Paladar Cafe Cubano

Restaurant is now closed for good…

Amazing food, must try the Cuban sandwich and the chicken leg. I love also the yucca al mojo. Staff is cool and the place is very simple. But I love it!
One of the best small restaurants in town.

Meh. I will start by saying this: I did not get the cubano, which is apparently their specialty here. Got the chicken sandwich and it wasn’t anything special. Not bad, but not good. Tasted like a regular panini.
The yucca al mojo was not what I was expecting either. Kind of bland. I should have gotten the yucca fried instead. The one thing that did stand out was the garlic aioli, which I put on pretty much everything, and the plantain chips. Those were on point.
I really wanted to like this place. Its very rare to see a cuban place in SF and this is clearly a popular spot for lunch. Perhaps my hopes were too high for this place. I went in comparing it to Porto’s in LA and that is a pretty high bar.

Got here early and beat the lunch rush. Ordered my usual café con leche and I/​2 free range chicken with platanos and rice and beans. Yummy!

3.5 — I like the limited seating that they provide upfront! It’s great to sit outside on a sunny day!
The Picadillo minced beef entrée tasted like Prego sauce with meat — something I felt like I could have made, but better. Do skip!
I should have opted for their Camarones al Ajillo. The shrimp entrée. Their entrees have full on zesty flavors and I like their perfectly crisp Yuca frites.
It’s a good spot with distinct cuisine offering for a lunch meal. They just have to put more umph to their entire menu offerings and it’ll make this place snazzy to be at.

Nice location and very fast service for this Cuban restaurant. Prices are quite high ($ 15.50 w/​o tax & tip for a Lechon with 2 sides). Unfortunately the lechon was dry and unseasoned, a bit disappointing given the price.

So, Cuban sandwiches are something I adore. Roasted pork, mayo, mustard, pickles and more. Every bite is a medley of salty, sour, and sweet accompanied by the satisfying crunch of the toasted roll. How can you not love that combination? It is an experience I relish.
Upon inspection, the Cubano sandwich from Paladar Café Cubano is sad at best. It’s relatively small and quite expensive ($ 12.78). I can get a sandwich for almost half the price and double the size a few blocks down.
Along with its small size, a clue to it’s sad potential was the absence of napkins in the brown bag containing the sandwich. It’s like they knew they gave such an underwhelming meal that it doesn’t even warrant a napkin.
Admittedly, the filling was decent; the pork was tender and had the right ingredients. But it is just a mini-​est version of what should be. I want more.

Watched Chef and immediately Unilocaled for a place to find authentic Cuban food. Paladar did not disappoint.
What I loved:
Cubano (pressed sandwich with roast pork, ham, swiss cheese & pickles) — with a lovely butter /​lemon mojo sauce and side of plantain chips
Camarones al Ajillo (grilled shrimp) plate — with choice of two sides. I went with the steamed yuca (similar to a taro /​potato hybrid) and platanos maduros (sweet fried plantains)
A bit pricier than your casual grab-​and-​go lunch, but portion size is generous and you’ll walk away really happy.

Definitely the best Cubano sandwich in SF. The pork was super tender and juicy! The maduros are delicious.

I really didn’t like the food here, which goes against what my co-​worker thought.
There was something about the funny flavor of the overcooked meat stew thing that got me thinking, as I was chewing and chewing and chewing, that I would have rather have gotten an egg salad sandwich at Starbucks.
This is just a reminder to myself, which is mainly why I write these Unilocal reviews since I have horrible memory, not to come back here.

Service was nice and fast and price point is pretty good.
I ordered the Lechon Asado, black beans and rice and the platanos
The pork was a bit tough and lacked seasoning. There was no garlic flavor or salt.
The beans were also a bit firm and needed extra seasoning as well.
The platanos were DELISH!
I will give them one more as they were really busy and other reviews are really good. I may have come on an off day.

I’m sad to say it, but the food quality here has slipped from a few years ago. I visited today and had the Lechon Asado, and the pork seemed a little dry. My friend who came along with me felt the meat in his chicken sandwich was a bit dried out.
Hopefully they can get the cuisine back up to where it was three years ago.

Food is great, I mostly ask for the bistec with cangri and maduro, it’s very authentic. If I had to rate service I’d give them 2 stars. In 90% of my visits I’ve observed a pattern, when you order in English they’ll more likely get your order wrong, or take more than time than usual.
Solution: ask your costumer to say it again, the costumer will appreciate that rather than getting her/​his order messed up!

Whenever I miss Cuban cooking that is not readily available to eat in San Francisco, I go to Paladar.

i actually though the food here was reasonable (a vegetarian sandwich at a cuban place? it was better than I’d hoped!) but the prices knock it down a star. If I’m going to be paying $ 12 for a sandwich, it had better be something amazing — especially with lots of good, cheap options around.
the strange thing is that even though I don’t think the value is quite worth it, I would be open to going back. They had this really good sauce you can pour on your sandwich (which is already pretty greasy and good) as well as solid plantain chips. But if they’re going to move up a star, either the food tastes better or the price goes down.

Depending on where you stand politically, it’s either thanks/​no thanks to President Obama for recently moving to restore relations with Cuba. Luckily for us, though, there are no sanctions against eating at Paladar Café Cubano. My friend, Justin S. (the «S» stands for Sandwich-​lover), and I arrived at PCC at around noon on a Wednesday. The tables in the front dining area were all filled except for one table for two near the right wall. Score! I imagine that there’s more seating somewhere else because I saw a large party of about 8 people head toward the back and down/​up a staircase, never to return again. Just kidding. I mean, I didn’t see them re-​emerge before Justin and I finished up our food, but I imagine that they did so — ok, now I’m rambling.
If you’re looking to have a super-​confidential conversation, Paladar isn’t the place to be. But if you don’t mind the diners next to you, and probably the kitchen staff, being able to know your business, then by all means come on in and spill your guts. I’m being dramatic, sorry.
I think their menu has a lot of great options, but I really appreciate the variety they have going on with their «Soulful Home-​Style Lunches» —
1) Choose 1 Main:
— bistec a la plancha — 15.50
thinly pounded grilled tri-​tip steak with grilled onions
— lechon asado — 15
roast pork marinated in citrus, garlic & oregano
— picadillo cubano estilo elena — 13.50
ground beef seasoned with aromatic sofrito (onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, wine)
— pollo a la cubana — 13.50
mary’s free range chicken leg with lime-​cumin adobo
— camarones al ajillo — 13.75
shrimp grilled with green onions garlic and tomatoes
&
2) Choose 2 Sides:
— arroz blanco — white rice
— frijoles negros — black beans
— congri — cuban black beans and rice
— platanos maduros — fried sweet plantain
— yuca frita — crispy cassava drizzled with chipotle aioli
— yuca al mojo — steamed,
— vegetales — grilled seasonal vegetables
— ensalada mixta — mixed green salad
OR
Vegetarian Bowl:
Choose 3 sides: 11.75
My friend and I ended up lunch and drink twinning — bistec w/​congri & platanos maduros.
Drink:
— Sandia Cooler — 3.50/glass or 13.50/pitcher
Watermelon, Cucumber, Mint & Lime
^
I found the Sandia Cooler to be really refreshing. The flavors were all nicely blended and balanced, and it wasn’t too pulpy even with all of the watermelon. Justin said that he would like to have had a straw, though. #mustacheproblems
As for the lunch plate, we both agreed that the bistec could have used some flavor. Any flavor. Each table has small, and I mean SMALL, salt and pepper shakers, and a metal container that holds napkins, forks, and knives… but no sauces. I saw a bunch of different wide mouth squeeze bottles on the front counter that contained an array of different colored sauces, but none were offered to us with our plates. PCC started to get really busy at around 12:15, so I understand. Maybe it was up to us to speak up. Oh well.
The fried plantain was just perfect. Nicely caramelized; not burned at all. I remember one time when we tried to make these at home and the plantain were not quite ripe enough. Yeah. No bueno. As for the congri, Cuban black beans and rice, great flavor throughout with a nice consistency. Not completely mushy; not too chewy/​hard either.
PCC has their portion size down perfectly, imho. I cleaned my plate and left feeling absolutely satisfied. Some place make me feel like I need to grab a banh mi on my way back to the office, while others make me feel like I’m going to enter into a food coma right after paying the bill. PCC — spot on.
I really like this little spot and I definitely want to come back to check out some of their other offerings.
If you’re a boba-​fan like me, you’ll be pleased to know that Plentea is just a few storefronts down, and Boba Guys’ Stockton Street location is about 3 blocks away. Maybe you can hit both… :)

For the last few years, this has been one of my go to places for a sit down lunch on Kearney. The food has been consistently good and the prices are decent.
It’s been a few months, but the sandwiches used to be accompanied by a small side salad, but I noticed at today’s lunch it was just a few plantain chips.
Have also had the sangria from time to time and it’s ok.

I’ve been craving a Cubano since I saw Chef earlier this month (Challenge: name how many times I’ve mentioned that movie in my recent reviews? I mean, this is just getting silly!), but my homegirl Miriam B was under the weather, and she’s my go-​to lunch bud for all things Latin, so I had to wait until today, when everyone was feeling footloose and fancy free to indulge!
So, she and I and Jeremy P stopped in today for lunch. A bit rich for my blood at $ 12 for the sandwich and a small handful of plantain chips, but I needed a Cubano like the sand needs the sea. I had the traditional bocadillo with roast pork, ham, swiss, pickles, mayo & mustard. They also offer El Yucateco hot sauce in green (my preference) and red, which is my second favorite hot sauce, only to Tobasco.
The sando was pressed flat, but still offered a nice mouthful as I dug in to the flavorful meat, cheese, and the fresh crunch of Dill pickles. The plantain chips offered a lightly salty side. Jeremy P, saving his appetite for a champagne and cake celebration at his office, got Yuca fries with chipotle aioli, which I slathered on my sandwich.
The food is tasty, but the restuarant is *very* snug, and the prices are too high, in my opinion.

I’ve been to Paladar several times now and each seems worse than the last. For some reason I always want to go in to give them another shot because I think of them like I do of Sol Food, but there’s no comparison at all.
The food is extremely basic and overpriced for what it is. In fact, portion sizes are just sad. Service is completely non-​existent and sometimes there’s table service and other times not. The staff isn’t particularly friendly either and I’ve really had enough at this stage. Fooled me three times, but no more!
Food: ⁴⁄₁₀
Service: ²⁄₁₀
Price: $$
Atmosphere: ³⁄₁₀

Vegetarian friendly! For $ 11, enjoy a delicious grilled cheese sandwich with manchego, arugula, and caramelized onions, and don’t forget to spread that kickin’ garlic mojo sauce on your bread before you start noshing. Each sandwich comes with a side of greens and plantain chips. It’s a decently size lunch compared to some other places in FiDi.
Insider tip: CALL AHEAD and skip the line. I called, walked over, paid, and was out in about a minute.

Try the pulled pork cuban sandwich. Delicious!