Find Paradise

My wife, brother and I headed down to the northern part of Ft Lauderdale last weekend for a comic book convention I was attending. Since we know little about the area and had free Wi-Fi at the hotel we were staying at, we poked around Google to find a half-way decent place to find dinner. We were surprised to find that Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine, the Cuban restaurant we so frequented in our youth (my brother and I were born and raised in Hollywood, FL, south of Ft. Lauderdale) had an outpost a few miles nearby on Oakland Park Blvd.
We walked into the restaurant pretty late (the convention exhibition hall closed around 8 at night), and were greeted by a near empty restaurant. Normally in that situation my wife and I would tuck tail and run, because usually an empty restaurant means a crappy restaurant. But since we had prior experience with it’s sister restaurant near our old house, and since there was a brand spanking new Bentley parked out front we approached the host stand expecting a decent meal.
The restaurant itself was nicely furnished, nothing too amazing, with roughly 20 tables. The tables themselves were sort of diner style, with the “Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine” logo prominently lacquered to each table top. After seating, we were quickly approached by a waitress who eerily reminded me of my mother. We ordered drinks and a couple appetizers and while patiently waiting for our drinks we perused the menu.

Quicker than you can say “vaca dice moo”, our drinks and appetizers appeared, we ordered our main dishes and tucked into the hot food that had been delivered. Our first item of attack are a Cuban staple in my book, Croquetas de Jamon or Ham Croquettes. For those who’ve never had them, they’re small deep fried fritters filled with a ham paste and as far as I’m concerned there are two ways to make them: crap or “sweet lordy I can die now”. The croquetas at Las Vegas were of the “sweet lordy I can die now” variety, not only did they get delivered toot sweet, but they were hot, fresh and delicious, a feat my brother and I pondered throughout meal. We take croqueta consumption WAY too seriously. Our other appetizer was Papas Rellenas or a Stuffed Potato Cake, which in essence is a ball of mashed potatoes, stuffed with a well seasoned hamburger meat, then rolled in flour and deep fried. This one was another success, although I thought it was a little too big, I’m used to my papas rellenas as something I can hold in my hand and cover in hot sauce. This sucker was bigger than a grape fruit, so a single person eating one of these would pretty much fulfill your caloric consumption for the day.
We barely got to splendor in the wonder of the appetizers before our main meals arrived. Each one of our meals came with a side of black beans (astounding), white rice (good for white rice), and wonderfully done fried plantains, the only things that differed from each of our meals were the main item themselves. My brother ordered palomilla, which is a flatted steak with garlic lime marinade, and from what I could sneak off his plate it was excellent (how in the world did they cook it so fast). My wife had the bistec de palomilla, which is pretty much the same thing my brother got, but breaded and deep fried (you have to love the Cuban people for that invention), again of what I could steal it was an excellent piece of steak with just the right flavoring (the steak was topped with a garlic onion kind a mash that was muy excellente). I ordered the Masas de Puerco Fritas - Cuban Fried Pork Chunks, something I always order at Cuban place we’re trying out for the first time, in my eyes if they screw that up it isn’t worth coming back. I was surprised when the pork chunks actually came, I’m used to them being small cubes, these were about the size of racquet balls. Cutting into them was heaven, crunchy outside, juicy inside, absolutely perfectly done. I could have closed my eyes and sworn they came out of my grandmother’s kitchen.
The only disappointment of the night was the Cuban coffee, it wasn’t some crappy sludge you’d get at a highway rest stop it just wasn’t…great. But the rest of the meal made up for the coffee. Hell they could have served us a thousand cups of coffee and the meal would had made up for it.

Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine is located on Oakland Park Boulevard between Federal Highway and Ocean Boulevard.

Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine
2807 E Oakland Park Blvd
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33306
(954) 564-1370