Ft. Lauderdale/ Miami

Miami: Home to geriatrics, gators, a ginger cop who too heavily relies on crappy puns and sunglasses to act, and the new home of LeBron James' talents.

After that bitch of a 14-hour long drive the day before, we decided to take a break from sight-seeing.  We stayed with Bill, my stepmom’s dad, and his partner Chris in Ft. Lauderdale.  We lounged around their house and took a much needed nap next to the pool.  Bill asked us if we did anything other than be lazy that day.  “I went outside to take a nap,” Ayk remarked.  “It’s not like I did nothing.”

Pictured: Doing "something".

Miami Beach

Bill and Chris recommended we walk around Lincoln Road, an outdoor shopping mall in Miami Beach.  It reminded me a lot of the Santa Monica Promenade.  Such a shame I didn’t have enough room in my suitcase to do a little bit more shopping.

It was 65 F that night and they had space heaters out.  Buy some jackets, you pansies.

La Carreta

The vacation from our vacation day was actually on Valentine’s Day.  Ayk and I don’t particularly care for the Hallmark holiday, so we decided to do something low-key.  We figured we’d try a Cuban restaurant, not only because of the large Cuban diaspora in Miami, but also because we went to a Cuban restaurant on our first date.  That’s kind of romantic, right?

Chris recommended that we try some Cuban food on Calle Ocho, the Cuban neighborhood in Miami. One of his friends suggested La Carreta.  This chain restaurant has both Spanish and English menus, which turned out to be helpful considering Cuban cuisine isn’t a main topic one studies as a Spanish major.

The first time we had Cuban food we were underwhelmed.  This time we were utterly disappointed.  The food was absolutely awful and bland, yet the restaurant was packed.  It didn’t help that our server gave me the stink eye and made a point to be unhelpful after we asked her for English menus.  Puta.

The mojito was all wrong: it had a lemon instead of lime, and the mint was barely crushed instead of being properly pulverized in granulated sugar.  At least Ayk got to gnaw on some sugar cane.  Too bad that even sucked.

We both love yucca fries, but Ayk makes better yucca than La Carreta’s.  And Ayk buys his frozen.  The croquetas, one of my favorite dishes while studying in Spain, were just so bland and mealy.

I ordered a pork dish, which was drenched in a pool of grease with obscenely large and tough onions.  My side of black beans and rice were dry and chalky. The so-so plantains were sadly the best part of this meal.

My dish was comparatively better than Ayk’s.  The fish was rubbery and fishy, as were the shrimp.  The peas were mushy, a sign of being stuck in a freezer for too long, and sitting atop of a flavorless sauce clearly made with canned tomatoes.  At least they could've simmered the sauce instead of just heating it up in a pot or microwave.  The just-barely-moist-enough rice was the best dish here.