Tasty Ballpark Meals You’ll Want to Try for the Big Game

4. Tropicana Field

Tampa Bay will woo you with the year-round good weather and their Cuban sandwiches. But if that’s not enough to get you excited about a Rays game, go with an empty stomach and belly up to the paella.

(From “The Stir”)

Cuban Sandwiches We Have Known

Liborio’s Latin Cafe & Catering

Tampa, Fla

againstelegies:

Cuban coffee above all else.

Like The Original, Only Smaller

fantasticedibles:

Cuban Sandwich Snack Crackers

Friends of the Cuban Sandwich

Guava and cheese loaf

La Segunda Bakery

Tampa, Fla.

Cuban Sandwiches We Have Known

Roving sandwich reporter Todd Sturtz checks in again, this time from Crazy Ray’s on Kennedy Boulevard in Tampa:

Crazy Ray’s Deli opened in October 2010 in the space formerly occupied by Moxie’s, and offers a plethora of sandwiches. And I mean a plethora. At least 30 or more (including some breakfast sandwiches), with a variety of sizes and ingredients. I was driving by on my way to get a haircut and Ray’s colorful orange signs caught my attention, so I stopped to investigate.

The decor was bright and colorful, not necessarily tasteful - unless of course you’re orange and yellow is your thing, in which case you’ll LOVE it. Although labeled a deli, I don’t recall seeing any deli counter inside, more like a typical sandwich shop with a big menu on the wall and a soda fountain off to the side with napkins and condiments keeping it company.

Many of Ray’s sandwiches are on Cuban bread, which I was told is sourced daily from the Casino Bakery (Ybor City). Not surprisingly, the Cuban sandwich I ordered ($6.49) also came on said bread, and per usual, I requested it well pressed, sans lettuce/tomato/mayo. As you can see from the picture, the sandwich had a generous amount of meat on it, the most discernable of which was the thin-sliced ham when biting through the crunchy shell into the soft layers of bread, meat, and cheese.

When putting this Cuban up against my recent visits to Wright’s & Floridian, I must concede it would scarcely be a contender, even though it was the most meatily adorned of the three. The ham really stole the show, in a briny sort of way (not bad mind you, this would be quite enjoyable to one with a penchant for ham sandwiches and/or salt), while most everything else in the sandwich took a back seat. The salami was nowhere near as prevalent as it was in Floridian’s (and I really would have loved it if the Ray’s bread had a tiny bit of butter on it like Floridan), and the roast pork was in attendance, but hardly with the presence it had in Wright’s.

I’d go to Ray’s again, but to explore the rest of the menu, not for the Cuban. Especially not with the Floridian a literal stone throw away

The Ambassadorial Sandwich

The Gut Check blog of the Riverfront Times has named the Cuban Sandwich from La Tropicana as among it’s 100 favorite dishes in St. Louis, Mo.

Food writer Ian Froeb describes it thusly:

Once the American palate got a hold of Hispanic foods, we ended up with platter-sized chimichangas, guacamole from a jar and nacho cheese from a can. Fortunately, we also got the Cuban sandwich: a hearty, portable lunch born when Cuban immigrants came to Florida.

Each Sandwich Cubano at La Tropicana (5001 Lindenwood; 314-353-7328) is assembled to order. First, the Cuban bread gets a smear of mustard and of mojito, a house-made, garlicky olive oil sauce. Next, the cook hoists a large tong-full of marinated roast pork, letting just enough of the juices drain so that the bread won’t get soggy. The chunks of pork get topped with Swiss cheese, thick slices of ham and an equally thick slab of pickle.

The whole enchilada (metaphorically speaking, of course) goes into a hot sandwich press until the cheese melts and the bread crisps.

According to the print menu, the Sandwich Cubano comes with plantain chips, but it just as often comes with a hearty scoop of rice with beans. Although the sandwich might cost $7.95, it’s easily big enough to share.

Cuban Sandwiches We Have Known

Todd Sturtz has another Cuban sandwich review. This time, he stopped at The Floridian on Kennedy Boulevard in Tampa:

The Floridian is small. Not tiny, but hardly the behemoth size of Colombian, or as large as Brocatos. The interior is both a bit modern and a bit hokey - tile floors and accents, and a huge mural of elephant ear plants occupying the wall opposite the kitchen. Walls and ceiling are pastel South Florida shades of blue and green, while tables and countertops are polished black stone, with large orbs of other stone visible laced throughout. There are 5 tables, and 4 seats at a bar facing the front window. During the lunch rush it gets pretty cramped so I try to show up around 11:30 a.m. when it’s much calmer.

On to the sandwich! The bread is said to be from La Segunda, and the ingredients are 4 different tasty and moist meats, each sliced about an eighth of an inch thick: salami, turkey, ham, and pork (from what I can tell). The mustard is a mixture of mayo and mustard, and just doesn’t have enough of the vinegary kick I so love and crave. Pickles were present and had a good pickle bite to them, and the cheese was nice and soft. I feel that there are three things that really don’t add anything to a Cuban Sandwich for me- Mayo, Lettuce, and Tomato, so I typically don’t order the sandwich with them on board.

I asked for the gentleman taking my order to “press the crap out of it” as I like my cheese melty and the middle of the sandwich warm (not a fan of cold cheese and cold meats inside warm, toasty bread). He was kind enough to oblige and even wrote “press the crap out of it” on the order ticket. Good man! The salami added a salty, meaty, almost earthy layer, while the other three layers were less discernable flavor-wise but were certainly moist slices of meat that gave the sandwich good body. The 7-inch-long Cuban was $4.99 and worth every penny.

The Artists and Writers Group in Tampa this week started presenting a month-long series of cultural events titled “The Cuban Sandwich Show” at venues around town. The show runs June 1-30 and operates on the premise is that all the art, in all mediums, has as its subject, “Tampa…and/or Cuban sandwiches.”

The motto: All Art-All Tampa-No Mayo.

For more information, click here.

This Tumblr is meant to be a celebration of a sandwich. And not just by me.

So when a friend and fellow Tampa food lover Todd Sturtz saw I was doing a Cuban sandwich blog, he asked if he could join in on the fun and write about the versions he found. The more the merrier, I told him.

Here’s his first dispatch from Wright’s Gourmet Cafe:

• Very solid, although not as amazing in the past. Ordered sans mayo, with an extra slice of cheese. Bread perfectly crunchy on outside but gives way to soft interior that your teeth cleanly penetrate without having to tear or pull ingredients out. Meat is all tender and properly cooked. the little bit of butter on the press is a nice touch.

Well done, sir.

I noted that Wright’s doesn’t cut their sandwich in a triangular shape with a pointy tip the way many restaurants do to help diners attack the sandwich. He said it was angled, but hardly as much as the Columbia restaurant in Ybor City.

So here’s my offer:

See a Cuban somewhere on the menu? Take a photo and e-mail it to me at jhouck [at] tampatrib.com and I’ll include it here on the blog.  No matter where you are in the world. The more far-flung the better.

Thanks again, Todd!