Think Globally, Eat Locally

North America needs more neighborhoods like the charming Ybor City, a part of Tampa that sports brick streets and sidewalks of hexagonal concrete pavers, plus cast-iron street lamps. Best of all were the wrought-iron balconies, which shaded our stroll down the district’s main thoroughfare, Seventh Ave (Ave. Septima), reminding me both of New Orleans, with its ironwork, and the shady sidewalks of old Kuala Lumur (really), though unlike the uneven footpaths of KL—each shop decided how high the sidewalk outside its door was to be—the sidewalks of Ybor City are all on the same level.

Ybor City was site of a major cigar industry about 100 years ago, populated by immigrant Cuban workers. These days, the structures live on mostly as shops, restaurants, nightclubs and other amusements. Cigars are still sold in the area, with a handful of shops specializing in them, but I doubt that many are actually rolled there any more.

Cigars weren’t on our minds on Ave. Septima that day anyway. Lunch was. I knew I wanted something Cuban, and we lucked into a place that fit the bill exactly, Carmen’s, whose interior reflected the early 1900s as much as the streetscape outside, with its punched tin ceiling, dark woodwork and tiled floors. Both Yuriko and I ordered Cuban sandwiches, “a submarine-style layering of ham, roast pork, cheese, and pickle between a sliced length of Cuban bread,” according to What’s Cooking America. It seems like a fair description, though I don’t know how something so seemingly simple gets to be so good. Add a side of black beans and rice, a beer (Icehouse, but anything would have done), and some Key lime pie for dessert, and the crystalline spheres of taste all line up and sing harmony.