My wife, brother and I headed down to the northern part of Ft Lauderdale last weekend for a comic book convention I was attending. Since we know little about the area and had free Wi-Fi at the hotel we were staying at, we poked around Google to find a half-way decent place to find dinner. We were surprised to find that Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine, the Cuban restaurant we so frequented in our youth (my brother and I were born and raised in Hollywood, FL, south of Ft. Lauderdale) had an outpost a few miles nearby on Oakland Park Blvd.
We walked into the restaurant pretty late (the convention exhibition hall closed around 8 at night), and were greeted by a near empty restaurant. Normally in that situation my wife and I would tuck tail and run, because usually an empty restaurant means a crappy restaurant. But since we had prior experience with it’s sister restaurant near our old house, and since there was a brand spanking new Bentley parked out front we approached the host stand expecting a decent meal.
The restaurant itself was nicely furnished, nothing too amazing, with roughly 20 tables. The tables themselves were sort of diner style, with the “Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine” logo prominently lacquered to each table top. After seating, we were quickly approached by a waitress who eerily reminded me of my mother. We ordered drinks and a couple appetizers and while patiently waiting for our drinks we perused the menu.
