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| - I get my hair cut next door to this place and have thought about eating there a few times after I noticed their sign that says, "Home of the best Cuban Sandwich in Charlotte," and finally did this afternoon after reading a couple of positive reviews about the place.
I have to say I was disappointed.
I have had a lot of Cuban sandwiches in my time, and have even gone so far as to roast my own pork, go to Compare's Foods for Cuban bread, and making my own (I'm a culinary student). The sandwich at Carolina Grill has all the components -- the ham, the pork, the cheese, the mustard, pickle and Cuban bread -- but nothing was really very special. My idea of a good Cuban has a meaty, chewiness to it -- thick slices of home-roasted pork, slices of good ham.
The "roast pork" here was, as the last reviewer said, some kind of pulled pork and not sliced. In fact, it looked and tasted suspiciously like a commercial product of Carolina-style barbecue pork. I noticed they have both "Cuban Roast Pork" and Barbecue Sandwiches on the menu, which makes me wonder maybe they started out using sliced roast pork and they switched to the barbecue. The restaurant seemed a bit slow, and when places start cutting food costs because of that it is a vicious downhill cycle that leads to no good. The ham also didn't impress -- the best Cubans I've had have ham that was cut from a chunk, like Honey Ham. This place uses thin processed ham -- like the Danish baked ham that comes in rectangular plastic packages hanging next to the Oscar Meyers.
I also had an appetizer of Ham Croquettes that were a frozen commercial product. It wasn't bad, but I'd suggest the "chef straight from Cuba," as one of the co-owners described, keep the box low so diners can't see it from the dining room. Something like that tells me a lot about a place. The chef has nothing to do in the afternoon slow period, but instead of making a batch of home-made croquettes from scratch to freeze (probably saving food cost too) he uses a commercial frozen product.
I think this place has the potential to be a good spot with home-made Cuban food, but they need to commit to making the food from scratch as much as possible instead of cutting corners with commercial products whenever they can. And if they really want to push their Cuban Sandwich as the best (not a bad ideal at all), then they need to make it the best, starting with roasting the pork and using good ham. More pickles woudn't hurt either.
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