All aboard on Mi Sueño Cuban Express
LEO's Eats with Robin Garr
Mi Sueño Cuban Express’ roast lamb shank with mojo yuca and cilantro rice.
For a few brief, joyous moments of federal sanity last year, it seemed we were going to be friends with Cuba again. Thanks, Obama! But now the new boss has taken Cuba off the table for now. Thanks a lot, Donnie.
But if we can’t easily go to Cuba, it seems that Cuba is coming to Louisville. Cuban immigration to Louisville accelerated so fast in the past decade that the local diaspora has attracted national media attention.
“Cubans have quietly become the fastest-growing immigrant population in Louisville,” NBC News reported in August 2016. The New York Times came to Louisville last winter to check hour our Cuban community was responding to the death of Fidel Castro. “Quietly,” The Times observed, pointing out that more than 10,000 Cubans now call the metro home, a number that had doubled since 2009. There’s even a Spanish-language newspaper and blog for Cuban-born locals, dubbed “El Kentubano.”
All this may help explain why the city has a growing flotilla of storefront Cuban eateries. Three of them bear variations on the name “Mi Sueño” (“My Dream”), and if you find that somewhat confusing, so does Jose Orlando Monasterio, owner of the two shops called Mi Sueño Cuban Express, at 3425 Bardstown Road and 4214 Bishop Lane.
After I wrote about Bodega Mi Sueño in the Bashford Manor area last autumn, Monasterio invited me to visit one of his restaurants, too. His 3-year-old venture in a former Taco Bell and Sonic on Bardstown was the first of the bunch, he said. “Please give us the chance to show our restaurants to the public and to show you also the quality and the good restaurant we have. I will really appreciate your help. Thank you and God Bless you.”
How could I turn down such a sweet request? We dropped in on a Saturday, and sure enough: This place is really good. Monasterio and his staff are very friendly, and the revamped fast-food atmosphere isn’t fancy, but it’s clean and bright. Like the other Mi Sueño, it’s a Cuban cafeteria-style operation that dishes out extremely generous portions of delicious, well prepared Cuban fare. ...
Read the full review on LouisvilleHotBytes,
http://www.louisvillehotbytes.com/aboar ... an-express
You'll also find this review in LEO Weekly’s Food & Drink section today.
http://www.leoweekly.com/category/food-drink/
Mi Sueño Cuban Express
3425 Bardstown Road
709-4526
facebook.com/MiSuenoCuban
Robin Garr’s rating: 85 points
Another location: 4214 Bishop Lane, 458-1050