cafe laguardia

so i kind of created a monster when i introduced my mother to groupon. a few months ago, i casually forwarded a groupon for zapatista, which is this yummy mexian(ishh..) place in that's 15 mins from my house and becca's bday dinner was there :) lemme know if you wanna check it out. i'll def go...even sans groupon.

mother was too late to buy the one for zapatista but she did ended up signing up for groupon....andddd buying every other offer they had.

no, like....seriously.

practically every week, i got a message from my mom saying "i bought a groupon for _____! we can go over the summer :)"

might i let you know-- i haven't heard of half of these places!!! so get ready for some interesting posts about random places this summer.

cafe laguardia was one of these restaurants my mom bought a groupon for. apparently it's been featured on check, please! and tasty travels..? yeah, i didn't remember it either.

the place is in bucktown, about a block off of damen and armitage. street parking was easy to find (we parked right across the street) aaaand it's free.

(pic of the outside thanks to menupages.com)

based on their fancy purple awnings with pretty fonts and colors, you'd think this was a classy place with pottery barn-esque decore. boyyyy was that wrong. there was so little lighting we had to move to a table by the window in order to see the menu. the white air ducts are spray painted zebra print. the chairs are black and white cheetah print...ohh and fuzzy. i wish i were making this up... and yeah, i got zero pictures because of the lack of lighting.

(but to give it some credit, the bar was pretty cool...marble floors, elevated wooden tables, a fancy wood bar with pretty bottles behind it haha.)

soo to the food. for a drank, i got the mojito* (per r.ray's suggestion). the thing i realized -- i don't like mojitos. whoooops. the mint's woodiness is incredibly over powering and almost reminds me of floor cleaner. but after diluting it with extra seltzer and adding an equal..it was alright for me lolz. soo yeah. i mean, i'm sure it was a good mojito? but they're not my thing so maybe it is worth all of the hype..?
(*sidenote -- mother was all up for me trying to get this. she was just like heyy it's lunch! and i'm with you! just act cool and go for it. and it worked. hahha)

for apps we started off with the ceviche and cuban tamale. the ceviche tasted like brothy pico de gallo. it was delish but def not good when you're paying $9 and expecting at least some taste of calamari and shrimp and there are none. the tamale was better though. the masa was light and nutty while the stuffing tasted like cured (?) fatty pork..def a good thing! and for $4..hullo (shoutout to c.bontempo on that one) but idk the diff between this and a mexican one...

for entrees we ordered the taste of cuba and red snapper. i was really excited about the red snapper because (FAVORITE OF RACHAEL RAY AND CHECK, PLEASE!) was printed in bold in the description. the fish was fresh and cooked well. and it came with good shrimp too (yeahhh FINALLY got some shrimp). but the white wine sauce was incredibly rich and made everything taste pretty much like bleh. i think the basil-tomato compote and onion garnish was supposed to cut through that but it didn't do enough. i do love my sauces..but this was just wayyy too much. and i think i may have gotten a few bites of unincorporated butter....either that or coagulated sauce. is there really a better of the two? yeah total grossness. needless to say, the dish wasn't that good. so fail rachael ray and check please. faillll

the taste of cuba seemed perfect for swongy -- there were 8 different items!!!! i'm just gonna list each thing out in order of how much i liked them:

1. fried pork medallion - well this sounded interesting right?? yeah it looked really good may have been pork belly aka my new obsession. but it became this dry, crunchy and salty piece of meat that was pretty inedible by itself.
2. braised beef -- the tomato-y was good but the beef was really dry and tough. my mom joked that she couldn't eat any more in fear that it would stick in her teeth and she didn't have any floss or toothpicks with her.
3. ground beef - yeahhhh. basically ground beef with some onions thrown in. and maybe some spices. it was good...but then again, it's ground beef. so idk how u can really mess that up?
4. white rice - surpriseee i like rice.
5. black beans - well, it should be noted that my basis of black beans is chipotle's so idk if that's like...legit. but in any case i did like cafe laguardia's more. the beans were more soft, and had a smokey, ham flavor. and it worked well as a sauce for the dry meats described above.
   
6. fried plantains. can't mess that up i guess.
   
7. tostones -- carbs that are fried twices. durrr i'm gonna love it.
8. croquettas de jamon. OBSESSED. fried mashed potatoes...YUM-O (hi r.ray). aaaand then add to that a hint of haminess and richness from sherry wine. legit getting that at every cuban place i go to from now on.

annnd to recap. while there were some good things, overall cafe laguardia was a bit of a disappointment. to get rave reviews from two pretty significant sources..? huhhhh???? while i appreciate their introducing me to cuban ham croquettes and serving me(...), it's too far away from my house for too mediocre of food. i'd rather go to a mexican place closer to home or find a yummier cuban place downtown.