thrillist

Whether you like it or not, New York has imported some great successes to LA: the Dodgers, skyscrapers... Jews. Adding to that esteemed list: Cafe Habana, opening Wednesday.

Heading west after two successful outposts in the Big Apple, Cafe Habana's a colorful, casual Cuba-meets-Mexico hybrid, with a salvaged wood bar sourced from Deadwood, South Dakota, rustic benches from Coney Island, and all its power harnessed from the sun, making it SoCal's first all-solar restaurant/closest thing to Wheeler from Captain Planet. Foodwise, they'll have specialties like a Cuban w/ roast pork, ham, swiss & pickles on Parisi's bread; grilled pork chop w/ mushroom and chipotle sauce; and Baja-style fish tacos w/ cabbage salad & spica negra, so delicious you'll almost forget how racist it is. Also available're three different kinds of enchiladas (creamy suizas, spicy norteno, and self-explanatory poblano), as well as smaller dishes like taquitos stuffed w/ chicken, steak, or pork; corn cakes topped w/ black beans, cotija, and three different salsas; and "Grilled Corn Mexican Style," which in this case means loaded w/ chili powder, lime, and chojita, rather than tequila and having to avoid certain girls when you get back to school on Monday.

Of course, they've got a full bar, with their specialty being the Morito, a Margarita/Mojito hybrid invented by a regular customer on the East Coast who's now imported something else from New York: the necessity to spend a lot of money on a cab home.

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More details are at CafeHabana.com