Havana Road Cuban Café - I’ve been, I ate and now I have a Cuban accent. There are pluses and minuses for being self-employed and one of the pluses is being able to grab lunch with a friend and take as long as I want to enjoy the food and the company. Downtown Diane Macklin (@downtowndiane) wanted me to meet Marta Ines Quintana, the chef owner of Havana Road Cuban Café, enjoy her family fresh Cuban dishes and learn more about her Cuban retail products.
Havana Road Cuban Café (@Havana_Road) just celebrated its first year anniversary in the little cafe at 8 W. Pennsylvania Avenue where both lunch and dinner are served, catering and a burgeoning retail food business. The non-descript store front entrance does not relay what wonders are behind is doors. I let Chef Marta Quintana send out food she wanted me to try. Guantanamo Hummus Trio: Red Bean, Black Bean and Sundried Tomato hummus kicked off the luncheon, Camarones Al Ajillo - Shrimp in Garlic Brandy Sauce and then Arroz con Pollo – Cuban chicken and rice filled the center. My sweet tooth craving was fulfilled with a dessert special made by Chef Marta’s daughter, pumpkin pecan flan accompanied by house mulled cider perfect for the rainy day it was.
The menu offers lunch and dinner options, kids menu, virgin drinks and much more. My husband is a HUGE Cuban sandwich fan so we will be back and I want to try the Ropa Vieja sandwich. That is not to say that there are dinner entrees that are calling my name.
Chef Marta shares a great number of Cuban recipes on the Havana Road website for those of you who like to cook. Check out her video on how to cook rice properly with this post.
Can’t make it to Towson, bring Havana Road home!
Chef Marta is quite enterprising with a successful line of dips and sauces under the Havana Road label in Whole Foods, a cookbook in the works and local television cooking segments. Come December her new line of Fresh Pak Cuban Cuisine Havana Road dinners will be available in Whole Foods. Chef Szzyl, the chef I work with a couple days a week and I tasted numerous samples of the Fresh Pak Havana Road Cuban Cuisine meals and we both gave them a five star rating for taste, flavor, freshness, and value for dollar. A Fresh Pak can feed two with an accompanying salad or a hearty meal for one. Look for them in Whole Foods in the Baltimore – Washington DC area somewhere the beginning of December: (see a sample snap of the packaging in the photo slide show)
· Black Beans and Rice
· Ropa Vieja
· Veggie Burger
· Shrimp and Rice
· Congris
· Cuban Pork
· Chicken and Rice
· Cuban Garbanzo Bean
· Red Beans and Rice
Havana Road Cuban Café – www.havanaroad.com
410.494.8222
8 W. Pennsylvania Ave. Towson, MD 21204
Hours
Monday-Wednesday: 11am - 8pm
Thursday-Saturday: 11am - 11pm
Sunday: 12pm - 7pm
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