Meh.
I suppose I should elaborate.
We had a late lunch outside at the Ocean Drive Havana 1957, in the Marriott Pulse, while we were waiting for check-in time. There’s another Havana 1957 on Lincoln and a third venue on Espanola, all within a short walk of each other. All do a good business. It’s a new chain (unlike, say, Pho 75, the name doesn’t memorialize the date the owners fled communism), but the indoor decor nicely evokes pre-Castro Cuba.
I ordered the Cuban sandwich. It’s a huge sandwich, enough for two.
But it’s like Oakland. There’s no there there. The pork is nice enough roast pork, but it isn’t the mojo-marinated lechon asado that makes a Cuban sandwich one of the world’s great sandwiches. And look at all that ham, fighting the pork for the spotlight, trying to upstage the star. It’s a huge sandwich, as I say, and it’s a tasty sandwich, but it’s a meh Cuban sandwich by Peoria standards. Very subpar for Miami.
When was the last time you had potato sticks? It had been years — decades — for me. They’re an excellent salt delivery system.
The South Beach Havana 1957 has live music in the evenings — very Cuban, very good — and each of the Havana 1957s is excellent for people-watching. Go there for a drink or, since this is South Beach, three. Then go to Chalan on the Beach, the Peruvian place a few blocks off the beach, for a really good dinner.
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