Restaurant Review: La Tropicana Cafe

After the Saturday morning Ybor Yard Sale, I decided to check out local eatery La Tropicana Cafe (1822 E 7th Ave, Tampa, FL 33605,(813) 247-4040?). Open only breakfast and lunch, this Ybor city staple serves up traditional Cuban favorites at a great price.

The atmosphere is cozy, the kind of seat-yourself place that shows it’s age and experience without feeling dated or worn out. Wood beams traverse the ceilings, leaving off-white walls covered in portraits and relics from all over Tampa. The only negative thing I’ve found about this place is that it doesn’t take credit cards. While it’s so commonplace for most restaurants to take them, Tropicana sticks with tradition and keeps prices low by being a cash-only business.

I knew I was going to be running around all day, so I took the opportunity to have a big early lunch. What I didn’t count on when I ordered a piece of deviled crab and the special (a half cuban sandwich and black beans) was how incredibly large it really was. For under $10, I got a big pile of cuban bread and butter, a good size bowl of black beans and rice, a half (about 6″ long) cuban sandwich and an ostrich-egg sizes deviled crab. Even after eating my fill, I took home more than half of this.

The bread, black beans and rice came out first. This is more than enough to feed a person, but it’s just the starting course. The bread is perfectly done, as cuban bread needs to be. It was piping hot inside, crunchy and perfectly crusted outside and served with more than enough butter to clog a major cardiac inlet.

The black beans and rice reminded me of my days in New Orleans. They fill you up quickly and they taste great when topped with onions.

By the time the sandwich and deviled crab came out, I was already full. I did take a few bites of each and took the rest home. The cuban sandwich was excellent, crispy and thin bread with thick slices of tomatoes and lettuce, sitting on a few slices of pork. This was the way I’d always imagined perfect cuban sandwiches to be.

The deviled crab was exceptional. Not only was it slightly spicy with a firm fried shell, but the first bite into it release a puff of steam and delicious crab meat. The meat was tender, and better than any I’d had to date. I’ve seen seafood restaurants that couldn’t get this right, and it’s a bargain at three dollars.

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