A hot new Cuban spot, no raft required.
There used to be this great date restaurant on Sullivan Street, just above Houston, called Caffe Lure. It was inexpensive, though the food, especially the fish, was quite good. There was a brick pizza oven and carafes of easy-drinking table wine. The atmosphere, above all, made Lure a perfect salve for awkwardness. Something of the manner of an old-world conversationalist came across in the room and service. Doing well without fussing or showing off, the restaurant encouraged quick relief from self-consciousness.
Lure's owner went on to open Thompson Street's Soho Steak. A few years later, Caffe Lure's space came to be occupied by an overreaching Dutch restaurant called NL. Now, one of the men behind Lure has opened a place even more casual than it was. It's a few doors down from his Soho Steak, and it's called Cubana Café. The advance press suggested that the new restaurant's fare was inspired by the dishes New York's Latin-American line cooks prepare for themselves. That's some smart advance press?who doesn't want to try that?
A pair of visits found Cubana extraordinarily laid-back?and cheap?for Soho. The food was hit-or-miss and the service nearly farcical, yet the same modest assurance that made Lure so comfortable was at play. It helped make the misses forgivable and the gaffes almost funny.
Cubana's a basement space and feels like it. Most of the tables are packed in rather tightly along the walls?so it's much more of a group-of-friends restaurant (especially when one or more of your friends is broke) than a date restaurant. Its menu lists big plates and small plates?about 20 of each?with a figure in the $5-$10 range next to damn near all of them.
One of the exceptions is whole red snapper with tomato mango salsa and roasted corn on the cob, for $14. It was indeed exceptional. A pair of succulent filets arrived neatly de-boned, crisp on the outside from careful pan-searing (even though the menu claimed "oven-roasted"). The corn was seasoned with chipotle mayo and a sprinkle of white cotilla cheese.
Our second-best big plate was poblano chile stuffed with shrimp and calamari ($9). The pepper had that slightly cactus-y flavor that calls out for a complementary tequila; the seafood, though arguably underseasoned, was admirably fresh. Speaking of tequila, Cubana has a full bar, though the major attraction seemed to be its $5 mojitos. A selection of Mexican sodas is offered. The house wines are only $3.50 per glass. The red is passable, the white not even close.
Another reason to visit this restaurant is its brunch. A plate of eggs over home fries with chorizo and scallions ($6.50) struck me as something I'd be happy to eat at least one morning per week for the rest of my life.
The Cuban sandwich ($7.50) also went over well. While I wouldn't put it in contention for Best-in-Manhattan honors, it made a strong impression. Too many of the Cuban sandwiches I've tried lately have been over-pressed into what amounts to a ham-and-cheese briquette. Cubana's was toasty and dense, yet still airy enough to be recognizable from a distance as a sandwich. The roasted pork inside was particularly tasty.
My friend who ordered the Cuban asked for pickles on the side, but they were pressed inside the sandwich anyway. More confusion ensued from an order of pulled pork in rioja wine pork gravy ($8.50). All night long, servers had been coming to our table with dishes meant for other tables (and vice-versa). So when a dish with heavy-looking chunks of meat arrived?pulled pork is usually sort of shredded?we figured there'd been a mistake. We asked a waiter, "Is this pulled pork?" He replied first in the negative, then affirmative. It became clear that, to him, the answer depended on whether we wanted pulled pork. That's just silly.
Whatever they were, the cubes were sad and dry, with a wispy suggestion of what might have been wine sauce only adding to the mystery. The side was whipped plantains, creamy, sweet and boring.
Another loser sounded promising: pounded chicken breast marinated in garlic, lime and onions ($9). It was almost as dry as the pork, and even more completely flavorless. Additions of salt, lime and Cubana's homemade spicy-tomato-and-fruit condiment made this dish only mediocre.
Even the red-beans-and-rice included with most of our big plates was strangely bland. It can't possibly represent what Latin-American New York line cooks prepare for themselves. Could it be that someone advised them to tone it way, way down?
In our small plates, we encountered some similar, though less alarming, lapses. Ceviche ($8) featured delicious shrimp and squid, plus the taste of fresh cilantro amplified throughout the little pile. The mouth-watering citrus bite that should be the foundation of ceviche was entirely missing.
Sopa de Mariscos ($6.50) was strongly reminiscent of what you might get from a beachside stand south of the border?which is to say it was more watery than a New York restaurant soup should ever be. Black bean soup ($4), on the other hand, was as exemplary as Cubano's Cuban sandwich, and more original. Its cumin and oregano seasoning suggested a particularly savory and sophisticated bowl of chili.
Our servers and host were so personable we couldn't help but root for this uneven restaurant. Given the owner's wealth of experience, there's every reason to believe the kinks will be straightened out. (Nor would it be surprising if, around the same time, the prices went up.) Perhaps sensing our positive outlook, the host provided some flan and a chocolate brownie for our table, gratis. It's possible he did so because he spotted our party passing plates every few minutes (an activity my pal Shawn says his grandmother called "playing Jewish ping-pong") and correctly guessed that a review was forthcoming. I prefer to believe it was the kindness of his heart.
It was a fine brownie. Just a little dry.