Week in Review: 90 Miles Cuban Cafe Gets 4 Stars

[photo credit: Jakub Augustyn for TOC]

Shouse hit up new spot 90 Miles Cuban Cafe and can't say enough good things about the decor -- which is seemingly authentic Cuban -- and the food is spot on. "Dinner brings the heft, with generous portions of rib-sticking classics like lechon asado (hunks of pork roast that tend to be a bit salty but are juicy nonetheless) and ropa vieja (tender shredded beef in a rusty-red pool of tomato and bell-pepper juice). The white rice alongside is nice and fluffy, the sweet plantains appropriately greasy and the inky black beans characteristically one-note, with only a few flecks of white onion to flavor them. Nothing is modernized, fused or even aggressively flavored—it wouldn’t be Cuban if it was." [TOC]

Vettel loves cheese but finds that Oak Park's new outpost, Marion Street Cheese Market, misses the mark. So much so that he only gives it one star, yowch. "I don't have many quibbles with Pivoney's food; the worst that I can say about his uncomplicated, three-to-four-ingredient dishes is that a few of them are, oh, unexciting. A shrimp pasta dish one night was a certifiable snooze, and a chorizo and shrimp dish needed a wake-up call." [Trib]