Studebaker, Cuba.

There isn’t really much about this photo that relates to food. Nothing at all, in fact. I shot this on my first morning in Havana. I was there with my dad. He wanted to see the Panama Canal and when I looked around to see where else we could go (nothing personal, Panama, but aside from beaches there wasn’t much to see in Panama except the Canal) I noticed Cuba wasn’t too far away.

I’m from Canada, so going to Cuba is no big deal. We flew from Toronto to Havana, stayed for a few days; flew to Panama, saw the Canal, came back to Havana and stayed a few more days and then went home. Great trip.

This is (ostensibly) a food blog. So, I guess I better talk about the food. Actually, first I’ll mention that this shot was taken with a Fujifilm x100 and I have a good friend who has a couple of Studebakers. I saw this, thought of Steve and snapped away.

Right, food. Cuban food was actually (in 2012) much better than I expected. With the exception of one meal where my chicken skewer was totally undercooked we had routinely pretty tasty food. From breakfast in the Casa Particulaire (thanks, again, Maura) to dinner at the Cafe Florida where there is a statue of Hemingway holding up one end of the bar, the food was pretty good. Sometimes marginal, often good and a couple of times, great.

When I was researching our trip I read again and again how awful the food was. I guess it all depends on your point of view. The food in Cuba was actually better than the food in Russia, but there might be a few reasons for that one.

I wasn’t expecting much, really. And I was more than adequately rewarded and surprisingly impressed.