My Cabana

Friendly owner and delicious food. Was my first time there, and followed the recommendation of arepas calories - crispy outside pancake and soft on the inside. Filled to the brim with meats, haloumi, avocado and the added sweetness of the plantain balanced the rich meatiness. Colombian Beer was delicious and cold too. Was a late lunch so no other diners, but I’m feel the atmosphere filled with laughter and chatter would make the experience much better.

This was a very unique dining experience. My partner and I wanted to try something different and the call of some Latin fare peaked our interest. I ordered the mixed Cuban plate which was great in regards to trying to good mix of things, an Arepa and a Cachapa. The Arepas was okay but didn’t blow my mind. But the cachapa - a corn made pancake with cheese was really quite amazing. It had such a nice balance of sweet and salty and the texture was just perfect. I often don’t like very sweet things with my salty food (think chicken and mayple waffle and alike) but this really was a perfect harmony of flavours. For something seemingly so simple it made one of the biggest food impressions on me in recent times and I honestly couldn’t get enough of it. The service was interesting, the only people serving at the restaurant were two fairly young children, and although they did a pretty good job it felt strange not to have at least one more senior or experienced staff member present. They were polite and attentive, but it did take a while to have our order taken and for the food to come out. Not an amount of time that was problematic just a bit longer than I would’ve liked or expected for a small restaurant that was not too busy at the time. I wouldn’t necessarily mark it down for this, but hopefully this was just a quiet night or maybe another staff member was away or ill as I think it might have been a problem if the restaurant was busy. The menu was quite extensive, although they were unable to offer everything in its entirety (another thing to make me think that they were short staffed) but I’m very keen to return and try some more of the food because some of it looked and sounded quite unique. For a small, modest, and what I assume is likely a family run restaurant this was a really nice meal. It’s definitely understated, no frills, barebones type classic eatery which is fine with me and I really enjoyed the opportunity to try something that was quite different.

I would like to congratulate the restaurant on its family-like atmosphere, reminiscent of Latin America. The flavour of the dishes is spectacular and brings back memories of family. I give them 5 stars