Taste the Forbidden

For lunch today, we went to one of my favorite quick places in the city, 90 Miles Cuban Cafe.  As you may have guessed from the name, it serves Cuban food.  The most expensive thing on the menu is $9.95, but most sandwiches run in the $6.50 range.  It's also BYOB, so really, what's not to like?  It's even got a cool telephone number.  One of the only problems with this place, though it did not come into play today, is that it is really small (think 8 seats), so sometimes it gets really crowded.

Onto the food....

We ordered one Lechon sandwich and one Bistec dinner.  For those of you who don't speak Spanish (including me), lechon is shredded pork and bistec is steak (in this case, a skirt steak).  Much to our surprise, they came out with a lechon sandwich and a lechon dinner.  I'm not entirely clear how it happened, but they quickly remedied the situation, and even let us have the mistaken lechon.  As a sidebar, if I ever start a mariachi band, it's going to be named Mistaken Lechon.  And we're back....  The lechon sandwich was served on a bun (despite the menu's ominous warning of "White Bread Only") with grilled onions and fried plantains.  The steak was served covered in grilled onions with a side of rice. 

While the lechon sandwich was quite delicious on its own, I felt like it could have used some spice to it.  Fortunately for the spice-seekers like me, there are several bottles of habenero pepper sauce (really spicy) situated around the countertop and also some other pepper-based sauce (a bit less spicy).  I was in good hands.  The bistec was extremely garlic-y, and probably not good for a date if you plan on making out later.  However, since I had no imminent make out plans, it was a solid choice.

Finally we move on to my new obsession, Iron Beer.  If I learned anything from the back of the Iron Beer can, it was that it is hauled around by mules and it is the national drink of Cuba.  It tastes like a mix of root beer, cream soda, orange pop, and a big hint of amazing, which sounds like one of those concoctions you make used to make with the pop fountains at Burger King when you were a kid, only this one is good.  For all of you lushes out there, you will have to look somewhere else for your fix, Iron Beer is  non-alcoholic despite its misleading name.  I imagine it would be good in an Iron Beer float...I have to get my hands on some of this stuff.  Anyway, now I know of at least 2 things that Cuba does well, cigars and Iron Beer.  Mmmmmmm Iron Beer.  Here our some pictures from my adventure to 90 Miles Cuban Cafe, which is located at 3101 N. Clyborne in Chicago.  Apparently they have another location at 2540 W. Armitage, and perhaps that one is bigger.  Check out their website at http://www.90milescubancafe.com/ 

Lechon Sandwich

Mistaken Lechon

Bistec Dinner

Iron Beer