Havana Station — Restaurant in Portland

It is amazing to me that my cultural heritage cookery has taken such an imbedding in the Portland Oregon area of all places! From Miami, Tampa, DC, New York, Chicago and even Phoenix has the chance to enjoy this cuisine. I’ve found that at least thirteen Cuban Food establishments exist here – having tried quite a few of them. Havana Station is magnificent. One of the unheralded gastronomic menus and recipes are derived within this unique yet extraordinary Caribbean comfort food style – no spicey heat mind you, but great use of the subtle, elegant, and enticing herbs and spices unique to the Antilles. I have had the privilege of savoring a few of Portland’s sampling of the Pearl of the Antilles cuisine! Havana Station ranks with the best of them so far. Our recent endeavor found us visiting their establishment at the Portland Mercado on Foster Road and we had no choice but to try them. So glad I did! Excellent! We had the opportunity to enjoy their Ropa Vieja preparation is on target traditional. Put together with white rice with perfectly seasoned frijoles negros took be back to my childhood. My wife had their fabulous Puerco Asado, delicioso! Everything came with a side salad and the must-have portion of tender and sweet platanos maduros. Ariel Cruzata (owner) a well-deserved Congratulations from a Compatriota! Viva comida Cubana!...

I have eaten here about 6 times. I Iove a lot of their food! They have the best black beans! The first 2 times I had the # 8 garlic shrimp. It was truly delicous with amazing flavors and yummy meduim sized shrimp. Now the last 2 x's I have gotten it the shrimp is diffremt. It is smaller and it does not taste as good. Both times I ate everyrhing else and threw out the shrimp. I think they are getting their shimp from a diffrent place or it is just diffrent. So I won't order it any more. The first time it tasted off. I thought it was just a bad night. i do love the black beans!!! Some of the best i have ever had. I see the owners response about having other ways to communicate problems than a review and how bad they are for for a small businesses. While i understand. i only have so much energy to devote to other peoples buisnesses. What i left out. I did try to to talk to the staff and the person taking orders ignored whatever i said and just kept saying thank you and ignored my concerns. So rather than give the reviewer a hard time work with your staff please. Work on using good...

Amazing 🤩 food! Huge plate, with vaca frita("fried beef") cuban "rice"(which was amazingly spiced, had some black beans, not the amount that you would have if it was labeled black beans and rice, AND fried pork belly bits), cabbage salad that I actually wanted to eat every morsel of, lots of grilled onions and bell peppers, sliced thinly, though thick enough for me to pick the peppers out, AND AND two juicy sweet plantains with some sort of salty creamy green sauce, cilantro maybe (I assumed it was for dipping my plantains in at the end) It was the amount of food I would actually expect to get for a $14 plate. I will definitely go back and seemed to be happier with my food choice than the folks I was with that ate at two of the other carts! The man was very sweet and does not speak much English....I did find out that murudos is plantain, and he was not able to tell me about whether there were tomatoes. A lot of their small plates were sold out, so come hungry or with a friend! You can choose white rice, but why? I will take pictures next time--definitely...