Cuba - Escudo de Cuba

Restaurant:  Escudo de Cuba

Location:  20 Stoke Newington Road, London, N16 7XN

Date of visit:  29 August 2016

Time of visit:  6.30pm

With the aim of trying to build a bit of momentum again with the project, Elle and I took advantage of Bank Holiday Monday to make our next visit to an A-to-Z restaurant. This time, Cuban. Of the handful of Cuban restaurants in London, I could only find one that was not part of a chain and had an authentic menu. Escudo de Cuba was our destination.

Or at least I thought it was. The website suggested as much. As did my booking via a third party service. But a check on Google Streetview showed the previous "Escudo de Cuba" signage covered up a large "CUBA LIBRE" sign. Had the restaurant changed name? Changed hands? Was it even still a restaurant? We took the risk.

On arrival, the same menu from the website was displayed outside the restaurant, which put my mind at ease. It was a warm and sunny evening when we arrived, so some drinkers and diners were outside the restaurant. As we walked inside, we found it three-quarters full. We also found no one around to greet us or take us to a table. So, despite booking ahead, we just found the next free table and sat down.

With that said, the menus were brought to us almost instantly, so our arrival didn't go unnoticed. Shortly after that, two complimentary small bowls of fried plantain chips and green olives arrived, which was a very welcome touch.

One thing this place did have was atmosphere. You could almost believe, if you didn't look out onto Stoke Newington Road, that you were in Havana. The decor. The smells. The music. We spent two weeks in Cuba some years back, and were recognising much of the music that was being played, which helped take us right back there.

After some mulling over, we decided on what we wanted. We certainly had plenty of time to do that, and change our mind. And change our mind again. It took quite a while for anyone to come and take our order. Well actually, not strictly true. Almost always, when we go for a meal and the waiter/waitress comes to take our order, Elle is generally not ready yet and sends them away "for a few minutes". The issue with her doing that is that the waiter/waitress tends to take ages to come back to us. And that's exactly what happened here!

Eventually, we got to order. To start, we picked three empanadas to share. For mains I ordered the Ropa Vieja a la Cubana (shredded beef in red wine sauce) and Elle went for the Plato Cubanito (chicken and pork in cumin and orange marinade). To drink, Elle opted for a glass of Chilean sauvignon. I was really looking forward to a bottle of Cristal lager, after living on the stuff in Cuba. They had none. I was offered another Cuban beer, "Cubanisto", which I agreed to, as it was also on the menu as "Cuban". I was dismayed to find it was actually the creation of the largest multinational brewery in the world. It was as Cuban as a bottle of Irn Bru. Genuine mis-selling.

We already guessed that we'd be waiting a little while for the empanadas to come, and we weren't disappointed. Well, we were. You know what I mean! It was a fair while before they arrived, which made me hope that they were fresh rather than reheats from earlier. And fresh they were. Piping hot, but lovely a crisp crust around the outside. The fillings were chicken, pork and vegetable. They had a lovely spice to them, and were served with a green salad and spicy salsa. (Picture above is of each of the empenadas, and portion of salad, halved!)

Time to wait again. This time, for 45 minutes which was verging on ridiculous. The restaurant remained around three-quarters full for our stay. It certainly didn't appear to be understaffed. I also noticed that for as long as we didn't have food, no one else really did either. Then ALL the food started coming out at once, which to me suggested potential issues in the kitchen.

Additionally, for the entire duration of the visit, I noticed the bar was 90% covered with what must've been close to 100 dirty glasses and plates, that never seemed to get cleared. Leaving the barman with a tiny patch of remaining surface area to mix his cocktails and pour drinks.

Like with the starter, I hoped that the quality of the mains made the wait worthwhile. Before we even got to the quality, the temperature instantly let us down. Elle's entire meal was lukewarm at best. The meat on my plate was hot, but the rest was barely warm. This was really disappointing, on top of the general experience up to this point. We debated with each other whether we were going to raise the issue. But God only knows when we'd ever see our food again if they took it away. We opted to simply deal with it.

I have to say, my shredded beef was really lovely. A fantastic portion, with generous amounts of herby red wine sauce which added to the really juicy helping of meat. It was served with herbs, tomatoes and peppers, and a side of rice and black beans which helped mop up the sauce.

Elle's chicken and pork had good flavours, with obvious orange coming through. It was served with black beans, rice and vegetables. But she found it difficult to enjoy fully due to the now cool temperature of the meal in general.

Just after we finished our meal, the couple beside us had started to complain about how long they had been waiting for their food. They received an apology, and were told their drinks were on the house. Part of me, clearly, wished we had kicked up a fuss. But that isn't our style. We just won't be back.

Which is unfortunate, as the food was really good. It was probably even better than it seemed. But the way the food was treated didn't do it justice. There was clearly something amiss when we visited. I can't imagine it is always like that, as it is clearly a popular restaurant. But I'll be off to one of the chains next time I fancy a Cuban experience.