Casona
Craig LaBan visits Casona in Collingswood and finds the new Cuban restaurant there is surprisingly the real deal.
“Not quite “Nuevo Latino,” as Casona touts it, but quite traditional preparations recast in contemporary ways.”
For appetizers the mariquitas are the plantain version of nachos, and the Habana maduro “puts some salsa into the old banana split.”
Rice dishes shine among the main courses, arroz con pollo is a mix of tender chicken with yellow rice, but made original with the tastes of chorizo, beer, green olives and sweet peppers. The seafood paella was another shining example of the kitchen’s comfort with rice dishes.
For the carnivore, the grilled churrasco skirt steak was “fabulous, crackling with the savor of its rosemary-olive oil marinade next to fried yucca and a wild mushroom ragout.”
Bring your own rum for the mojitos and Haddon Avenue might just start to seem like Cuba.