His Take: Ok so I am going to take full responsibility for this one. I did NOT like Cubana Social. I would not go back. I was craving some Spanish/Latin American food and decided to look some places up not too far from where we live. I suggested Cubana Social to Ariana and she was all for it, as we were both craving a dish called Ropa Vieja, which is a shredded beef stew. Off we went to Cubana Social, which is actually a nice looking place where they play old movies via a projector on the wall. We sat down right away because the place was empty. Even if it was empty, it took our waitress a little while to bring over our menus. Finally our waitress came again to order our drinks, I ordered their version of a Cuba Libre, figured I would try something different. Their Cuba Libre is a drink with rum and coke with lime, Fernet Branca and other bitters, and the more I drank of it (I did not drink very much) the worse it tasted. This is not the fault of the place, this is more on me because it was a drink I did not like. This Cuba Libre had a weird after taste that I could not continue to drink. I was deceived when I looked this place up on Yelp, and looked at the pictures of the food. I love empanadas and saw that Cubana Social had them, and I thought “great, a nice appetizer as well.” Yelp led me to believe they were a lot bigger than the really are. We ended up ordering 3 (started with 2), 2 beef empanadas and a pork empanada. The beef ones were just alright, and I have definitely had better empanadas elsewhere, they were not bad, but they were not anything “to write home about.” I tried a little bite of the pork one as well, and it was more or less the same as the beef. Obviously when it came to the main course, Ariana and I both ordered Ropa Vieja, the sole reason for us coming to Cubana Social. I have to say I was incredibly disappointed. Any time I have had Ropa Vieja I have tested plenty of flavors as it is a stew that should cook for a significant amount of time. Cubana Social’s Ropa Vieja tasted like NOTHING. It literally did not taste like anything, not like the beef, the onions, the tomatoes, or the peppers! The dish came with white rice, black beans, and plantains. The serving size was a pretty good portion, but how much of bland food could you really enjoy. Ariana's dish tasted different than mine. Ropa Vieja is a dish where the flavors all come together and mesh while it cooks, and Cubana Social’s really lacked that. Our waitress did come over again and noticed that I was not enjoying my drink and that a barely touched it. She was kind enough to take it off our bill without us asking, because again I ordered it, so I did not mind if I had to pay for it. We skipped dessert as we had planned to grab ice cream somewhere else not too far from Cubana Social. Again, it is really hard to enjoy food that lacks taste, especially when it is a dish I know and enjoy! Cubana Social, nice looking place, but the food killed it for me here!
After our disappointing meal, we headed over to an ice cream shoppe that Ariana had heard of called Oddfellows. I knew once we were inside why this was the perfect name, their flavors were well, ODD! There were flavors such as Lychee, Thai Ice Cream, Burnt Marshmallow, just to name a few. I went with a small Burnt Marshamllow, and it was delicious! There were little pieces of marshmallows in it and it was really really good. Ariana got Thai Ice Cream and Chocolate Chunk in a cone. She seemed to really enjoy her ice cream as well. The ice cream shoppe was really nice they had little tables and bar stools near the window. They made different ice cream treats and even cater to parties. Oddfellows was cool, and I would head back to see what other flavors they come up with!
If you take anything from this post, its simple, head to Oddfellows for ice cream, and you can skip Cubana Social, especially if you are looking for tasty Ropia Vieja!
Her Take: I really wanted to like this place, I really did. We were both craving some Ropa Vieja, and we found this Cuban place on the north side and said lets give it a shot! We told my dad we were going there and he said he had heard that it wasn't too good, that we would be wasting our time and that he's always right. So I got annoyed and said nope were gonna like it, you never like anything and you are too quick to judge!
We got there and the place was a nice one; good space and they had black and white movies playing on the wall from a projector. We got the menu and saw that they didn't have too many options but we decided that we would get two empanadas. Nicky originally wanted to get one and split it because he said that they looked big online. I said lets get two just incase, or even three because they had a 3 for $10 deal. He settled on two. One pork with beans and garlic and one ground beef with sautéed onions tomatoes and raisins. Our waitress came and asked if we wanted a drink and we looked over the drink list and I ordered the "Oooh I wanna take you to coco-mojito" ( a coconut mojito) and Nicky got a Cuba Libre that had fernet branca in it. We also ordered our empanadas and one ropa vieja each.
the two empanadas came before our drinks, which surprised me; I thought the food was going to take a while. Turns out the empanadas were small (what did I say?) and Nicky ordered one more beef. They weren't bad. Then our drinks came and mine was pretty good but Nicky did not like his so the waitress took it off the bill.
Our ropa vieja came and it looked decent! It came with black beans, rice and platanos. We were excited to eat it and once we tried it we kinda made the same "eh" face. It didn't taste of salt but it tasted of the acidity of uncooked tomatoes from a can. I didn't like the taste of it so I picked at the rice and beans and ate all the platanos. I ate about half of the ropa vieja because I was really hungry, but couldn't finish the rest because it was giving me a stomach ache. It was no good.
We were disappointed and lost our appetite. Turns out my dad was right....
After our disappointing meal, we were craving ice cream so I suggested Odd Fellows ice cream shop which was a few blocks away. We walked down and I saw they had extra virgin olive oil ice cream and HAD to try it!! it was weird I don't think I would get whole scoop of oil.. but anyway I got a cone with chocolate chunk and thai iced tea; it was ok, I have tasted better. But I was satisfied! Nicky got burnt marshmallow which was veryyy good!! (Nicky is a marshmallow :))
All in all our dinner was disappointing and we were hungry two hours later.. Cubana Social, we will not be going back. Food was pretty bad 2/10, service was nothing special (poor girl was nice)
But we bought a bottle of wine on the way home, drank and ate some chocolate :)
Cuba Libre and Coco-mojito
Ropa Vieja
Burnt Marshmallow Ice Cream
Thai Iced Tea and Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream
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