Short Courtship

Belqui's not around on my third visit, but the owner is. The vibrant Cuban woman named Gladys Abelenda comes over to greet a couple at the next table. The Little Havana is wonderfully age-integrated, simultaneously a boisterous family restaurant and a rendezvous for well-dressed adults. Many in the predominantly Latin American crowd seem to know each other, and there's a lot of table-hopping and cheek-kissing. After Abelenda leaves the couple, I quiz them about her. It turns out that Abelenda started the Café Miami on Bissonnet back in the mid-1980s but sold it around 1990. Now she's in the restaurant business again, and Cuban-food lovers are coming from all over town to welcome her back.

But on this Sunday afternoon, I've already started taking The Little Havana for granted. When I order huevos, café con leche y pan from the all-day breakfast section of the menu, I expect the coffee to come immediately. Instead, the whole breakfast is delivered together. It's difficult to believe that it costs only $2.79. Still, the scrambled eggs are plain, and the toasted Wonder rolls are boring. The free garlic toast comes in handy, though, spicing up the otherwise bland plate of eggs. I also order a mamey batido (shake) made with water; the tropical fruit tastes like starchy apricot.

The banality of the eggs and toast is more than redeemed by the excellent café au lait and the exotic mamey drink. (Mamey, or mamey sapote, I learn on the Internet, is a large tropical fruit of Central American origin with a brown skin and a giant seed.) It seems that each tropical fruit smoothie at The Little Havana is more interesting than the last. And there are still several unfamiliar fruits left for me to try: maracuya, trigo, mora…

The fruits, juices and smoothies make this a great place for breakfast, and I'm looking forward to going back at dinnertime to try the stuffed eye of beef round and the bacalao (a dried cod dish). But it's The Little Havana's desserts that I find irresistible. Of course, these dulces might also be considered breakfast, brunch or a midnight snack by sweet-toothed Latin Americans; a café cortidito (espresso with a touch of milk) and tres leches is one of the most popular offerings in the Cuban cafes of Miami, regardless of the time of day.

The cake and coffee are so good at The Little Havana that I'm thinking about sneaking into Abelenda's after spending the night in another restaurant. This outer Bellaire neighborhood is also the home of several of my favorite Asian eateries. In fact, you see Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, Malaysian, Mexican, Cuban and Salvadorean restaurants within a few stoplights of each other in this part of town. If I were to devour a little Vietnamese hotpot or a stunning Peking duck a few doors down and then stop into The Little Havana for a cortidito and a tres leches, would that be cheating?