Eating in Cuba
Antonio and Franc arrived in the early afternoon and we spent most of that afternoon walking around and listening to music in the various bars. At one point, I had to tell them what I had discovered about the food in Cuba, that it was both expensive and bland. Earlier in the day, a guy I met confirmed what I had read in the guide books about avoiding the established restaurants and going to the family-run paladares instead. These are usually set up in the front rooms of peoples' homes with a few tables to serve people. In my first experience at a paladar, my friend said he knew a great place that had good seafood. When we got there he said he would just have a beer, but quickly agreed to eat upon my encouragement. There were no menus. The woman told us they had shrimp, lobster, and fish, cooked in various ways. I ordered the shrimp in tomato sauce and he ordered the grilled fish. The food was so bland I found myself adding salt and whatever condiment was on the table to add flavor to the shrimp. The biggest surprise was when I got the bill. The two meals with two beers each both came to $36. I even had to ask if these were US dollars or Cuban pesos they were talking about.
Antonio and Franc were surprised by what I told them.
By the time we were ready for dinner 
we asked Lazaro (who had joined us in our walk) if he knew of
any reasonably priced paladares. He took us to a place where a modest dinner
of fried chicken, beans, rice and salad came to around $12 each. Once again,
the food was bland and greasy. The people at the restaurant laughed when
Antonio asked for hot sauce, which we quickly poured over everything (pictured
here is Lazaro, Rene, and antonio coming out of the paladar).
When we eventually found a place to live away from the hotel, we were relieved to find that the apartment owner would make breakfast for us for $1 and dinner for $8. The breakfast consisted of fruit juice, usually mango, papaya, or pineapple, some fresh fruit, again usually mango, pineapple or papaya, toast and coffee ( strong and tasty, served in cute little cups). Dinner was huge, some meat dish, chicken, pork or fish (one night we had lobster), a salad, rice, beans, fruit juice, green beans or some other vegetable, and coffee. Even here, the food was mostly bland and sometimes greasy. We pretty much ate all the salsa he had in the house. We eventually got used to not eating during the day and would just make do with the two meals, one in the morning and one at night.
Antonio and I were struck by the poor quality of the food, not necessarily the limited ingredients which we understood due to the severe food shortages in Cuba. The only comparison we could make was to the food in Mexico which was so varied and flavorful. There was no way for us or anyone else to explain it. Had all the chefs in Cuba left when the revolution came? Cooking is a part of the culture that seemed to be missing in Cuba. We agreed that food served in Cuban restaurants in the US bore no resemblance to the type of food we found on our trip.
Interestingly enough, pizza seems to be popular in Cuba. Pizzerias and pizza stands were everywhere. The pizzas were basically the same everywhere, reheated from frozen, very doughy, with a slice of ham as the only topping available on the individually sized pizzas (the only size we saw).
Food shortages were evident everywhere but most startling
in the market places where the stands would have only one or two items,
such as limes, bananas and mangoes, as you see in the picture here. There
was a meat market and bakery close to our apartment. They were open only
two hours in the morning, with everything usually sold out during the first
hour. The same kind of shortages were evident in the pharmacies where the
shelves were uniformly empty. We never got the chance (or were unwilling)
to go in to see what they were actually selling.