MARKETS : Porto’s Bakery: Miami Vices

Porto’s Bakery and Cafe, 315 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, (818) 956-5996. Open Monday through Saturday, 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

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Perhaps only half of the customers at Porto’s Cuban Bakery and Cafe are actually Cuban, but the place still gives you the impression you’re in Central Miami. Carefully groomed women with flawlessly polished nails and beauty-shop hairdos are gossiping, laughing, kissing goodbye on both cheeks, having devoured their rum babas or rich tres leches cakes. Groups of older men wearing guayabera shirts, their tables littered with empty espresso cups and half-eaten media noche sandwiches, are arguing politics.

Porto’s is a family-owned business on a sedate stretch of Brand Boulevard in downtown Glendale, but one thing you could never call the place is dull. A constant chattery din of rapid-fire Spanish echoes off the bakery’s two-story ceiling as customers grab a number for the Cuban sandwich bar, wait impatiently for their turn to order pastries and cappuccino or request a certain cake.

Through the electric sliding doors, customers exit with armloads of Porto’s pink boxes filled with the best Cuban cakes and pastries--indeed, some of the best baked goods of any kind--in all of Los Angeles.

The bakery’s newly remodeled digs were once a small department store. The columned mezzanine above the brightly lit pastry case area gives the modernized room below a sense of having been superimposed over a patch of Cuban Colonial architecture. This style parallels the business itself: It manages to accommodate the appetites of an older generation of Cubans while catering to the more modern tastes of its new customers.

All the traditional Cuban pastries are here: the ones with romantic names such as bocado de principe (a bite for a prince) and brazo de gitano (gypsy’s arm). But recently, the goods in Porto’s cases have been taking a contemporary turn. White chocolate-raspberry cheese cake, tirami su , even apple-oat bran muffins are showing up.

For the most part though, Porto’s maintains a traditional Cuban kitchen. For its Cuban sandwiches, the kitchen roasts about 25 garlic-marinated pork legs every day. For meat-stuffed potato balls ( papas rellenas ), an old family recipe is used for the filling.

But in the recently remodeled space, Raoul Porto Jr., son of owners Raoul and Rosa Porto, and now in charge of the baking, proudly shows off his impressive high-tech bakery equipment. The computerized Italian dough mixer and the automatic puff pastry dough sheeter, imported from Germany, are the things used in the artisanal shops in Europe to achieve hand-made-quality pastries with a manageable number of employees.

Porto Jr. wheels a huge stack of unbaked galletas --traditional Cuban crackers--into the German rack oven, which rotates the stacks of trays as they bake. “These galletas are a pain to make,” he says. “But our loyal older customers would be upset if we didn’t offer them.”

Porto’s didn’t always have the means for such up-to-date technology. Though it’s now a fixture in the Cuban community, in 1960, when it opened as a tiny shop in the Silverlake area, it had to supplement its Cuban items with Mexican pastries.

Relating a bit of the bakery’s history, Margarita Porto-Navarro, another Porto daughter in the family business, explains: “My mom, Rosa, actually started the business back in Cuba. You couldn’t make a decent living there because everyone had to work for the government, so people sometimes had businesses on the side.

“Mom used to make wedding cakes and other special-occasion cakes. She became sort of famous for these, and after we got settled here, some of her old customers, who had come over too, started to request them again.”

Rosa had tried to obtain a job as a cake decorator at Van de Kamp’s but failed. She opened Porto’s instead. The store had only one baker then. Raoul Sr., who had obtained his auto mechanic’s degree and worked a night shift, helped out during the day. The kids all pitched in after school. “I’ve been baking since I was about 17,” Raoul Jr. says.

The business, which now supports four families and assorted employees, has been expanding ever since.

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SAVORY PASTRIES AND SNACKS

Cuban-Style Sandwiches: Porto’s sandwiches, like Spago’s pizzas, bring refinement to an everyday specialty. Fresh pork legs that are boned, then marinated in mojo de ajo , the famous Cuban garlic condiment. The meat is slowly roasted to a juicy tenderness. And, of course, Porto’s also bakes the long, thin loaves of Cuban bread used in the sandwiches.

The simplest of the five Cuban-style sandwiches Porto’s makes is the pan con lechoon, slices of the marinated pork piled into the bread, which is flattened and toasted on a double-faced grill. For the Cuban sandwich, pork is layered with ham, Swiss cheese, tomato, mustard, mayonnaise and dill pickle slices. The media noche, or midnight sandwich, probably got its name from its use as a midnight snack. It’s almost identical to the Cuban sandwich but made on a light, sweet roll instead of Cuban bread.

One of the more immoderate sandwiches is the media noche preparada, which adds home-made ham croquets to the regular media noche. Papa preparada mates Porto’s stuffed mashed potato balls with Swiss cheese, lettuce and tomato on Cuban bread.

Empanada de Pollo: The fragile pastry for these Cuban-style chicken pies is so delicious that people love the unfilled pie edges as much as the filled portion. The shredded chicken filling has been braised with onion and a little tomato and pimiento, which gives it the Spanish flavor found in many Cuban dishes. The kitchen turns out individual pies and larger (12x9-inch) shapes that people buy to cut into small squares for hors d’oeuvres.

Papas Rellenas: These stuffed potato balls, made by rolling mashed potatoes around a ground-beef filling, are as addicting as a first-rate pizza. Magically, the balls are never greasy inside; although they’re deep-fried, there’s just the thinnest film of crisp potato exterior.

Croquetas de Jamon: Little bars of ham suspended in a white sauce are lightly dusted with crumbs and deep-fried.

Pastel de Carne: These individual meat-filled flaky pastries are reminiscent of French bouchees , those multi-layered pastry cases that chefs in the heyday of Continental cuisine usually filled with chicken a la king or creamed lobster. However, these pastries are slightly larger and their filling is a well-seasoned ground beef cooked with garlic and onions.

Cuban Tamales: A smooth, pudding-like corn dough infused with the taste of pork broth is what gives the Cuban character to Porto’s tamales. The long tubes of dough are filled with little chunks of marinated pork and an occasional corn kernel or wisp of pimiento. Porto’s tamales are so popular many customers take home dozens to freeze. They freeze very well; to serve, thaw and warm in a steamer.

Galletas: A long, slow rise lasting about two days gives these traditional puffed, yeast-leavened crackers a nutty flavor many factory-made galletas lack. Usually they’re eaten like any cracker, as a snack or with appetizers. But spread with dulce de leche , a caramelized milk sweet popular all over Latin America, galletas become an impromptu dessert.

CUBAN SWEET PASTRIES

Cuba’s notorious sweet tooth was encouraged by the island’s traditional specialization in sugar and rum--two commodities almost every Cuban could afford. Coconut, pineapple and especially a sweetened puree of guava are also trademarks of the Cuban dessert table, and they’re used liberally at Porto’s.

Capuchinos: These little cakes get their name from the pointed hood of a monk’s cape. They are formed in paper cones, and as the cake bakes, a round of dough puffs from the wide end to form a little dome; once baked, the capuchinos look a lot like ice cream cone sculptures. The cooled cakes are sprinkled with a cinnamon-flavored syrup mixed with dry white Spanish wine.

Rum Babas: These babas are not the yeast dough variety but eggy cakes made with cornstarch, which creates a light and feathery textured cake. Like the capuchinos , they’re baked in a paper form: a squat tube shape about the size of a napkin ring. Of course, the babas are flavored with rum.

Coquitos en Almibar: Translated as “little coconuts in caramelized crust,” these ultra-sweet pastries are almost like a candy. The golf-ball-size rounds start with shredded coconut mixed with egg white and honey and are coated with a brittle covering of caramel, then anointed with a little syrup and placed in a pleated paper cup. This sweet mouthful calls out for a cup of Porto’s wonderful strong espresso.

Guava Roll: A cookie-like pastry is rolled around sweet guava paste into a loop shape. Guava rolls are only moderately sweet, compared to some other Cuban-style pastries.

Cuban Strudel: Guava and cheese strudel has white fresh cheese and guava paste inside a flaky strudel dough oblong that’s slit on top. The combination of fruit and mellow cheese is unbeatable. Porto’s also makes a coconut strudel.

Masa Real: Another guava pastry, masa real comes in two forms; both are made with the same dough and filling. One looks like a giant thumbprint cookie, round with a patch of guava in the center. The other is like a very large guava-cookie sandwich, with the guava filling between two layers of the cookie-like pastry.

Tres Leches: Seductive and intensely rich but not overly sweet, this cake is called “three milks” because it’s made with evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk and fresh cream. The cake portion soaks up the sweet milks so it almost has the texture of pudding. A meringue icing is swirled on with a pastry bag and toasted very lightly.

Bocado de Principe: The name translates roughly as “a taste fit for the Prince.” This is a yellow cake topped with a thick, creamy layer of Spanish-style custard and a dusting of cinnamon.

Panatella Boracha: Most people think of a panatella as a long, thin, flat Cuban cigar, but the original meaning of the word describes a long, thin biscuit. To make this dessert, Cuban cooks soak sweet, lady finger-like biscuits in a rum or liqueur syrup, hence the nickname “drunken biscuits.” Porto’s version consists of two layers of rum syrup-soaked cake filled with a ribbon of guava paste, topped with a paper-thin caramel sugar glaze and cut into precise squares.

Cubiertas: Guava appears once again, this time between layers of a white pound cake. The loaf-shaped cake is sliced, and each three-tiered piece is covered with a thick layer of white sugar icing and sprinkled with multicolored nonpareils.

Rosa Porto’s Cakes: These are the cakes that started Porto’s. Though they were originally made in the Porto home in Cuba, they’re as beautifully finished as anything from a Paris patisserie. The base of all these cakes is Rosa’s torte, a very light, barely sweet cake rich with eggs. The layers are sprinkled with a thin sugar syrup that has been boiled with a cinnamon stick and then mixed with dry white Spanish wine.

“You can order your cake with any filling you want,” says Betty Porto-Kawabata, Rosa’s eldest daughter. “Lots of people love the guava or they want cherry or chocolate filling.” But for their everyday stock, Porto’s makes the three most popular varieties: custard-filled, with a meringue frosting; strawberry-filled, with a meringue or whipped cream frosting; and pineapple-filled, with meringue frosting.

Cake Slices: Because not everyone wants a whole cake, Porto’s sells its pineapple-custard filled cake with meringue frosting and its layered strawberry cakes by the slice.

Brazo de Gitano: These jelly-roll-style cakes, fancifully named “gypsy’s arm” (presumably because of their shape), are doused with rum syrup and then filled with custard or guava filling. The custard-filled cakes are decorated with more custard, while the guava-filled cakes have an apricot glaze, whipped cream florets and a margin of toasted coconut on their sides.

CONTEMPORARY PASTRIES

Tony Salazar, Porto’s resident European pastry chef, studied his art at the California Culinary Institute and at UCLA’s culinary program. His pastries are more or less California-style, rather than by-the-book French and he’s always coming up with new ideas.

Salazar’s mango mousse cake is a cloud of not-too-rich mango-flavored cream under a clear laminate of mango glaze, balanced on plain yellow cake. His triple chocolate mousse cake has layers of white, milk and dark chocolate, baroquely festooned with white chocolate curls. Lately he’s been making white chocolate-raspberry cheese cake and tirami su circled with a picket-fence-like row of lady fingers.

OTHER SWEETS

Cuba is famous for its pudim de pan. The country has more recipes for this bread pudding than Italy has minestrones. At Porto’s, pudim is made with buttered bread, shredded and soaked thoroughly with milk, eggs and just enough sugar to sweeten it subtly. The result is a dense, rich custard strewn with a few raisins, baked in individual cups or bread pans that have a glossy layer of caramel at the bottom.

No Cuban dessert repertoire would be complete without flan. And so Porto’s has one, a creamy custard not too firm nor too liquid, with a caramel browned to a subtle bitter-sweetness.