zaza™ - Cuban Café

Airport Breakfastary Food - Part VIII
Orlando International Airport (MCO)[1], Orlando, FL
(Sunday, 12/23/2018)


https://zazacubandiner.com/


Place: zaza™ - Cuban Café

Location: Airside 3 (Gates 30-59), Orlando International Airport, One Jeff Fuqua Boulevard, Orlando, FL

Hours: open daily at 5:00am

Meal: Egg & Cheese Croissant; a Cuban Guava Pastry-thing (puff pastry filled with guava jelly); and to drink, a Colada[2] (Double Espresso) ~ a double shot zaza™ Cuban Espresso, infused with cremita sugar (which I made sure to have them uninfuse)[3]

(I have been told that the Jive Aces originally all hailed from República de Cuba.)


Because I had eaten large homemade breakfasts (everything from gingerbread waffles and gingerbread pancakes, to French toast, to Eggs à la Grêg, to Christmas cookies [do not judge me], to etc.) almost every day during the past week while vacationing in "the City Beautiful"[4], I decided to get a simpler and smaller meal for my early morning repast on my return trip back home. So I simply and smally chose to eat at zaza™ - Cuban Café at the airport. This shop is more of a "grab-and-go" kinda place, but there were a few seats and tables at the back along the runway-side windows. The choices of actual good "sit-down" style restaurants were limited in this part of the terminal, anyway.

There were really only a few other viable options off their breakfast menu for those of the stupid vegetarian ilk:

Veggie (uggh!) Scrambler ~ prepared with onions, peppers, tomatoes and cheese, served with Cuban toast;

Oatmeal al Caribe ~ creamy oatmeal prepared with cinnamon sticks;

or

Egg & Cheese Cuban Sandwich ~ fluffy scrambled eggs prepared with cheese on our toasted Cuban bread (initially I had asked for this, but the lady at the counter [counteress?] misunderstood me and entered the order incorrectly; I suppose it would have been basically the same meal as I ended up with, but with Cuban bread instead of a croissant).

meh! I suppose this was better'n most of the breakfastary cr*p you might be able to order at your local King Wendy in the McDonald's Box fast-food joints, but it really was all still rather sadly torpid in taste. The guava pastry was okay, though. The double-shot of Espresso seemed a tad bit on the short side; I wonder if they gave me a single-shot also accidentally.

In the way of condimentary supplementation, all that I saw available were those plastic one-serving packets of Texas Pete® Original Hot Sauce. Unfortunately, I did not see those until after I had already finished my meal; this banal breakfast really coulda used an extra flavour boost.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating:
Egg & Cheese Croissant ~ 5.5;
Cuban Guava Pastry-thing ~ 6.2

___________________

1. The airport code "MCO" stands for the airport's former name, McCoy Air Force Base, a Strategic Air Command (SAC) installation, that was closed in 1975 as part of a general military drawdown following the end of the Vietnam War.

2. Stupid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day:

The Spanish word "colada" translates as "strained" (or "wash/laundry"). I had always (mis-)assumed that it was just the Spanish word for "coconut" ~ as in "piña colada", because I knew "piña" meant "pineapple". However, it refers to the "straining" process to extract the fresh pineapple juice used in that drink.

For what it is worth, the Spanish word for "coconut" is simply "coco" (see, sometimes this cunning linguistics stuff ain't cirugía de cohetes) and another Spanish word for "pineapple" is "ananás".

3. Café Cubano (also known as Cuban Espresso, Cuban Coffee, Cafecito, Cuban pull, and Cuban shot) is a type of Espresso that originated in Cuba. Specifically, it refers to an Espresso shot which is sweetened with demerara sugar which has been whipped with the first and strongest drops of Espresso.

(So, technically, I just had a plain ol' Double Espresso.)

4. Yes, this is the actual chosen nickname of Orlando, Florida, USA. I do not want to insult any of the 280,000+ residents of "the City Beautiful", but I have been to downtown Oakland, California and Council Bluffs, Iowa and even they could claim that silly moniker if they really wanted.