Tasting TBL Cuban Dinner Recap
In the early days of the Tasting TBL Supper Club, Chefs Tyler & Jennifer Lyne and the talented Chef Micah Cook explored different culinary themes for the chefs’ tasting menu. In October, they pulled out all the stops to create a stellar Cuban-themed menu, and once all of the elements were perfectly fine-tuned, they were more than excited to share this unique supper club experience with their guests. Here’s a recap of Tasting TBL’s Cuban-themed dinner, which took place on October 10, 2020.
Cocktail hour featured a twist on rum and Coke with Mexican Coke, Dread River’s Caribbean-style rum, and a silky housemade coconut foam. “Everybody loved the rum-and-coke-style cocktail,” says Pastry Chef Jennifer Lyne. Even though it wasn’t your average rum and coke, it took one guest back in time, as he was overheard saying, “I haven’t had a rum and coke since college!”
Once guests were seated, the canapés were delivered: bite-sized morsels with major flavor. There was a crispy yucca with short rib, mole rojo, and cilantro; papas rellenas with roasted chili and herb aioli for dipping; and a picadillo empanada filled with chicken, olive, and raisin.
A refreshing yet decadent ceviche came next—red snapper intermingled with avocado, cilantro, cucumber, and peppers alongside crispy housemade tostones.
The next dish stole the show. Served in a glass ashtray, the Cuban cigar sandwich appears to be a half-smoked stogie resting in its ashes and even sporting a cigar label with the TBL signature. Guests were naturally confused. “There was a group of guys with their wives and they're like, ‘Wait, is this a real cigar?’” says Jennifer. “And I was like, ‘No. It’s food. You eat it.’”
The cigar wrapper is made of fuille de brick, a French pastry, that is then filled with the Cuban sandwich elements: mojo pork, Swiss cheese, and pickles. Fine sesame forms the ashes, and black sesame praline caps off the burning foot of the cigar. Real glass ashtrays and edible labels printed via 3D printer add to the illusion.
“Everyone was just blown away,” says Jennifer. “They were all taking selfies and pictures of each other pretending to smoke it like it was a cigar. They just went crazy over that cigar.” (Check out this video of Chef Tyler Lyne demonstrating a twist on the Cuban cigar, a Japanese tuna tartare cigar.)
A warming seafood bowl followed: A succulent giant shrimp and tortilla Espanola (Spanish egg-and-potato omelette) was served in a luscious carrot-ginger-coconut broth, aromatic and sweet.
And for the fifth course, they served a classic Caribbean congri dish with Forbidden black rice, back beans, and chicken. A lechon pork roast was the pinnacle of the savory dishes, served with maduros (fried sweet plantains), salsa verde, Cubanelle powder, and acelgas (sauteed chard).
Chef Tyler Lyne prepares the lechon-style slow-roasted pork for the final savory dish on the Cuban dinner menu.
A stunning plantain upside-down cake delighted guests’ palates for dessert. The sumptuous cake was served with rum caramel, passion fruit anglaise, lime cream, and coconut shortbread.
The evening ended with fireworks in the form of hot-from-the-oven madeleines and Cuban cigar-smoked s’mores, wherein Chef Tyler lit an actual Cuban cigar to infuse the glass smokebox and its confections with a decidedly Havanan essence.
It was a fabulous night and a theme Tasting TBL will surely revisit, refine, and share with our guests again!