A sandwich by any other name.

Havana, Park St., Alameda, CA
(A quick, preliminary review.)

Cuban sandwich with boniato fries and garlic
Iced tea

I haven’t been having good luck with sandwiches recently. I thought this restaurant might change my luck, but I was mistaken. Never having lived in Cuba or on the eastern seaboard, I don’t fancy myself an expert on Cuban sandwiches, by any means. But is it that much of a stretch to except the flavor of a sandwich to reflect the vibrancy of its culture?

The restaurant had a pleasantly airy, open feel to it, its walls adorned with massive and impressive photographs that do nothing to quell my fascination with seeing Cuba in person. Vaguely Latin music emanated from the ceiling at the appropriate volume, varying in its appeal from enjoyable to appalling.

(An aside. Dear Bay Area Restaurants: Please remove Manu Chao and his keychain-explosion sound effects permanently from all musical rotation. It got old half a decade ago. Please and thank you.)

Service was absentminded and aloof, but I’m willing to be lenient since it is a new(ish) restaurant and these things tend to work themselves out. I consoled myself with bread reminiscent of dry ciabatta, strangely sliced double-wide. Regardless of grill time, my sandwich took far too long to arrive. When it did, it was accompanied by boniato fries instead of the plantains I’d ordered, but I was too impatient to argue. Plus, who can argue with sweet potato fries (even if their accompanying “guava chipotle sauce” tasted like nothing more than overly-sweet barbecue sauce)?

Anyway, onto the sandwich, itself. Pork should not be bland. Roast pork and ham, doubly so. The anemic pickle did nothing to distinguish itself from its relatives condemned to McDonald’s. The bread was quite good, simultaneously soft and toasty, but did nothing to pull the disparately textured yet indistinctly flavored elements of the sandwich together. The damned thing needed a healthy dose of mustard. But it was entirely edible, an inoffensive facsimile of its lofty prototypical ideal located somewhere in Miami.

$15 is a bit too much for a sandwich lunch, even if it’s purportedly Cuban. I may stop by for small plates and drinks sometime to give it another chance, but I’m not much of a mojito aficionado.

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I will get to the taco crawl eventually. I promise.