A Delicious Bite of Cuba in North Hills

A passion for food and a passion for life is what you’ll find at Casa Don Rolando. Chef Rolando Gonzalez has crafted a vibrant menu of authentic Cuban delicacies that has North Hills diners lining up for lunch and dinner.

This authentic Cuban-style restaurant pays a satisfying homage to Latin and Caribbean classics including savory beef empanadas and luscious Cuban flan. Chef Gonzalez’s culinary skills come alive when preparing the family recipes he inherited from his mother in Cuba.

The Old and New

Cuban cuisine is the energetic mingling of traditional rich Spanish cuisine with the lighter tropical soupçons of fresh island fruits and vegetables. Spanish cumin, garlic and tomato are paired with the assertive flavors of bitter yucca, wilted malanga leaves, juicy guava, and green plantains to fashion a distinctly Cuban menu

Make New Friends, but Cherish the Old

Cuban cuisine makes excellent use of many locally grown Caribbean fruits, spices, and chilies, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find raging hot Caribbean-style curries. Instead diners are called to the table with the fragrant smells of sofrito-infused dishes. This piquant blend of tomatoes, oregano, cumin, bay leaf, and onions is an essential ingredient to almost all Cuban meat dishes. Home-style fare also includes criollo, or “creole” cooking that was first developed from European sugar plantation fare and is now a celebration of Cuban identity.

An excellent example of classic criollo cooking is Rabo Encendida, a braised oxtail stew whose medieval origins hearken to the bullfighting cities of Spain and Portugal. An excellent cut of beef that is often ignored in the United States, oxtail meat is fall-off-the-bone tender, and excels as a filling main dish.

Moros Y Cristianos (Moors and Christians)

Black Beans and Rice is the most notable Cuban side-dish. The black beans represent the dark-skinned moors and their fight against the light-skinned Spaniards (white rice), a conflict that dates back several hundred years. And while the conflict is centuries in the past, the dish remains alive and delicious. This dish is said to bring good luck when eaten on New Year’s.

Sauce Sensation

Cuba’s most significant contribution to international cuisine is its celebrated mojo marinade, used primarily to flavor the pork that is the center-of-the-plate for many Cuban meals. Briny olive oil is blended with fresh cumin, lemon, garlic and onion to infuse the spit-roasted pork with a tangy freshness that is accentuated by accompaniments of golden fried plantains and black beans.

A Humble Fruit

Plantains, a cousin to the banana, are a versatile and nutritious side dish that achieves new levels of sophistication in Cuban cuisine. Fried crispy as a potato chip substitute, mashed and creamed as a home-styled faux-starch, incorporated into sauces, and eaten fresh as a buttery yet healthy dessert, the plantain’s enormous potential is constantly being expanded by inventive chefs.

La Cubana, Pride of the Island

Unique to Cuban cuisine are its innovative and complex sandwiches, daring to pair unusual sweet ingredients, such as jam and sweet pickles to savory bases of turkey and roast pork. Made iconic by turn-of-the-century cigar rollers, these toasty panini-style pressed sandwiches of ham, pork, Swiss cheese and crisp sweet pickles are globally renowned as Cubanas. As with all traditional Cuban sandwiches, the meats of the Cubana are enveloped by dense moist bread made exceptionally tender by the use of fresh lard rather than oil in the dough.

Sweet Endings

Cuba’s Spanish influence is tasted in a perennial favorite, flan. This traditional silky, vanilla egg custard with a caramel coating is the perfect sweet ending to a Cuban meal. Pair with a “jolt” of strong Cuban coffee for an end-of-meal pick-me-up.