La Torre Restaurant (Havana) What a View

                  I haven't been to this restaurant in many years and I didn't come here to eat on this occasion. We were walking about Havana when I decided it was a perfect time to have a cocktail on the tallest building in Cuba, The FOCSA Building in Vedado. The restaurant called 'La Torre' is on the top floor but there's also a cocktail bar across the hall on the same floor. Why come here and pay 3-4 times more for a Mojito? Because it has the best aerial view of the city of Havana. As you can see from the photographs below, there is no other spot in the city that offers the same view.
                 The bar itself, more so than the restaurant, looks very weathered. It seems like they haven't changed a thing since they opened this place in 1956. The furnishing, the bar, look old and worn out. The drinks themselves are pretty good, all the fancy cocktails are offered here as well as beer and simple drinks like my gin and tonic (which seem to be all the craze right now in Havana). It was later in the afternoon and the restaurant was closed but I managed to sneak in and take some pictures anyway. Although nothing has changed here as well, it didn't seem as worn as the bar side, at least the tables were covered. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to photograph the menu. I don't remember the food being that great but I don't remember it being horrible either. A little pricey but if I had the same meal on the CN tower in Toronto (where I'm from) it would have cost me several times more.
                  What am I trying to say? It's not a terrible restaurant and definitely worth a visit for the view alone. At the very least, if you're in the area, take the elevator to the top floor and have a cocktail at the bar and experience an amazing panoramic view of the city. You won't regret it.




La Torre
Edificio FOCSA Piso 36
M esq. 17
Vedado, Havana

The Bar

The Restaurant

Chasing Cuban Chrome (Havana)

                As described by the Discovery Channel website; Cuban Chrome is a groundbreaking new docu-series that explores the fascinating time warp that characterizes Cuban car culture.
                When this series came out last year I couldn't wait to see it and I wasn't disappoint. Sure some of the stuff that went on in the show isn't the way things normally go in Cuba but the show had to move along, most of the things that weren't likely were money related. The show itself, the goings-on in Cuba or Cuban life were close to how things really are over there. Cubans are very approachable regardless if they're famous or not and I wanted to meet these guys on my next trip.
                The first encounter took place rather by chance, sometimes things are meant to be. Walking towards 'The Maine' monument on a Saturday evening, I remembered that the Car Club that Alberto Gutierez (one of the main characters) is President of holds a show once a month on this spot and it happened to be on this day. I met Alberto Gutierez on this day as well as his son Dayan Gutierez (another character). He told me of a Car Show and Competition that was being held the next day at the Tropicana Club parking lot and that another one of the characters would be there, Fernando Barral, the mechanic with the hot rod.
                 I went to the Car Show near the end when the competition was already done but did get a chance to talk with Alberto and Fernando. They're both like kids in a candy shop being able to play with all these toys, in this case it's cars. Fernando had sold his hot rod for a lot of money he says and now he bought and is working on an early 60's model Oldsmobile Delta 98. With drinks in hand and smiles on their faces, they seemed to be living the life. Whether or not that has to do with any added wealth brought about by the show, I couldn't tell you but I believe these guys were living the life before the show. Being able to indulge yourself with your hobby and have the financial means to be able to do it....it doesn't get much better than that. While speaking with Alberto I was able to get the address of Ricardo Medel, the expert mechanic who was working on the Austin-Healey in the show. By the end of the show his restoration was complete and when I went to visit him at his house it was parked out front. He was an absolute gem of a person, extremely hospitable he invited us into his house and if I hadn't left I would still be talking to him now. He loves to talk and is extremely intelligent and serious about his cars. He was very happy to be doing what he does, repairing cars. Near the end of the Series it shows him making a house call to see about a car that was having problems with it's brakes. The car was a one of a kind in Cuba, only 50 were made in total by the Donald Healey Motor Company in England. The Healey Silverstone D10 was in his garage undergoing repairs when I went to visit him, you can see it in the pictures below.
                 I asked if there was going to be another season of the show but the answer was a definite maybe. If you haven't already seen season one and you love classic cars and/or Cuba, you gotta check it out. I'm hoping they do a second season and who knows, maybe when I go to visit them next time I'm lucky enough to catch them while they're shooting it. Below are pictures of the show at the Tropicana and my visit to Ricardo Medel's house.

Alberto Gutierez with friend

Alberto Gutierez and I

Fernando Barral and I

Ricardo Medel next to the Healey Silverstone D10 that he was working on

The State of Cuban Cigars (Today) February 2016

                   What I'm really meaning to say is the state of Cuban Cigars in the stores today and by that I'm saying are the current releases of regular production cigars any good. There has been a crisis in the Cuban Tobacco industry with some unusual weather patterns reeking havoc on several of the last few harvests in Cuba. It's been denied and nobody really knows where exactly the truth lies but I have to say that I was surprised over a few boxes of cigars that I received this week from a friend who traveled to Varadero. He knows nothing about cigars but was able to read my rather lengthy list. He didn't deviate from the easy & picked up some of the more common of the smoker's favourites all except one with 2015 box dates (the other was 2014). It didn't matter, I was happy that he did me the favour, however, he didn't open the boxes before buying them. I was a little nervous before opening them but to my surprise each box contained outstanding looking cigars all with beautiful wrappers. I smoked one of the Half Upmanns and although it was pretty good, it was wet and needs a little time to climatize to our environment. They're all in the freezer right now but you can be sure I'll be trying them one by one when they're ready to smoke.
                    As far as what's available in general in the stores, the 2015 Edicion Limitadas were not available yet. As far as everything else goes, it's getting more and more difficult to find cigars with a little age on them, even just a hand full of years. You'll find the usual pedestrian stuff like what was brought back for me but people are always telling me there's nothing there that interests them. In 6 weeks I'll be back again and we'll see where things are at in Havana.

Cristo de La Habana (Havana) Famous Monument

                      This giant statue of Christ that the Cubans call 'Cristo de La Habana' can be seen clearly from across the Bay in Havana, or at least from the older part of the city. It looks a bit like the Christ that sits high above Rio de Janeiro, he seems to be in the act of blessing everyone in the city. The 17-20 meter high (depending on the information source) statue was commissioned by Marta Batista, the wife of the then dictator Fulgencio Batista. It was inaugurated December 24, 1958 about two weeks before Fidel Castro would ride into Havana victorious on January 8, 1959. It's located on La Cabana hill in the Havana suburb of Casablanca in the municipality of Regla. It's about a kilometer from the entrance to the Fortaleza San Carlos de La Cabana, it was erected about 51 meters above sea level. You can get there by driving under the bay via the tunnel to get to the other side. The sculptor was a Cuban, Jilma Madera, who used Carrara marble from Italy which was also used for many of the monuments in the Colon Cemetery in Nuevo Vedado. Pope Pius XII blessed the 67 blocks of marble that were used for the sculpture, it weighs about 320 tons. They were sent from Rome, Italy on May, 1958 by ship. The assembling of the pieces started on September 3, 1958 by the artist alone with 20 helpers. The hands alone are said to weigh about a ton each. It's just over 50 years old but it's part of the landscape to the entrance of the harbour. There's a beautiful panoramic view of Havana from the site that's open 24 hours and there is no admission fee. It can even be seen at night from the city as they have it floodlit when the sun goes down. If you were wondering why there was scaffolding around the statue recently, it was because a bolt of lightning knocked a chunk of it's head off and it was being repaired.