The Cuban Place

First time having cuban food, although I’m not really sure what Cuban food entails. It's sort of like Mexican but not really. You actually go upstairs to go to the entrance, which had surprisingly quite a lot of seating and relatively expansive for a CBD restaurant. Thanks Dandelion for booking the group dinner. It was a ‘surprise’ location for dinner, and she took us here since they had 50% everything from a Dimmi deal, and it’s also nice to try something different (this post is more than 2 months delayed...)

food spread

 

entrance

Didn't realise this restaurant was just behind the QVB on the other side of the road.

Can't bribe me to give 5 star reviews. also, it's only a draw to win, you don't even get a voucher if you give 5 stars. only honest opinions here.

I think we sort of over ordered since it's half price and we wanted to try a few things. Didn't take a photo of the menu at the time, only a photo of the receipt.

Drunk crab taco-$14

It's not cheap for a taco, but you do get a whole soft shell crab. The crab was deep fried well, and the taco (tortilla?) was nice and soft. Paired well with the guacamole and tomato.

Toastadas de camaronês-$16

This was a prawn and octopus (?) on top of a tostada. This was quite nice as well, but expensive since you only get 3 pieces.

Linguine with tomato and quinoa sauce, okra, parsley & a duo of Parmesan and Manchego cheese-$16

The linguine was pretty average. It didn't have much flavour, not much sweetness from the tomato and under seasoned, just like my mum's 'healthy' and bland cooking. I also think Dandelion could make a better pasta with her mad cooking skills.

Pescado varadero:Sustainable fish of the day with Varadero sofrito confit, kipfler potatoes and crispy leek-$34

They didn't say what fish it was, but we figured it was barramundi. It was just on the tad bit overcooked, but I liked how it was garnished with crispy leeks. There was a decent amount of potatoes hidden under as wel..

Quesadilla chorizo-$22

Loved the toasted wrap/bread stuffed with cheesy chorizo, one of my favourite dishes from the night. The chorizo wasn't overly salty either.

Lamb-$32

Lamb was booked well and not dry. From memory, it was well seasoned and tomatoey in flavour.

Pork ribs cuba libre-$36

These ribs were just a tad bit dry, but they did come with a pesto/mint sauce. Meat would have been cooked with more marinade.

Yuca chips-$8

Had to Google what yuca was. It sort of tastes like taro and polenta but without the grainy texture, and it's quite light inside. Tasted quite healthy with a good crunch and not drenched in oil.

dessert

Lava Galleta: white chocolate and macadamia cookie with guava ice cream-$15

Wish the scoop of ice cream was bigger, since we ordered this dessert mainly for the ice cream. The guava flavour was subtle but quite nice. The cookie was too sweet.

Cafe y Caramelo: coffee and chocolate mocha dome with candied peanuts, sweet peanut roll and salted caramel ice cream-$15

This dessert was also overly sweet, and couldn't really taste the coffee in the dome cake. We shared this between 5 people and still found it sweet. The ice cream was already melting when it got to our table, and had more caramel than salt which didn't help with the sweetness. Candied peanuts weren't;t really necessary.

Total price of food was $208, so after half price for 5 we paid around $20 which is cheap for dinner and the amount of food we had. Full price, I wouldn't go again since the food wasn't amazing.

Coco Cubano and The Chocolate Room

today was such a good day.

mum got new glasses, and the manager chose branded frames, and all these expensive lenses. there are so many lenses, but she picked the best (and most expensive ones). rrp, the multifocal glasses cost $889, but she gave a good discount, and after claiming the health fund, there was still a largish gap (compared to going to Asian optometrists with small stores where they have cheaper frames/lenses and not as good quality but no gap) to pay. but still, the gap was less than the actual frames, and the glasses looked so much better than her old ones (which were so, so ugly).

decided to look for new sunnies today. agh, i don't know what to choose! should i choose the cheaper ray ban with polarised lenses, or should i go with the more fashionable (but more expensive) burberry sunnies? the problem is that i have a small face, so the extravagant sunnies don't fit me ): and tbh, big sunnies on small faces don't look good. the shine finish cost $40 more than the matte finish for the ray bans. they're actually not cheap either, but $100 cheaper than the burberry. i love the burberry! except they have a super thin frame with a "cloth" material around it with their signature pattern. they look a bit better on me, but they're not polarised, and i wouldn't go to the beach with them, since it'd get damaged more easily. the cloth thing on the side damages easily...so technically the ray bans are more practical for chucking around (i.e. i won't be super sad if sand touches it etc..). put both on hold, i'll think about it again tmr...

finally got my name badge today! 

yay, saw tess today (: tonight was so fun, just chatting (: so glad i made the trek to parra. it took me about 15mins to get into a carpark, since i wanted to find the cinema one, but i kept missing the hidden entrance street from this other street. and thanks guys for walking to my car. defs would have gotten lost. and then when i came out, the car in front of me turned right, but i turned left since it said church st, and i know i needed to get onto, but once i turned, i knew i was on the other end of church st, so did a massive loop to u-turn and go back to the correct direction on church st. also, there was rbt on the other side of the road on windsor rd, outside baulko library, and then those undercover police cars catching speeding cars...

first time going to Coco Cubano, even though unsw has one. the logo reminds me of Thomas Sabo

lemon lime mint iced tea, banana mango iced granita large-$7, citrus berry iced granita, and an iced bounty couverture choc

Dandelion and i had the banana mango. i thought it would be really sweet, but i was surprised since it was a tad bland, probs because they needed to use heaps of ice. tried a bit of Happy Apple's citrus berry. again, wasn't sweet, but a really interesting combo of flavours. Better's bounty did taste like the chocolate, but obviously a much icier version.

Calamari with chilli salt and roasted garlic sauce-$12.90

not chilli at all. quite nice, and i loved the garlic sauce.

mini quesadillas-$11.90, garlic mushrooms-$9.90

the quesadillas were quite delicious, and not spicy. they used large mushrooms instead of button mushrooms like Encasa. definitely not as garlicky as Encasa, and was a bit disappointed, but then again, Encasa is known to produce top notch Spanish food (in sydney) for a decent price. i guess these ones today felt healthier without so much butter/garlic.

beef nachos-$15.90, oven baked eggs-$13.90

nachos were alright. felt like some breakfast food so got some baked eggs. their bread isn't bad, it's just that their baked eggs were smaller. then again, tapas are smaller, and their prices for their baked eggs are cheaper than other places. the chorizo here tasted fattier, and didn't have enough spice, but it was pretty nice overall. like their smashed avo is about $11, whilst the grounds is around $17.

group w/ food! interesting decor around the cafe.

we were going to go san churros for dessert, but i'm so glad we didn't. crossed the road to go to The Chocolate Cafe. always walk past the one in the city, but it always seems empty-ish. the parra one was pretty packed when we went (then again, it's not as big). this place was surprisingly really good, good selection of desserts and not as expensive as other chocolate places!

thanks again Better for the shout (:

it looks camouflaged

warm dark choc pudding w/ cream-$6.50

so nice and warm. even though it was dark choc, it was quite rich (but not overly sweet), so this was good to share. didn't fully ooze out, but the presentation of the fudgy chocolatey stuff made it look so good, and it was yum

tiramisu icecream-$6

we were all mind blown by this dish, but i think Dandelion was the most in awe, haha. we thought it was tiramisu with ice cream, since on the picture, it had a slice of tiramisu. then we thought it wasn't really worth it having another piece of cake which wasn't that big in terms of serving size. then when the waiter came over, he explained it was tiramisu ice cream shaped in a slice of a cake! and this was soo good. you have the novelty of it and the taste (: not sure if gelatissimo tiramisu is better or this.

waffle wonder-$12.50

i wanted some dessert waffles, since the waffles i had w/ ice cream the other day were those home-machine types, not the more cafe style types. these waffles weren't that big (considering the price is was ok), but it was beautifully presented with vanilla ice cream sandwiched between the waffles. well personally, i've never had waffles stacked like this before. the waffles were chewier than other waffles and was sweeter than i would've liked. i think the waffle shouldn't be as sweet, so you can focus on the chocolate flavour (since we are in the chocolate room). this choc sauce was a bit sweeter than that choc sauce with the pudding. the vanilla ice cream was by far the sweetest thing here. the chocolate is rich, but not sugar-sweet. the vanilla ice cream was just caster and icing sugar like sweet.

i definitely have a big sweet tolerance. tonight's dessert were sweet, but i've had even sweeter things before...sorry for taking pictures of photos of food together. it saves space on my phone, so instead of taking 3 individual photos, i just take one photo of all 3 foods. once i post the photos, i usually delete the individual ones off my phone. yay for food and friends (: