Cuba
I recently visited Cuba for the first time and loved it! This is definitely a place I would like to visit again. Having said that finding delicious meat free dinners was a challenge at times.
But my first little episodes of exasperation began before I even set foot on that beautiful island curtesy of the Cuban national airline Cubana. As my flight from Gatwick wasnt until 12.40 I had brunch at the ever bland but the best of a bad South Terminal bunch that is Cafe Rouge. I trod the much trod but ever hopeful baggage-free semi-euphoric exotic location expectant route of looking at the Vs on the food outlet menus around the big bright wide holding/shopping hangar. I knew already that I could have a good glass or two of red with my brunch, this is Gatwick not Karnataka after all. But after a credit card bashing instant buy of an entry level DSLR (this was imperative as I hadnt been able to locate my Coolpix on a last minute trawl of the clutter of my flat) …I ended up with the soggy circle of pastry on mixed mushrooms on the almost nice ‘Feuillete de Champignons’ £5.95. Comfort food, almost nice but to be more comforting it needed a side of French Fries £2.95 and a salad £3.50. Boring boring boring! But more than boring I suppose, scandalous almost as this had to be paid for after all. I’ve noticed a penchant in French (and pseudo French) restaurants for using unsalted butter. To my not quite Francophile palette unsalted butter just tastes like unsalted grease. Also scandalous for a French or pseudo French or has given itself a French name chain the ‘Baguette’ for which the unsalted grease was an accompaniment and for which they charge £2.25 is a little cheap basket of stiff airy inconsequential cardboard.
To add insult to injury all the staff were fawning over two uber serious speaking and miserable looking suited types who seemed to be trying every dish on the menu, on closer inspection I discovered they actually were trying every dish on the menu bite by bite and then after serious discussion they were writing things down. These people it transpired worked for the company and were taste testing or would have been if anything had had a taste. With these two to be sucked up to service was slow. The salad was anaemic, the fries were flaccid, the wine was fine. I havent even got to the diabolical interpretation of vegetarianism I encountered on the plane yet. Its a good job I didnt have a sandwich on the train.
I am not one of those people who wave away airline food when its brought to me especially as I am one of those people who everyone stares at to see what they’ve got because the vegetarian meals are invariably served first. So less than four hours after my expensive Cafe Rouge stodge I removed the foil lid of the small adequate almost tasty portion of pasta in tomato sauce, another anaemic salad and the obligatory cup of chilled melon. I wasnt hungry so didnt envy my neighbours chocolatey cake. I have noticed a definite pattern in the delivery of lacto ovo vegetarian meals. There may be cheese in the main part of the meal but its not usually given with crackers afterwards as it is with the non vegetarian meals. Anything sweet and sticky is replaced by icy melon cubes and the pat of butter is replaced by white margarine (this would make sense of course for a vegan meal but there was cheese on the pasta). I drank the wine that was served with dinner and as I was to be find out was only to be served with dinner and was not for sale. At one stage there seemed to be a man at the back of the plane selling plastic cups of rum (or maybe this was a hypoglycemic hallucination) but he was gone by the time I decided it was time for another drink. The flight was thirteen hours as there was a stop for dropping off passengers and refueling at Holguin.
No more refreshments were served for what seemed like eight hours and by then I was really hungry again. The next offering was preceded by the welcome flourish of activity of the crew, this state of anticipation was cut short for me when a steward with a deadpan expression place a banana in a plastic tray in front of me. I asked him what was in the sandwiches that were now being handed out. They looked like cheese. They were cheese. ‘These are not for vegetarian, this is for vegetarian’ he scolded me holding up my banana. ‘But I would like a sandwich as they are cheese’. I was seated near the galley and a stewardess started to read the ingredients label on the sandwich. ‘There is cheese. You eat cheese? Anyway you cannot have, you order vegetarian’ Now I was subject to suspicious looks, the fake vegetarian. ‘There was cheese on the pasta you brought me’ I told them, my nerves now jangling in famished irritation. Eventually after everyone had been given a sandwich one was placed in front of me, luckily there was one left for the awkward vegetarian.
Coming soon!
Beautiful Valle de Vinales and amazing Havana, books, films, recipes and more!
