• 4
• Awesome Cuban food!

This is a place I've wanted to try for sometime! Just before going vegan, my kids and I were on a Cuban sandwich kick after watching Chef. I found this place and was excited to try it. Last Tuesday, I drove up to LA for a hike and decided on my way back home I'd stop in for a sandwich. I made the almost hour drive from Griffith Park (thanks to good ol' LA traffic) and to my dismay, found out that starting the previous week, they decided to close on Tuesdays until the Summer. (See photo) I was disappointed but am now starting to realize that it's a good idea to call any of these restaurants before going since they are mostly privately owned and make changes like this on the fly. I had the opportunity to try again this past Sunday as my family and a friend's family were meeting to pick up relatives from LAX so we invited our non-vegan friends to come eat with us. We arrived and they were open (yay) there were six of us and sitting is somewhat limited but we squeezed into a large square table on the patio. Here, I had another instance of what unnecessary rudeness from restaurant staff. Our server came over and the first words out of her mouth were, "ok, so you know we're 100% vegan here, right? No one is going to be asking me for steak or anything?" I refuse to believe that she greets every party like this so again, I feel it has to do with us not fitting the "normal vegan profile". There are MANY less argumentative ways to ensure we know that we are dining in a vegan restaurant. I told her yes, we are all well aware that it is a vegan restaurant, but since the menu says that there are non-faux meat options, could you review those with us? Again she seemed a little bothered by the question (yet it says to ask, right on the menu) and she says yeah, it's beans and rice and yuca fries or tostones. My son's girlfriend is the one who was interested in that so that's what she ordered. Between the rest of us, we ordered arroz con pollo, Cuban sandwiches, and the garlic shrimp. As we placed our order, I noticed our server was one of those that likes to memorize the order instead of just jotting it down. This is a pet peeve in that something inevitably gets missed. In this case she took the order, then left, then came back to double check it, then still forgot that our friend ordered one of their homemade sodas and never brought the rest of us water. My wife and son liked the Cuban sandwiches but again, did not like the cheese (it seemed like watery Daiya was used here again) They scraped the cheese off and it was much better. I loved the arroz con pollo our non-vegan friend said she like it too but did not finish it all so not too sure on her take. Her non-vegan dad that ordered the shrimp are it all and said it was great! Lastly, I do want to point out that there was a male server that helped bring out the food and noticed our waitress had not gotten our water, who was very nice and friendly. He apologized, and got our waters for us. It helps me realize that like anything, sometimes there are just certain individuals that have a chip on their shoulder and maybe our waitress was one of them. We ordered cupcakes for desert I had the pineapple which was delicious and my son and his girlfriend got mango. They loved them as well. So, this place has great reviews here and on every site they're on. I had one bad experience but because the food is so good and is a nice change from you average vegan cuisine, I still recommend you try them out! I'm not sure the attitude is worth me driving an hour to get there again it it was nice to get a chance to try them out.