Havana Central Fall Menu Preview

At the beginning of October, CT & I were invited to a special press dinner to preview some new dishes for the Fall menu at Havana Central, a Cuban restaurant in Times Square. I had never been there before, or to their uptown location near Columbia, but it sounded like fun. This is the place that sells $1 empanadas on the sidewalk outside of the restaurant on Tuesdays. After arriving, we were presented with some classic mojitos and had a chance to talk with the other guests and PR people. The mojito was delicious and not too sugary. I followed [...]

Calle Ocho (Press Preview)

Within a week period, I found myself on the Upper West Side – where I never go, as you can see by that link – a record three times.  One of those times was for the preview of the ‘new’ menu at Calle Ocho, which had moved across the street to its new location inside the Excelsior Hotel.  So I dragged Beer Boor under protest to this event, as my appetite was still wonky and I was scared I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the food.  The entire back room, which is quite large, was reserved with three large tables [...]

Tuesdays with TT: Bongos Cuban Cafe (MIA)

Back towards the beginning of the year, CT and I learned that CT’s Sister’s Sister-in-Law would be getting married in Panama at the end of July. Why Panama? The Bride’s parents live down there now full-time. We learned that Panama has a huge ex-pat population mostly because it is so cheap and the U.S. Dollar is the functional currency down there. Since CT’s whole family is quite close with her brother-in-law’s family, we were all invited to the wedding. Since neither of us had been to Panama before, we decided to spend an extra couple days down there to explore [...]

Thursdays with TT: Stadium Pizza

My second Yankee game of the year and the first with CT. She was supposed to go with me a couple weeks ago, but got sick. She was convinced that she was cursed from going to a game at the new stadium, since she also tried to go last year. If we were both able to leave early enough, I wanted to check out the “secret cheap bar” near the stadium that I haven’t been to in a while. A couple years ago my buddy took me here because they have 3 beers for $10. Considering inside the stadium that [...]

Cabana, revisited

Post-movie date, having secured a great parking spot, BF and I wandered around the Forest Hills area looking to grab some grub.  I really wanted to try this place his good friend had highly recommended, but I guess lots of people know about the place as it was PACKED and the wait was 40-50 minutes.  It was raining pretty hard at this point so we opted to keep walking instead… and finally ended up at Cabana.  I’ve been here so many times in the past 10 years I honestly can’t say if I’d ever been with him, but whatever, I [...]

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