Cubano / El Gran Castillo de Jagua / Prospect Heights

There are times in this life when we are faced with certainty — times when our fate seeks us out and reveals itself, illuminating the darkened passageways of this plodding, mortal march, casting a pale, knowing glow on what will be, laying bare the unfolding of events as inescapable as the inhaling, exhaling breath of time itself. My relationship with Cuban sandwiches is a lot like that.

The Cuban sandwich is your basic ham, swiss, pickle, mustard, with a twist: it’s also filled with scrumptious roasted pork. Or maybe it’s a pork sandwich with a ham garnish? In the latter case, I think there’s a lot to be said for the judicious use of pork-as-condiment, although that’s a discussion for a later date. Every bite of a good Cubano is mind-blowing. Slowly roasted pork, rich and fatty as it is, plays amazingly well with a medium-weight, crunchy bread, simple yellow mustard, and nice, tangy dill pickles. On the other side of the meat, the ham and Swiss level out the flavor and add a nice punctuation to each bite. It’s an incredibly well balanced sandwich, and the folks at El Gran Castillo de Jagua, in addition to having a very awesomely-named restaurant, pretty much nail it. They do forgo mustard by default, which is weird, but easily corrected. The pork is tender, flavorful, and just the right degree of fatty, the bread is fresh and crisp. Also, preeeetty much all the rest of their food is incredible, and cheap, and by the way it’s right next to the 7th Ave B/Q so you should really just go eat, ok?

The cravings I get for these things are strong, bordering on insane. The interplay of the ingredients forms a lattice of mutual enhancement, an experience greater than the sum of its parts, and in turn a craving that can’t be sorted by a ham and cheese sandwich, or a plate of roast pork, or, I don’t know, a spoonful of mustard. It’s a craving that can be solved only by a Cuban, and only when you bite through its crusty exterior and into the perfect double-meat crescendo does time snap elastically back into place, and only then may life resume as before.

Max Baehr

I have strong feelings about Cuban sandwiches