#65 New Restaurants: Havana Cafe AND #66 New Food: Various Cuban Food

It's the 4th of July, and we didn't have any plans, so we did the most patriotic thing we could think of - eat Puerto Rican food! Haha!

You know, I wasn't too impressed with this. I mean, it wasn't bad by any means, but it was sooo expensive! My plate (it was a lot of food, granted) cost $17.00. My food was great - not that I had any idea what I was really eating. I ordered the San Juan Combination which was a whole bunch of things I'd never had before, including a pastele (Puerto Rican tamale), mofongo, alcapurrias (if this was what I thought it was - and I didn't know one food from another on the plate - then it was my favorite), tostones (which were far too dry), arroz con gandules, and masas de puerco. I really liked most of the food, but my stomach had never encountered most of the spices before, and wasn't too pleased with me afterwards. Plus, the majority was either fried or naturally greasy in some capacity, and that didn't sit too well either.

Anthony tried the pulled pork and really didn't like it. It just wasn't his type of spices. His order cost $20. So after all was said and done, it was over $50 just for dinner. And it was decent food, a new experience for sure, but not worth $50 for a single meal!

Actually, my very favorite part of the meal was the bread that they brought out. They had AMAZING bread! Mmmm....yes, that was the best part! But again, I'm not spending another $50 for good bread and decent food.

Oh, and just a word of advice: puerto rican food does not reheat well. That's all I'll say about that.

#65 New Restaurants: Pita Jungle

Anthony and I tried Pita Jungle yesterday.

It is on the SW corner of Val Vista and Williams Field.

It definitely wasn't quite what I expected. Just based on the name and everything, I guess I was thinking it was something like Chipotle style, or maybe Pei Wei - you know, the hybrid fast-food type place. But no, it was a sit-down-with-a-menu-and-a-real-waiter place. But the confusing part was, all of the waiters and waitresses were so uber casual, you would have thought it was a beach party. It didn't feel quite right. I mean, they could at least wear normal casual clothes - jeans and tshirts seemed dressed up compared to their attire.

Anyway, the food was pretty decent in my opinion. I ordered, of course, the most expensive thing on the menu (a whole $14!) - the mango shrimp and rice plate. The rice was great. brown rice, just slightly chewy (which I absolutely love) and the flavor of the sauce was really good. You only get 7 shrimps though, so even though it was plenty to fill me up and still have some leftovers, for $14, I think I could have gone to just about any cheap chinese food place and gotten nearly the same thing for half the price. I mean, it was definitely good, but a little expensive for what you got and the atmosphere and everything.

My husband thought otherwise. Since I ordered the most expensive thing, he got two pita sandwiches - the beef gyro and the philly cheesestake gyro. He thought both were decent, although, in his words, the philly was a "disgrace to philly cheesestakes everywhere." He said it was good, but definitely not a true philly cheesestake. Each of the sandwiches were about $6. He liked it, but again, for the price and the atmosphere, its just not really worth it.

Oh, and we also split a plate of hummus for an appetizer. Anth isn't a huge fan of hummus, so we tried the jalapeno cilantro type that they had on the menu. We both absolutely loved that. The big problem was that the entire plate only comes with 1 pita. There's enough hummus there for probably 4 pitas, but you only get one, and they charge you for any additional pitas. Ok, they only charge $0.39, but still! That's like a mexican restaurant charging for the tortilla chips!

Basically we decided that if we're in the mood for greek food, we may as well go to My Big Fat Greek Restaurant instead. It may cost a dollar or two more, and be a little further from home, but you get more food, better service, better atmosphere, and they don't charge you for extra pitas.

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