Cuban Food, Mojitos, Calle Ocho and more Cuban Food

A visit to Miami won't be complete without a Cuban food feast. It was hard for me to get myself out of South Beach because that place was just too much fun. Thankfully, my love for food was greater than my love for the beach so I dragged myself out of South Beach and drove to Little Havana for some Cuban food trippin'.

Picture: Versailles Facebook Page

Located in the heart of Miami's Cuban community and along Calle Ocho, Versailles has been serving authentic Cuban dishes since 1971.

Ceviche Tropical for appetizer. Fresh fish cured in lime, cilantro and jalapenos served with diced avocado tomatoes and boniato chips.

Picadillo ala Cubana and Ropa Vieja afterwards. Each dish was of course paired with white rice and sweet plantains.

Cuban mojito to drink. Aaahh.. Life is good!

There was no room for dessert so I ordered Cafe Cortadito, an extremely rich and sweet coffee to finish of my hearty dinner.

Can't get enough of Cuban food so I visited Mojitos Cuban Cuisine located on the ground floor of the Dolphin Mall the next day.

Mango Mojito for starters.

Boliche Asado Con Arroz Blanco y Maduros. Pot roast with onion gravy with white rice and plantains.

And the best Cuban dish I've ever tasted so far... Palomilla Mojitos Suprema. Palomilla steak rolled with ham and Swiss cheese, sliced and served over Demi Glaze sauce. I've probably said this a thousand times but it's worth every calories! This dish still hunts me in my dreams. =)

Madison Winter Restaurant Week

When you live in a tropical country such as the Philippines, you dream of white Christmas. However, if you live in Wisconsin and you have this as your view for at least five months, it's depressing. Seriously. 

Cabin fever is starting to set in because I'm stuck at home with nothing to do. There's just so much I can do in Madison during the winter time and the idea of a three hour drive to Chicago during the winter doesn't really sit well with me. Good thing Madison is holding a Winter Restaurant Week starting today until January 27th. 

Food lovers such as me can indulge in the finest local culinary offerings of over forty restaurants in the city. All the participating restaurants [except for Samba] will have a special three course prix-fixed dinner menu for only $25. Samba, on the other hand will continue to offer their Brazilian steak buffet for $25 as well. Some of the restaurants had also prepared a three course prix-fixed lunch menu for only $15. What a steal! 

Here's a sample menu of a $15 lunch menu in Johnny Delmonico's.

Capitol Chophouse has an awesome dinner menu.

Maybe I'll try these restaurants later today. I hope they have open spots for tonight. 

For a complete restaurant listing, visit the Madison Magazine's website.

Sushi Making 101

Eating out is my favorite past time. One, because I have a horrible cooking skills. Looking back, I felt bad because I had more than five cooking classes as part of my program curriculum in college yet I didn't try to learn it. And number two, I enjoy eating. [define gluttony] I believe that it's one of the most pleasurable past time. The conversations over food just about anything is always pleasurable. 

However, my weekly trips to restaurants [I eat out at least twice a week] has become a costly activity. On average, me and my restaurant buddy/glutton partner Peter spends about $80-$120 every time we go to restaurants [excluding the tip]. That sums up to a large amount of money if you multiply it by the number of times we go out to eat in a year. It's just so impractical. 

This year, I vowed to start a financial makeover to be able to achieve the goals I set for myself. The first strategy is to minimize my spending. [that means zero credit card debts, less shopping, less restaurant trips] So instead of going out to eat, Peter and I agreed to cook together during our time off and enjoy a series of Netflix movies. 

Good timing because I received an awesome gift set from my Secret Santa on Christmas. 

I love sushi but I have no freakin idea on how they do it so I went to YouTube for video tutorials.

YouTube is indeed a very useful tool if you want to find out something. There are millions of video tutorials about sushi making. Aside from that, you can also pick up a random trivia  like this.

We didn't plan to make a specific kind of sushi. We basically just put all the ingredients we love. I bought a $4 smoked salmon fillet in the grocery, a pack of cream cheese, spicy mayonnaise, cucumber and avocado. I didn't have to buy the rice and nori since it's included in my gift pack from my Secret Santa.

The first sushi roll will not pass any sushi chef standard. It was a bunch of funny looking rice rolls. But we didn't give up.

After two more attempts, our sushi looked so much better. We also tried to do the inside out rolls and hand rolls [hand rolls are not in the picture since I ate it immediately]. Peter also tried the sushi roll without the nori.

We paired it with green tea. Aahh! It was an awesome dining out alternative!

I have to buy this gold tea set from Teavana so the next time we make sushi and pair it with tea, it'll be a more authentic Asian experience. Maybe light a candle or two as well!