Breakfast out with my wife is a rare treat these days. Before I started working nights a few years ago, one of my favorite ways of starting the day was with an eggy breakfast and a newspaper with lots of coffee. Nowadays all I want to do at that hour of the morning is ride home as fast as possible and start snoring. So when my wife had a sleepover in town and suggested breakfast together after I got off work, there was only one place to go:
El Mocho on Stock Islands' main drag, Maloney Avenue, is the magnet for breakfast these days. They open at five in the morning and serve a mixture of American greasy spoon and Cuban delicacies till three in the afternoon.
Lunch at El Mocho is a massive affair, heaping piles of rice and black beans accompany the main course with sweet fried plantains to leave you stuffed and barely able to move... but this is the robust fare workers on Stock island have come to expect, and for well less than ten dollars too from the funky little hut a block away from the Tom Thumb convenience store and across the street from the last remaining independent home supply store on the island. This is a small corner of independent small business on Stock Island amid the mobile homes and dusty light industrial welding shops and carpenters and fishermen who all wait with bated breath hoping massive redevelopment slated for the island is held off by the economic misery generated by the derivatives collapse. We heard recently that the frou-frou Harbor Yacht Club situated in the new marina that replaced Peninsular, has folded, though the developers promise it will reopen in January, so clearly all is not well in the world of gentrification. In El Mocho the Cuban family that has owned it continues to serve up what the people want:
Eggs, bacon, and Cuban toast already buttered, cafe con leche, no soy milk low fat options here, in an atmosphere that would be no atmosphere were Formica and chrome Naugahyde furniture not nostalgic.
The lights are bright and the food is served in a hurry from the kitchen. Each of the half dozen tables wedged into the misshapen room gets a minimum of condiments, the basic oil/vinegar for your salad, ketchup, hot sauce, salt and pepper:
If you are on your way to work and barely awake put in your order and when it arrives piping hot in just a few minutes you put your head down and dig in:
Spanish is the lingua franca here but English is also spoken, perfectly fluently if masked by a smile and thick Cuban accent. El Mocho is a classic old fashioned hub and the espresso machine is the tool that creates coffee but also serves as the spot where information is traded:
My wife and I come here often enough to be greeted warmly and with a hint of recognition, but I am not one of those that is very able at the hail-fellow-well-met routine, in the places I go to eat. If no one knows my name that's fine by me so I cannot give you the family's story that runs this place for our benefit. I'm not alone in my reticence, reading the paper is a favorite way to accompany some breakfasts:
I first used to come to El Mocho years ago when I was hauling out my sailboat for maintenance down at Peninsular. One year we spent almost an entire winter it felt like sitting up on the dusty pea rock of the boatyard with a task list as long as a battleship's and El Mocho was where we came to escape the tedium and filth of the boatyard. It is not atmospheric in the traditional sense, but it isn't fake either:
The walls under the bright fluorescent lights carry a few modest period ads:
And some autographed pictures brought in as a token of appreciation by fliers far from home training at the nearby Boca Chica Naval Air Station. It's not rare to see the military in here looking for a bacon and egg sandwich and a con leche:
With the closure of the Vieques training ground off Puerto Rico, Key West has become one of two major training facilities for fliers in the US (Elgin Air Base in the Florida panhandle is the other) thanks to proximity to open water and mild weather easy to fly in year round. And because the US has its military fingers in pies all round the world our allies come here to get training too from time to time. This picture was signed by fliers from 433 Escadrille of Quebec and there was another similar from 4 Air Wing in Alberta nearby:
But for the most part the dress code at El Mocho is informal, and that's the way I like it too:
El Mocho reminds me of places I've eaten across Latin America, no air conditioning, no glass in the windows as a matter of fact, hot in summer, cool in winter, a cash only economy that keeps prices down and accessible. The porch out front is reserved for the regulars who gather like their counterparts in the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico (or Cuba I'm sure) and talk as they suck down their Latin espressos, known in Cuban as buchi (mouthfuls). Through the grille that serves as a window I could see one patron repeatedly flipping a small paper cup to his lips:
Cubans order coladas, which are half a dozen buchis in a large paper cup, then they distribute the thimble sized cups among friends and pour the coffee out in rounds and throw them down the hatch. It's powerful stuff with lots of sugar (lots!) so they are well wired for the morning... All too soon it's time to go, my wife on her Vespa (sporting her red Turkey sticker she got on her trip) to the college on the north side of the island and me to bed by Triumph:
But before we left the haven I took one last picture of the Cubans arguing about nothing and watching the world go by:
Say what you like but to me this really is a last piece of Old Key West, unselfconsciously real. Vaya con Dios.
El Mocho on Stock Islands' main drag, Maloney Avenue, is the magnet for breakfast these days. They open at five in the morning and serve a mixture of American greasy spoon and Cuban delicacies till three in the afternoon.Lunch at El Mocho is a massive affair, heaping piles of rice and black beans accompany the main course with sweet fried plantains to leave you stuffed and barely able to move... but this is the robust fare workers on Stock island have come to expect, and for well less than ten dollars too from the funky little hut a block away from the Tom Thumb convenience store and across the street from the last remaining independent home supply store on the island. This is a small corner of independent small business on Stock Island amid the mobile homes and dusty light industrial welding shops and carpenters and fishermen who all wait with bated breath hoping massive redevelopment slated for the island is held off by the economic misery generated by the derivatives collapse. We heard recently that the frou-frou Harbor Yacht Club situated in the new marina that replaced Peninsular, has folded, though the developers promise it will reopen in January, so clearly all is not well in the world of gentrification. In El Mocho the Cuban family that has owned it continues to serve up what the people want:Eggs, bacon, and Cuban toast already buttered, cafe con leche, no soy milk low fat options here, in an atmosphere that would be no atmosphere were Formica and chrome Naugahyde furniture not nostalgic.The lights are bright and the food is served in a hurry from the kitchen. Each of the half dozen tables wedged into the misshapen room gets a minimum of condiments, the basic oil/vinegar for your salad, ketchup, hot sauce, salt and pepper:If you are on your way to work and barely awake put in your order and when it arrives piping hot in just a few minutes you put your head down and dig in:Spanish is the lingua franca here but English is also spoken, perfectly fluently if masked by a smile and thick Cuban accent. El Mocho is a classic old fashioned hub and the espresso machine is the tool that creates coffee but also serves as the spot where information is traded:My wife and I come here often enough to be greeted warmly and with a hint of recognition, but I am not one of those that is very able at the hail-fellow-well-met routine, in the places I go to eat. If no one knows my name that's fine by me so I cannot give you the family's story that runs this place for our benefit. I'm not alone in my reticence, reading the paper is a favorite way to accompany some breakfasts:I first used to come to El Mocho years ago when I was hauling out my sailboat for maintenance down at Peninsular. One year we spent almost an entire winter it felt like sitting up on the dusty pea rock of the boatyard with a task list as long as a battleship's and El Mocho was where we came to escape the tedium and filth of the boatyard. It is not atmospheric in the traditional sense, but it isn't fake either:The walls under the bright fluorescent lights carry a few modest period ads:And some autographed pictures brought in as a token of appreciation by fliers far from home training at the nearby Boca Chica Naval Air Station. It's not rare to see the military in here looking for a bacon and egg sandwich and a con leche:With the closure of the Vieques training ground off Puerto Rico, Key West has become one of two major training facilities for fliers in the US (Elgin Air Base in the Florida panhandle is the other) thanks to proximity to open water and mild weather easy to fly in year round. And because the US has its military fingers in pies all round the world our allies come here to get training too from time to time. This picture was signed by fliers from 433 Escadrille of Quebec and there was another similar from 4 Air Wing in Alberta nearby:But for the most part the dress code at El Mocho is informal, and that's the way I like it too:El Mocho reminds me of places I've eaten across Latin America, no air conditioning, no glass in the windows as a matter of fact, hot in summer, cool in winter, a cash only economy that keeps prices down and accessible. The porch out front is reserved for the regulars who gather like their counterparts in the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico (or Cuba I'm sure) and talk as they suck down their Latin espressos, known in Cuban as buchi (mouthfuls). Through the grille that serves as a window I could see one patron repeatedly flipping a small paper cup to his lips:Cubans order coladas, which are half a dozen buchis in a large paper cup, then they distribute the thimble sized cups among friends and pour the coffee out in rounds and throw them down the hatch. It's powerful stuff with lots of sugar (lots!) so they are well wired for the morning... All too soon it's time to go, my wife on her Vespa (sporting her red Turkey sticker she got on her trip) to the college on the north side of the island and me to bed by Triumph:But before we left the haven I took one last picture of the Cubans arguing about nothing and watching the world go by:Say what you like but to me this really is a last piece of Old Key West, unselfconsciously real. Vaya con Dios.
6 comments:
Its good to see the Harbour Yacht Club is coming in and Peninsular is gone.
A fellow Ironist! I am not alone!
Sounds like my kind of place!
I spent most of my visit to KW last November lamenting the loss of Dennis pharmacy, which had been my favorite breakfast place. On our last morning there, in search of a Cuban breakfast complete with a con leche, my daughter and I stumbled upon a little place that, just the day before, had appeared abandoned. At 316 Petronia, in the little aqua building that had previously housed Henrietta's Art of Baking, the crew of the Dennis luncheonette was serving breakfast! The kind, round-faced Cuban woman recognized us and welcomed us in. Our visit to KW was complete!
They appeared optimistic on their first day open, but the survival of their restaurant seemed precarious to me. Do you know if they are still there?
They were there Goombay and of course they only open at 8am...and I am programmed to be snoring by then. I doubt our obits will cross for breakfast. I never indulged in Henrietta's like I should have when they were open. Nonethelss I don't go to La Te Dah and I've heard they may have cash flow issues. I hope it was just a supply issue that left their shelves empty, as told to me by a friend. I think lots of places that appeared invulnerable in the boom years will disappear. Change is good. They say (Anonymous is frosty, but polite on that subject).
Enjoyed seeing El Mocho again. I wish we could stop by there this morning. Soon..........
Thanks!
Im going to El Mocho next time Im in town. Looks and sounds darn good.
Post a Comment