La Cantina

For those of you who are long time followers, and by "long time" I mean since the good old days of 2017, you would know that one of my first blogs was about this relatively new authentic pizzeria in my country. It's no longer new and has been subjected to the tests and rigors of the business world and their menu changed a few times and so we decided to go try out their non Italian menu items. We always do pizza anyway so it was time for a little change.

I was feeling for a burger for ages! With nice juicy beef, perfect choices of cheese and other toppings and a nice side of hot fries. So that's just what I ordered: a medium cooked patty, with swiss cheese and the menu item has onion rings at the top and for the side, garlic wedges. It came with a nice garlic dip as well. The wedges were not that bad but the burger was NOT MEDIUM in doneness, more well done. It was therefore not juicy or enjoyable for that matter!

My friend ordered more of a side and an appetizer for her meal which was the pepper fried calamari (squid) and sweet potato fries. These two items were by far much more tasty and well made thin the aforementioned burger. The calamari was not overcooked to rubber chewiness but was tender and the breading/ crust was beautifully crispy and well flavored. It went very well with the dip that came with it (as you could see in the middle), though it was a bit on the spicy side. No worries, where we come from spiciness is a must! The sweet potato fries were marvelously well seasoned and fried to perfection! It was crispy on the outside and a wonderful texture on the inside. Not many places do sweet potato fries well where we live so this was just amazing.

The Calamari

The Sweet Potato Fries

A little commentary here about he restaurant itself. The first time I ate at this restaurant chain was when I was in our sister Caribbean island Tobago on vacation in 2012. At that time it was just that one restaurant on the island, none on the main Island of Trinidad so they weren't as popular. Back then, in my opinion, the food was the best. I would visit and order not just one but many pizzas in one night, that's how GOOD it was.

Fast forward now to when they expanded and opened up more branches in Trinidad, you could imagine my excitement. I would no longer have to go to the sister island to get this wonderful oven baked pizza. I could not have been more disappointed to find out though, that the one in Tobago had been closed down. I soon found out why as when the food was sampled in the restaurant's present state, the pizza and other menu items were no longer as great as it once was. The pizza was soggy and the food was a sad caricature of those days in Tobago. The quality of the food has declined and so that's probably why they had to switch to burgers and so on which quite frankly, still isn't done well. At least we know where to go for good sweet potato fries and calamari rings right? Thanks a lot for reading, Cheers!