Our Reviews 2

Christmas 2000 By Claire Boylan (Image Magazine)

Dinner

Far from hotter climes warms a winter day; Clare Boylan basks in the heat.

"How strange to open a restaurant featuring the cuisine of a nation that has had trade sanctions for 20 years," murmured my unromantic companion as we squeezed ourselves up the narrow stairway of Bella Cuba. To hell with cuisine. I was in the mood for a Mojito and the Cubans make pretty good rum.

A Mojito, in case you didn't know, is a long drink made from Cuban rum, fresh mint, fresh limes and cane syrup. "Do you have 'em?" was my first question as we entered the tiny, low-lit room, formerly Moroccan restaurant, Marrakesh. "Of course," said the charming proprietress, Larisa Gonzalez, "Daiquiris too!" Mojito in hand, I squinted at my menu in lighting better suited to the bedrooms of middle-aged lovers. Starters (from £3.95 to £6) included sugared meat pies, pan-fried shrimp, guacamole with yucca fingers, black bean soup and black bean salad, steamed mussels with sofrito (a mix of garlic, onions, peppers, parsley and wine) and Cuban crab and shrimp soup. I ordered the pastelitos Havanas (sugared meat pies) and a half portion of the bean salad which came with tostones Cubanos (plantains that tasted like a cross between a banana and a potato). He chose smoked salmon rolls with asparagus mousse.

Service was so leisurely we could have done a tango, then a salsa. My Cuban meat pies, when they came, were just great, a bit like Moroccan pastilla. The bean salad, although good, had more lettuce than beans. He liked his smoked salmon rolls but thought the portion excessively modest.

Main courses included drunk chicken rice, spicy garlic shrimps with butter and rum, black beans and rice with roast pork and a meat dish, the title of which dauntingly translates as "old clothes". I had a seafood enchilada and he chose char-grilled swordfish with garlic and lemon juice, which was pleasant rather than spectacular. My enchilada had an interesting mix of shrimps, swordfish, monkfish, mussels and crab but the piquant sauce (vaguely reminiscent of HP) was a little overbearing for all but the crab. Our bill, including one Mojito and a bottle of Cotes du Rhone, came to £59.65.

What with the cocktails, delicious snacky little starters, pineapple lamp shades and Latin American music, this seems a girly sort of place. Certainly, the three girls at the table next to us were having a whale of a time