Gastronomía es una palabra, sólo una palabra

[cocuyo]

After the old man died, we finally could sleep through the night and think about new year's eve. We wanted to do something special, so we decided to go to a newly reopened restaurant in Garçón, in one of the "dieciocho plantas" at the top floor. It was said to have been good, and the local paper Sierra Maestra had an article on the reopening with a favourable review.

There's an express lift on the outside of the building, where you must report your reservation before being admitted, and you get a number scribbled on a piece of paper. Up we went, and there there's a waiting-room, where you can wait to be seated. We sat there for well over half an hour, before our number was called and we were guided to a table. It has a hilarious view over a couple of the poorest parts of Santiago. The restaurant looks very nice, recently remodeled, and we ordered "cerdo a la santiaguera", which is supposed to be a slice of ham rolled up with a slice of cheese and deep fried.

This restaurant takes moneda nacional, and they had only one kind of beer, Mayabe. We had our second Mayabe before the food came in after about half an hour. The roll of meat was already cool, and the thing looked like a - maybe you guessed it - mojón, a turd. My wife would not eat it. And there was no cheese.

I have eaten in quite a few Cuban restaurants by now, but I cannot say that I even once had a delicious meal in a restaurant. It doesn't matter if it's an expensive CUC restaurant or if it's less expensive with moneda nacional. The incompetence seems to be spread into all kinds of business, the boasting about gastronomy is only thin air. Gastronomy in Cuba is but a word, a long word, too long to bother about its interpretation. They simply don't know what it means. I ate my turd and half my wife's, because I was hungry, and we took the remaining part home for later. I couldn't say it was cheap, although I have forgotten the price. I think the three of us paid just about one and a half month's salary for a teacher.

I had lunch once with one of the girls in the band I once sponsored, in another place, La Terraza at Plaza Dolores. Same thing there; we took pollo asado, which shouldn't be difficult to cook, but the place was sloppy, the chicken leg not completely cooked, and the congrí was served cold. Rafi ate as if it had been some time since she saw food, and I picked a few pieces of it and ingested. My impression remains, it is difficult to find a decent place to eat, at least in Santiago. I know one good restaurant in Havana, but it always has a long queue.

Maybe the worst anticlimax was the two times my wife ordered an entremés de jamón, the first time in Las Enramadas, the second time in Casa Granda. Both times it was not ham, but what they call "jamón viqui" (or jamonada (de jamón nada)), pressed meat of unclear origin. When not even a "luxury" place as Casa Granda can serve what's on the list, then I guess there's no help for it. I get better food buying from the neighbours that have a sandwich stand in the street. I can even see when they slaughter the pig. And it is cheaper.. I won't go to Casa Granda ever more; why would I ask them to fuck me harder? And I don't go to Las Enramadas either, once is enough. When I order ham, there shall be ham on the plate, nothing else.

And that's the thing with Cuba, everything is false, from beginning to end. There's no honesty, nobody seems to care at all. I'm getting tired of the place, and I feel limited. It's my thirteenth time, I didn't make any "research trips" as our local king on the board, and I never really was a "tourist" in the way "tourist" is perceived in Cuba. When I travel, I just go about my own business in a new place, just as I do at home, and in most places in the world, I feel that I am respected. In Cuba, you don't get any respect, they just want your money, and they prefer not giving anything back. You give them their token money in the restaurant and they serve you token food. I remember my first visit to a Cuban restaurant, also in Plaza Dolores, a fish restaurant. A couple of incinerated mackerel, with the only excuse that it was cheap. Now it is not even cheap.