Credit: Photo by John Anderson

Mi Kfecito

8309 Research, 501-6698
Monday-Saturday, 8am-8pm

How often can you get great Cuban food and a perm and a pedi under the same roof? On the north access road of Research Boulevard between Top Cash Pawn and Twin Liquors, in a little strip mall between Jamestown Drive and Clearfield Drive, your hair salon and Cuban food dreams come true. The menu is large and very complete, covering many of the Cuban bases, and the 55-seat dining room looks nicer than expected. If this place were Downtown instead of where it is (not that there’s anything wrong with its location), it would be packed.

We started with a pork empanada ($2.55) that had a sweet, crispy exterior and an interior loaded with lechón and ham. Tostones ($1.95) were twice-fried crisp and tasty, while the yucca con mojo ($3.45) is definitely better at Cuban Sandwich Cafe; ours here was undercooked, and the sauce was lackluster. But the Cubano sandwich here ($6.99) is one of Austin’s best sandwich offerings: huge, on crispy golden bread, loaded with a layer of lechón, with oozing cheese, ham, and pickles. Every bite brings a smile. Perhaps even better is the Ropa Vieja sandwich ($4.99), loaded with succulent shredded braised beef in a rich, oniony tomato sauce. Some of the better-tasting “old clothes” I’ve eaten, and perfect on a grilled sandwich.

Mi Kfecito does a lunch special daily for $7.45, and it includes a big bowl of soup, meat, two sides, and a big slab of cake. I definitely have my eye on other dishes to order in the future: oxtail stew, bacalao Vizcaina, Cuban fried chicken, and shredded chicken in Cuban sauce. Service could have been quicker, but it was definitely worth the wait.

This article appears in September 30 • 2011.

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Mick Vann is a retired Austin chef who is a food writer and restaurant critic, cookbook author, restaurant consultant, and recipe developer. He moonlights as a University of Texas horticulturist with a propensity for ethnic eats and international food, particularly of the Asian persuasion, but he also knows his way around a plate of soul food or barbecue.