Restaurant Review: Cubanitas

I could swear I've blogged about Cubanitas before, as it's one of my favorite Milwaukee restaurants, but I can't seem to find anything on it. In any event, last week, my ethnic dining group of girlfriends and I went to Cubanitas for dinner. For the last two months (and going until the end of March, I believe), the restaurant has been featuring foods from all over Latin America. Each week, the restaurant features a different country's fare with a special menu.

Last week it was Jamaican week. They had only four Jamaican-focused menu items: Jamaican rice, jerk chicken, beef patties and a special rum drink. I love the food at Cubanitas, but I knew I had to have one of the specials, since it was a one-time only type of thing.

But we started with a classic and favorite: the plantain chips with guacamole. It was delicious as always!

I also started with a typical Cubanitas drink: a mojito. Cubanitas is known for their mojitos, and they are quite good and strong! I can only handle about one of them--for the alcohol content and because it's on the sweeter side.

For my meal, I decided to go with the jerk chicken, which came with the special rice (made with coconut milk and other spices) and plantains. The jerk was good, but not quite what I've had before. In my experience (see my restaurant review of Irie Palace), jerk seasoning is usually dry and pretty darn spicy. This was neither, but it was good, nonetheless. The plantains were good, too (I LOVE plantains!)--they didn't do too much to them, but that's OK, because the natural, tasty flavor really came through. The rice was good, but it wasn't as flavorful as I had hoped it would be. I think the flavor might have been overpowered by the jerk flavor.

Overall, it was a great experience, and it was fun to try something new. I would recommend dining at Cubanitas in the next month to try flavors from other countries, especially those flavors and dishes you can't normally order in Milwaukee.