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CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
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UID:meetup-e15018122d@palaner.app
DTSTAMP:20260802T141131Z
DTSTART:20260815T233000Z
DTEND:20260816T010000Z
SUMMARY:Cuban cuisine @ Mima's Taste of Cuba (patio)
LOCATION:Mimas Taste of Cuba
DESCRIPTION:Saved in Palaner as: saved\n\nPalaner match: 28% · why: lots of
  people going\n\n\\NOTE: The $2 meetup fee is charged to pay for fees char
 ged by Meetup.com. The payment can be made via Cashapp/PayPal/Zelle - I wi
 ll PM you payment details upon RSVP.\\\n\n\\NOTE: Mima's Taste of Cuba onl
 y takes reservations 24 hours in advance. If the weather cooperates\, I wi
 ll ask for a patio table for our group.\\\n\nMenu: https://www.mimastoc.co
 m/\n\nTable for 12 at Mima's Taste of Cuba\, a Cuban restaurant in Irving 
 Park. The restaurant has a large and colorful patio. It was also recommend
 ed by the Chicago Reader.\n\nFrom the Chicago Reader:\n\n"First it was Jor
 ge Soler. Back when he played right field for the Cubs\, he really liked t
 he churrasco plate at Cuba 312. Soler told Javier Baez and Willson Contrer
 as and Pedro Strop\, and before long all sorts of Latin American players a
 nd coaches started hanging out at Billy and Jamie Alvarez’s Roscoe Village
  restaurant. Then they discovered the couple’s first restaurant\, Taste of
  Cuba\, in Lincolnwood\, which served a more traditional\, homier menu. Th
 at was until the couple shut it down and reopened in Irving Park in Februa
 ry\, in a narrow space formerly home to a succession of taquerias and hot 
 dog stands (including a satellite of the once-ascendant La Pasadita empire
 ).\n\nNow painted a vivid pastel pink and blue\, sporting a giant Celia Cr
 uz mural on the back wall\, and renamed for Billy’s abuela\, Mima’s is jus
 t a ten-minute drive from Rickettsville in case any players get sick of sh
 ort rib disco fries or the Pig Candy BLT.\n\nHere the Alvarezes have insta
 lled a truncated version of their old menu\, more lunch­focused and sandwi
 ch-dominated\, still with a few larger plates and some desirable fried bit
 es like yucca fries\, empanadas\, gooey ham croquettes\, and waffle fries 
 topped with ropa vieja and a fried egg (speaking of disco fries).\n\nSome 
 extraordinary frycraft is indeed practiced at Mima’s\, embodied in somethi
 ng as deceptively simple as the tostones. Cross-sected\, stacked\, and sma
 shed\, these crackly coins of deep-fried green plantain have a lightness a
 nd freshness\, utterly unlike the dense and starchy variant you come acros
 s all too often. Billy Alvarez says that’s because he buys and preps fresh
  plantains every morning\, and they’re fried to order (instead of using pr
 e-peeled-and-cut frozen bags).\n\nTime and the freezer are often the enemi
 es of Chicago’s native gluten-free sandwich too. But Alvarez treats Mima’s
  jibarito similarly: freshly fried crisp planks of plantain\, drizzled in 
 garlic mojo\, bedding the usual set of ornaments (mayo\, tomato\, lettuce\
 , cheese) with a choice of steak\, chicken\, lechon\, or shrimp\, and brin
 ging it back home with a Cuban version with ham\, pork\, swiss\, mustard\,
  and pickles.\n\nAlvarez is half Cuban and half Puerto Rican\, and as a ki
 d he worked a couple shifts at Humboldt Park’s late Borinquen\, where the 
 jibarito was born\, so he felt obligated to include one on his menu. For t
 he only strictly non-Cuban item available\, it’s a very respectable versio
 n. But the classic Cubano sandwich itself is something extraordinary\, an 
 expertly buttered and pressed package\, with all the elements of fat and a
 cidity in balance contained within a uniformly resonant bread jacket. “You
  have to hear it if you flick it with your fingernail\,” says Alvarez. He 
 applies this standard so consistently to the media noche\, the lechon\, an
 d the bistec\, as well as to the breakfast sandwiches\, that it’s likely y
 ou’ll not notice that it’s Turano bread instead of the unique lard-crisped
  Cuban bread that eludes most every sandwich maker north of Tampa. That’s 
 more evident in Mima’s only unpressed sandwich\, the Gordito\, a fat boy s
 tacked with mojo-marinated sirloin\, grilled onions\, swiss\, lettuce\, an
 d mayo\, with a pair of over easy eggs winking from under the bun.\n\nSkir
 t steak\, pork chops\, a bowl of peppery ropa vieja\, and juicy shredded r
 oast pork are the core of the meaty platos\, each with the choice of class
 ic sides: arroz con gandules\, or white rice and black beans\, and those t
 ostones of course\, as well as their softer\, sweeter caramelized whole co
 usins maduros\, which behave almost like dessert.\n\nThe family of Cuban c
 offee drinks and breakfast sandwiches are available too\, though Alvarez w
 on’t open for breakfast until he finds someone willing to work the early h
 ours. He says he wants to keep the menu tight and focused\; he has ambitio
 ns to open other locations.\n\nIn the meantime the regulars from Wrigley F
 ield have found their way to the new spot. “These people know firsthand wh
 at this food is supposed to taste like\,” he says."
URL:https://www.meetup.com/the-international-supper-club-of-chicago/events/
 315756395/
CATEGORIES:palaner,saved
STATUS:TENTATIVE
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