You can TOTALLY go home again... to eat.

Nothing says "happy happy joy joy" to me like homemade Cuban food. And look, I love me some North Carolina but there is no comparison to Little Havana cooks. Abuelitas that have spent their entire lives perfecting piccadillo and frijoles negros, grandfather's teaching their grandsons exactly how to prepare a pig for la caja china, aunts who can time a tostone to perfection and teeny window bakeries serving thimbles of Cuban crack and pastelitos made of guava. 


I landed in Fort Lauderdale just in time for a ginormous sushi lunch @ Sakura in Coral Springs. Don't worry - I'll get to the Cuban in a minute. 

That boat? Yeah it's for TWO people. There were three of us. And still sashimi remained. Florida is a cesspool of humanity but damn if that seafood isn't incredibly fresh and delicious. 


Immediately after lunch my father asked, "So ... Cuban food tonight?"
This plantain did not fall from the tree folks. 

Speaking of plantains....

BAM

Guys, I almost cried. That right there is a plateful of Cuban love. Well... 3 platefuls. Moros, Lechon and Tostones. Or dinner as they call it at Romeu's Cuban Restaurant in Pembroke Pines. The place is run by a bunch of old school Cubans who still use a loudspeaker from the kitchen to call the managers or servers attention. You eat dinner to the sound of "Angelo... se acabo la fricasse" or "Marta.... Marta...Marta."  My family and I crack up every time someone comes over the loudspeaker. And that happens about every 5 minutes. We laugh a lot. 


Oh right... dinner. So here's what you see: 


1) Moros - short for Moros y Christianos - is directly translated as Muslisms & Christians. Actually, the racist version is Coloreds & Christians but I digress. Ya'll that shit is HARD to make at home. You need to add the right amount of liquid for the beans and rice to soften and absorb BUT not so much that you end up with a big pile of flavorless, wet mush. And that is NOT a plate of Cuban love but of Cuban fail. Which I have done about a million times. 


2) Lechon Asada - pork roasted to yummy garlicky perfection. Honestly, I haven't tried to make this in a while and frankly, it should be left to the experts. Tender, pull apart, flavorful deliciousness covered in mojo. What's mojo you ask? It's the perfect combination of garlic, olive oil and citrus juice. Cubans traditionally use naranja agria or sour orange. Because it's a fruit native to Cuba and pretty much smuggled to Miami, you can't find it anywhere outside of FL. What? We're classy with the smuggling of plants!
There's a combination of lemons to limes that mimic the flavor pretty closely if you're tempted to try it at home, use this 3 Guys from Miami recipe.


3) Tostones - fried plantains. Not to be confused with maduros which are fried sweet plantains. These are giant, delicious Frisbees of carbs and salt. My grandmother used to smash the plantain slices down with glass bottles to get the shape right. Now they have all the plantain flatteners you would ever need. I have a feeling these were made the old-fashioned way with elbow grease and a huge glass bottle. The trick to these is keeping the oil hot so they fry crispy rather than absorbing the oil. If you don't have a deep fryer (which I don't and no one in my family ever has), it's a delicate dance between dropping them in, flipping them over, adding new ones and monitoring the heat. I am terrified of hot oil splatter so CLEARLY I haven't even attempted to make these. But oh sweet lord are they amazingly delicious. 


I ate about 1/3 of that meal, saving the majority of the pork and moros for lunch the next day. Honestly, the majority of it is still in my parent's fridge. 


Equally delicious but somewhat horrifying? 

That's my brother's dinner. 
Deep-fried flank steak (he's holding HALF), rice, beans and tostones. 


I gained 5lbs just taking this picture. 


LOOK AWAY BEFORE YOUR JEANS DON'T FIT.