Neighbourhoods The Drive Dirty Johnny 2002-03-22

Havana

Beunos dias, amigos! It’s well documented that The Armada has never been known to conform to the majority. We don’t cheer for the home team, we don’t listen to Train and we sure as hell don’t watch (or have sex with) anything that begins with the words “My Big, Fat, Greek.” In accordance with our tendency to defy the mainstream, we elected to ignore popular sentiment, build a makeshift raft out of used monster-truck inner tubes, a Return of the Jedi bedsheet and some bamboo shoots and flee into the forbidden land of Castro, Communism and Cohibas. That’s right, loyal followers, The Armada pulled a reverse Elian Gonzales this week and made haste for Vancouver’s own local slice of Cuba at Havana on Commercial Drive in the heart of lovely, multi-cultural East Van.

Long-renowned as one of the city’s finest authentic, ethnic restaurant/art gallery combos, Havana had been in the Armada’s sights for some quite a while and our expectations had reached a fervourous high by the time we washed ashore at the foot of it’s gorgeous wrought iron, painted-to-look-genuinely-weathered doors. As it was more than a tit nipply out, we bypassed the spacious patio for the more temperate interior and sank our frigid hinders into the luxuriant, vermilion, crushed velvety benches.

Décor-wise, Havana offered up an ocular feast as the walls were garnished with a seemingly limitless array of black-and-white photographs (presumably of Cubans), cigar boxes, Cuban flags, communist manifestos, recruitment pamphlets, locks of Fidel’s crusty beard… Okay, maybe they didn’t have all of those particular items but there was quite a Latin flair to the joint. Salsa music (possibly mambo, cha-cha or that turd-burglar Ricky Martin, I don’t know the damn difference) invaded our aural cavities and enslaved us to the rhythm, prompting a coffeed-to-the-gills Duck-boy to leap from his seat and attempt to Lambada with random, unreceptive diners. After a twenty-minute explanation/apology to the unimpressed management, we were permitted to return to our wobble-dog table and order our meals.

Hoping and praying to be waited on by the lone super-cutie on duty that day, we were somewhat dejected to learn that her section and our section were not one and the same. The waitress who ended up serving us was very pleasant and attentive but the overall lack of chesty Chicanas did not go unnoticed. Top marks were given for timely coffee refills, punctual food deliverance and overall restaurant knowledge but make no mistake, this woman was in no way, shape or form Cuban. In fact, from what we could glean from her, there was nary an actual Cuban person working at Havana at present nor were there any immediate plans to hire any. For shame.

Moving on to the food now, I collided head-on with a piping hot plate of turkey sausage hash and after one bite, nothing, save for the jaws of life could have separated my slobbering face from this gooey mess of baby red potatoes, processed poultry and poached eggs. I’ll admit that upon spying sausage on the menu, I immediately hesitated, my mind hearkening back to 12th grade history class and conjuring up the unappetizing details of 1962’s infamous “Cuban Gristle Crisis.” Fortunately, the turkey was smoothly sinew and ligament-free and when topped off with hollandaise and Havana’s decadent beer and Chipotle sauce, this tasty number made a little history of it’s own. The only thing in recent memory that I can recall being near as richly satisfying was the time I sucker-punched Celine Dion in the lower back and then cackled maniacally as her pedophilic husband attempted to avenge her, only to have his legs buckle under the weight of his own cherubic obesity. True, Celine, the heart will go on but those kidneys have pretty much had it.

Duck-boy was all over the $8.95 Havana Benny like type-2 herpes on Heidi Fleiss’ genitalia. In all my days as a veteran, breakfast reviewing superhero, I’ve never seen a man share as intimate a bond with a meal as The Duck did with his zesty panoply of grilled capicolli and tomato hollandaise. We actually had to pry the guy loose when he immersed his fingers in an attempt to Vulcan mind-meld with the eggs. With more on the story, let’s hear from the eggs Benedict guru himself, Duck-boy:

“Spectacular! The creamy hollandaise and French bread blended seamlessly with the spicy ham. Although I would undoubtedly relish eating seventeen of them, it was the perfect size and I am mentally, physically and gastro-intestinally satisfied. This is, hands down, the best benny I have ever had.” I don’t really know what I can add to that. High praise indeed from our resident expert.

Agent M was also greatly fulfilled by his $7.50 Latin Breakfast. This scrambled egg and rice dish was served up on a flour tortilla and topped with red and black beans, sour cream and green onions. M, whose affinity for Spanish meals stems from his years spent in Bogota working for Pablo Escobar’s cartel, cited an ideal blend of sweet and spicy as the dish’s main asset. He felt it could have used a little more egg but with three eggs currently included, that’s asking a lot of overtime from the already criminally underpaid chickens.

All seemed to be going well on our voyage to Havana but the curmudgeony Lang Dang had yet to add his two cents. The insatiable bottomless pit was peeved that after shelling out $9.25 for the Avocado and Shrimp Benny, he was still hungry for more. While he admitted that it was tough to go wrong when adding avocado to anything, he was, in sharp contrast to the rest of the crew, less than satisfied with the quality and quantity of his breakfast. Fair enough but keep in mind, faithful readers, that the Dang could probably polish off an entire pygmy hippopotamus and still want to go for Chinese.

So there you have it. If, in fact, Havana is in any way representative of actual Cuban life, it’s hard to imagine why Ricky Ricardo would brave the mighty swells of the North Atlantic to escape from such a delightful, breakfasty existence. Decades of political oppression, crippling US sanctions and the occasional class 5 hurricane are but a small price to pay for gastric delights of such succulent proportions. Start lashing together that driftwood right now, stock up on drinking water and fishing hooks and make your way to the Havana in East Vancouver, it’ll be worth the effort. Viva la revolucion!