Mmmm, Mojitos

Last night we tried a new restaurant. If you ever hear that phrase come out of my mouth (or my keyboard), you know that Spitz has been looking up reviews and/or heard of a new place he'd like to try. Me, I'm happy to go to familiar places and order the food I've tried before and enjoyed. But he urges me to stretch my comfort zone and try things. He's really good for that, because I totally admit to enjoying many of his plans once we are there. I like to think I've gotten better about being willing to try new things, too.

Well, last night he looked up recently reviewed restaurants in our area and found one owned by some folks whose food we've enjoyed before, but in a different place. Havana Rumba is a Cuban restaurant near us that is fabulous yummy. (That one we heard about from my hairstylist and tried out a few years ago.) Its sister restaurant does Spanish tapas. We headed out to find it last night with all three kids in tow. I doubt too many people bring 3 kids under the age of 8 to Mojitos. It was classy. Didn't completely break the bank, but it was nice.

Spitz and I loved it. The salad with cranberries and pear (and who knows what else I can't actually name) was yummy, and the sweet potato fries with smoked honey were delicious (how do you make honey taste like that?). The melty cheese on bread from the Blue Dog Bakery was also really, really good - couldn't believe we couldn't even get May to try that one, though she loves cheese. The shrimp and beef tenderloin were also yummy; next time we'll pass on the paper-thin pieces of ham. The downside, as I hinted at, was that the girls ate, well,... not much of it beyond the bread and pear slices. Much griping was had. The good side was that at a tapas place, we could order many different things to try. Oh, and they did eat the shrimp.

Then we ordered dessert, because what else could we do at a place where everything was one big experiment? Churros con chocolate and Trio de chocolate.... Oh. My. Word. The chocolate with the churros (the girls loved the "donuts," of course) had espresso mixed in it. mmmmmm The trio of chocolate was pretty good, too, but the dark espresso chocolate... I ended up eating most of it just with a spoon, forget the churros! And because of the espresso, we didn't let the girls have much of it.

We will definitely be going back, but next time we'll be taking adult friends with us, not little girls who'd rather be eating mac 'n cheese.