With ties to Old Havana
IN one corner of the dining room, a pianist’s hands fly over the keyboard, pounding out distinctly Cuban rhythms and warming the somewhat stark space with the sounds of Old Havana. Our waiter could have stepped out of the vintage black-and-white photos mounted on the walls that depict Papa Hemingway and a host of Hollywood grandees living the good life in the ‘40s at the original La Bodeguita del Medio in Havana.
The place is so famous that offshoots and franchises have opened in far-flung places in the intervening years. And now La Bodeguita de Pico has opened its doors to Angelenos on Pico Boulevard just west of La Brea Avenue. This one is owned by Blake Yoon and his wife, Danay, who I’m told is related to the folks who owned and ran the original Bodeguita in Cuba and who is featured in the sexy, larger-than-life photographs on the wall. She’s a beautiful woman, but the vanity photos strike an odd decorating note.
Never mind. Order up a mojito and some fried ripe plantains. La Bodeguita is lively and fun; the food is, all in all, quite good and inexpensive. Most main courses are well under $20, and they include sweet plantains and a choice of rice topped with black beans or moros y cristianos -- the politically incorrect “Moors and Christians,” i.e., white rice and black beans cooked together.
You can order appetizers one by one, or spring for the gran plato del chef, a sampler of tostones rellenos (fried green bananas stuffed with ground beef or shrimp), stuffed potatoes, banana chips and chunks of fried pork. Deep-fried yucca in a garlicky cilantro sauce is interesting too. And when you taste a bowl of chicken soup, you know it’s homemade.
Avocado salad with sliced tomato and sweet onions drenched in lime is a bit short on the avocado for my tastes, but the ensalada de Danay piles it on with mixed baby greens, hearts of palm, tomatoes, onion, Manchego cheese and black beans.
The crowd is a mix of hipsters checking out the music and the mojitos, families with kids having dinner (there’s a special kids menu) and Cubans nostalgic for some traditional cooking.
That would be pollo asado, roast chicken in a secret sauce. It’s also, incidentally, all you can eat. I went straight for the slow-roasted, marinated leg of pork. When you consider that it’s $10.75, including rice, it’s quite a deal. I always have a soft spot for picadillo, that classic Cuban dish of ground beef cooked with garlic, onions and tomatoes, and although my Cuban girlfriend’s version is better, I think, this is basic and delicious. On a chilly winter night, it hits the spot.
Desserts are all homey confections, like a satiny flan covered in caramel, rice milk pudding or tres leches, a sponge cake soaked in three kinds of milk.
The evening at La Bodeguita got me dreaming of Old Havana, and when I got home, I had to play “Buena Vista Social Club” and my CDs of Ibrahim Ferrer and Ruben Gonzalez.
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La Bodeguita de Pico
Where: 5047 W. Pico Blvd., L.A.
When: Dinner, 5 to 11 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays; brunch, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays. Will also be open Mondays after the first of the year.
Price: Appetizers, $3.50-$14.75; main courses, $9.75-$24; desserts, $4.75-$5.25.
Info: (323) 937-2822, www.labodeguitadepico.com