Check out this Seattle Times article from the weekend in which Hugo Kugiya takes readers on a rather delicious tour of some of Seattle's more hidden eateries, including Aurora's own, Paladar Cubano. Interestingly, Paladar Cubano was the first restaurant ever reviewed on the Aurora|Seattle "Reviews" page. For a while it was the only restaurant reviewed... until reader "kateinbitterlake" added multiple reviews recently. Thanks, Kate!
Kugiya has some great things to say about Aurora food:
SEATTLE, A FORWARD-LOOKING city in a New World country, serves plenty of well-prepared, creative food, but not very much traditional food. Here, most traditions have to be imported, then somehow nurtured without the benefit of large numbers, sometimes in a Chevy panel truck parked on a gravel lot.
That is where, 50 blocks north of Paseo, Pedro Vargas, a drummer raised in Bahia Honda, Cuba, serves the real Cuban sandwich. He came to Seattle years ago to perform at Jazz Alley, staying because he fell in love with a local woman. His truck, Paladar Cubano, parked at North 90th Street and Aurora Avenue North, offers just two entrees, roast pork and ropa vieja (shredded beef), both served with Moros y Cristianos (rice and black beans). The menu lists two other side dishes, tostones (fried mashed plantains) and fried yuca.
Vargas is one of many immigrant business owners who set up on the old Highway 99, a road I had given little thought to the first time I lived here. It turns out that some of the best places to eat these days are on this strip.
Every city has its Aurora. Unsightly and noisy, it's home to rashes of billboards, fast-food restaurants, cheap motels, strip malls and downscale retailers. But because the barrier to entry is low, it welcomes the enterprises of all people and frequently immigrants who open their restaurants, many hidden in plain sight.
