Versailles
Café con Leche
Guava Cheese Pastry
Croquettas
Chicken and Ham/Cheese Empanada
Cuban Sandwich
Midnight Sandwich
Tres Leches Cake
Dulce de Leche Flan
Dulce de Leche Shortbread
Rice Pudding
Torrejas
Self described as “The World’s Most Famous Cuban Restaurant” and housed in an expansive palace well adorned with mirror’s Miami’s Versailles and next-door Versailles Bakery played host to Monday morning breakfast and with a surprisingly large crowd present as early as 7:30am the morning menu alongside two ‘signature’ sandwiches served notice of exactly why the restaurant is so well regarded, all eleven items as well as the Café con Leche exemplary in preparation and rife with the sort of flavors uncommonly found elsewhere in the United States, regardless of time of day.
Truly a dramatic space, with some branding serving to lighten the mood of white tablecloths in back and café style seating up front, it was to a brief menu that we were introduced on seating and with servers buzzing around with plates, refills, and wide smiles the mood was jovial – a few questions quickly answered with orders placed and appetizers arriving no less than ten minutes later, the basket of piping hot fried empanadas and a guava-cheese pastry each proving crisp, delicious, and virtually oilless with fillings literally bursting forth the moment each golden pocket was cut to taste.
Eschewing more “American” options like French Toast and Pancakes to focus on creamy pork croquettas alongside a pair of sandwiches each selection was delivered fully dressed and as much as the Medianoche was prone to wow with a hefty accoutrement of meats and cheese it was the famous toasted Cuban Sandwich that immediately stole the show – each bite brazen in its porky sapor with melting cheese, pickles, and mustard all indispensible in creating a flavor profile that was at once salty, sweet, and entirely worthy of its substantial acclaim.
At this point settling an almost criminally underpriced $25 tab and making way to the bakery it was to a brief line managed by deli-style numbers that our party was greeted and with no less than forty options prime to tempt the sweet tooth a quintet of options were selected, the flavors of caramel and condensed milk figuring prominently in all but the syrup soaked Torrejas with every single pastry exemplary in its execution, the saturated tres leches cake and toothsome rice pudding particularly impressive while eggy flan could only be called textbook beneath a light layer of dulce de leche equally well utilized as filling to a shortbread cookie sandwich.
http://www.versaillesrestaurant.com/
