cabbage and domed rice&beans.
Earlier in the month, my mom had a bit of a row with the manager of the restaurant and as a result, he dispensed filthy cutlery to me. truly hurt and grossed out, I approached him and demanded why my spoon was "Con Queso". he was overcome with laughter and didn't start anymore shit with us after that.


one last night of Cuban beer.

Bucanero!

045: strawberry jam

This holiday was one of the craziest and most enjoyable yet. It's all about loosening up and enjoying friends, food and fun. Here is a pre-Christmas meal once again at my neighbour's house. There is something so magical about the way Lisi cooks. She showed me how she makes schnitzel.
Next time, I wanna learn to make spaetzle.

This is the Austrian equivalent of matzo ball soup.


Freshly dredged and fried schnitzel! There is a mix of bludgeoned veal and lean beef.


Luckily, I watch enough of the Food Network that I immediately recognized these to be fingerling potatoes and wasn't at all shocked that some of them were purple!


I love when kids have their food sliced into a million pieces. Do you see the purple tater?


Oh hai.


The kids brought over these cookies which had pieces of toblerone in the centre. cute.


And obviously tea.


One thing I've learned far too late is how lovely winter is when you're dressed right for it. Leave your phone at home, put on big dorky boots and mitts and go for a walk in the snow!

just ate

me: today, for lunch i had a venti vanilla rooibos and a vegan vegetable wrap
Lucy: are you 40 now?

044: hey coffee eyes

Here is an amusing mix of food from Cuban paladars and ice cream!

Spanish lesson of the day. Helado = Ice Cream.
Heladeria = Ice Cream Shop.


This was from Paladar Aries, across from the University of Habana. Chicken Fricasse!


Fruity icy cream at a cafe in Trinidad.


A really unfortunate photo of spit-roasted pork at Paladar Nerei


Ice cream at Coppelia. Unfortunately, we were spotted as being tourists and not carriers of local pesos, so we were forced to sit in an excluded area and buy vastly overpriced hazelnut ice cream. booo.


More Cuban food coming up!

043: pour a little salt, we were never here

A horrible snap judgement was made after my very first meal in Cuba (a withered, anonymous fish filet which shall never be posted): nobody in this country can cook!
Thankfully, in Trinidad, this was proven wrong. The owner of the casa where we stayed (Casa Tamargo) was not only a delightful host but a great cook. This breakfast may not showcase her talent, but it was too lovely to exclude.

The indoor but somewhat outdoor dining area.


An assortment of things to accompany breakfast. Fresh pineapple and papaya ftw.


Basket of fresh bread (which was used to make one of the sandwiches a couple posts down).


My mom got really excited thinking this was cornbread and asked if she could get an egg sandwich between two slices. Our host was really confused and didn't oblige. Good thing, as it turned out to be really bland cake.
Also, fresh guava juice and curls of butter make me so happy.


Scrambled huevos.


Cocoa made with steamed milk. Though I had tea.


I wish I could eat breakfast at a sunny table every day.