Havana, West Palm Beach, Florida

If you’re staying in Palm Beach County, Florida, the place to go for Cuban food is Havana Restaurant.  It’s a couple of miles south of downtown, at the corner of US 1 and Forest Hills, just a 7 minute drive from Mar-a-Lago, if you’re staying there.  We don’t.  We stay on Singer Island, well north of downtown, so it’s a bit of a hike for us, but well worth  it.

Regular readers will guess what I always order there.

The lechon asado is delicious, very rich and meltingly tender, redolent with garlic, and with a generous touch of sour orange juice.  Wonderful.  And the black beans are great.  We’ve eaten here with a number of other people who are not as pork-centric as I, and everyone has loved their food.

Nancy and I rarely eat dessert.  (I consider banana pudding a side dish.)  Nancy always eats sensibly, or at least as sensibly as possible when you’re around me, and I focus my calorie intake on meats and breads.  Buttered breads.  At Havana, though, we indulge.

Nancy, the world’s greatest expert on all things custard, always gets the flan.  I get the tres leches cake.  Milk does a body good.

We’ve been to Havana numerous times with friends from all over, and every time, everyone has been thrilled with their meals.

By the way, I think I took these pictures at lunch, after our visit to the Croquet Hall of Fame.  It’s a lovely place, well worth a visit, with many, many beautifully manicured croquet courts, and many players dressed entirely in white (which makes them pretty easy to spot at the Havana afterwards).  They have a restaurant and bar, and a broad veranda that just cries out for you to sit down and have a gin and tonic while you watch the players.  And you can schedule a free lesson on Saturdays.  (I missed the subsequent free lesson outing because I had to work on my Alabama redistricting case.  The sacrifices I make!)  Did you know croquet is huge in Egypt?  I’m told that Egypt has seven TV channels devoted to croquet.

There are a lot of good places to eat in Palm Beach County, including many good seafood places.  We usually eat seafood when in Florida, but my favorite place to eat in and around Palm Beach is Havana.  You really need to go there to see just how good it is.

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