My boss took me to Carmelo’s to do my bi-annual review today, so I figured I should spend my lunch money on dinner, and went to Cuba Libre, a place north of the Alamo Drafthouse on Colorado that I’d been eyeing for a while.
The main area at the front of the joint has a bar on one side, and a series of couchy seat bench things built into the opposite wall that have little tables in front of them. These are open seating, and although all the hostessed tables were taken when I came in at 7, I immediately found a seat along the wall, which has a much better view anyway.
There’s an area in between that a woman said you could usually dance in, but tonight it was filled with jewelry vendors for the third annual holiday trunk show.
The place was packed with fine women. I don’t know whether this was because it was Thursday, or because of the trunk show, or if I just stumbled on the communal hiding place of fine-looking grown-up women with style and a vaguely hipster aspect, so I’m going to have to go back many times to check.
I had the pork empanadas, which were only pretty good. They were a little dry, and I ran out of mole before I ran out of pastry, but they were served with some damn good saffron rice and black beans, with a ball of some of the best pico de gallo I’ve ever had. For seven bucks, I wasn’t complaining. If the description above doesn’t make it clear enough, a glance at the menu should clarify that this place isn’t so much a Cuban restaurant as a Cuban-American fusion cuisine kind of place. To settle on those pork empanadas, I had to turn down the “Cuba Libre-style” baby-back ribs, marinated in rum and Coke and served on a bed of mashed potatoes ($11) as well as the “media noche sandwich”, with roast beef, ham, tostones and a pineapple mint mojo sauce ($9).
The desserts were equally ingenious and tempting, but I’d only brought enough money for dinner, a beer, and either dessert or a drink, and I had to have the drink, because, apparently (nobody tells me these things), “Cuba libre” is another name for a rum and coke, and they’ve got sixty different kinds of rum, which you can get in a shot glass, along with an 8-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola and a glass full of ice with a wedge of lime on top.
These rums, they are not so much the cheap. A rum and Coke can run you anywhere from $6 to $25 (or more, I think) from this menu, although many of the rums are reasonably priced. I had El Dorado 15-year, and it was certainly rum.
I didn’t get to the lounge in the back, but the front was packed with people, the music was good, and the vibes were good. The waiter asked me my name and remembered it, although that may have only been because he wanted to borrow my sports section. 
Or because it’s good for tips. Either way, doesn’t happen often.
I’m going back to try all the stuff I didn’t this night. Who’s coming with me?
