My awesome friend Lara and I met up in Syracuse, NY 2 weekends ago for a little weekend reunion with our other friend Christine. The original plan was to meet up at this Irish pub whose food looked absolutely phenomenal. On the day of we discovered that Syracuse restaurants have some VERY strange hours. This particular place was only open sporadically throughout the week, but especially on Wednesdays. But also...not every Wednesday? It was a Friday, what kind of pub isn't open on a Friday?! Anyway, I digress. I quickly picked two other places and we settled on Esquina Habanera since neither of us had, had Cuban food before. Turns out that was a lie, we just didn't know we'd had it before.
At this point, I had a sprained ankle and had done too much the day before, so I was back on crutches to give it a rest. We had to park down the road a bit for this place and inside was hot, and TINY. There was no place to sit and eat which I wasn't aware of, and I'm glad I wasn't because we might have skipped it, and the line filled with groups of hungry customers FAST (which is a great sign). The lady in front of us must have been ordering for her whole family because she just kept getting more and MORE food, which to me is another great sign. When it was our turn I chose the Google reviews highly suggested entrée (and their signature dish), the Ropa Vieja with fried plantains and a passionfruit juice while Lara chose tamales, empanadas, and Guarapo to drink. If you don't know, Guarapo is sugar cane juice and is oddly refreshing and lightly sweet. We waited a while for the gentleman at the counter to get it and had no idea why until we saw him come out with fresh sugar cane and JUICED IT THERE IN FRONT OF US. It doesn't get much fresher than that.
The gentleman at the counter was absolutely sweet and friendly, great customer service! He talked to Lara about the Guarapo, and offered us a cup of the rice to try, which was delicious. It was seasoned perfectly and the bits of pork in it were so crispy they were almost caramelized. If the little "appetizer" was this great, then our dishes were set to be amazing! I hobbled back to the car and we drove to the AirBNB and ate our lunch there.
Look at Lara's food! She said that the tamale was also cooked and seasoned perfectly, which was no surprise after our experience with the rice, and I could hear the crunch of the empanada as she took the first bite. It was also PACKED to the edges with meat, cheese, and whatever else was in there. Just look at how ooey-gooey that cheese is too. I'm drooling just thinking about it. I did manage to steal a bite of the empanada, but the tamale was gone before she even took a breath, I think. It was like a magic trick- now you see it, now you don't!
When I first uploaded this picture on the right of my food to this blog, it came up huge and I literally teared up looking at it. Ahahaha. I could smell it again and I could practically taste it. My mouth watered. The stewed beef was so tender and the plantains were so ripe that they actually had a bit of sweetness to them. The sauce from the meat sloshed over into part of the plantains and they just soaked it up while we drove to the AirBNB and holy wowza did that just upgrade their flavor even more. Again; perfectly seasoned, perfectly tender, with amazing flavor. I will note, when transporting this, please get it double bagged or just be careful not to jostle it. There was sauce/juice from the stewed beef EVERYWHERE. I think it got tilted when Lara put it in the car or something, I don't know (and no, I did not carry it around while on my crutches- that certainly would have jostled it!), but something worth mentioning for those of you who have bad luck with food containers...which I often do.
If you're in Syracuse and in need of flavorful, delicious Cuban cuisine from a family-owned hole-in-the-wall authentic establishment, then head over to Esquina Habanera located at 324 Burnet Ave, Syracuse, NY 13203. You can also check out their menu via Grub Hub, I had trouble locating the original menu I found online and forgot to take a pic of the menu while I was there...I'll blame that on the crutches. They're open Tuesday thru Sunday 11am-7pm and closed on Mondays and can be ordered through Grubhub0 check 'em out!!
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