Over the holiday weekend, I traveled to Southern California to visit with my brother’s family. While there, we got lunch to-go at Versailles Cuban Restaurant in Manhattan Beach.
Since Cuban food is better known for its meat dishes, I didn’t think there would be much for me to eat besides the typical rice and beans. Sure enough, there was just two vegetarian plates on the menu, both included rice and beans.
I got the Moros, Platanos Fritos Y Ensalada Verde plate – black beans and rice cooked together, fried sweet plantains, mixed green salad and some mystery root vegetable hidden underneath the salad. It’s sorta like a potato but it’s not. I never had it before.
Normally, I’m not a huge fan of beans but moros is delicious! It’s savory and flavorful with just the right ratio of rice to beans. I had no idea rice and beans can be this good.
Yum! I used to love Versailles before I stopped eating meat, haven’t been back since as I didn’t think there would be anything for me to eat there. Their platanos are to die for!
I’ve never been there. (I live in Jersey.) My guess is the mystery root vegetable was yucca. Yucca is delicious when cooked with garlic. Yum. Otherwise, your photo just makes me want to eat the computer screen! I love cuban food. Thanks for sharing!
Yeah, I haven’t been to Versailles since going veg*n but the potato-like veg was definitely fried yuca. Not yucca, but yuca, AKA cassava (AKA what tapioca is made from). I love cuban yuca!
I wanted to go eat at Versailles. Do you know if their rice and beans are vegan because my aunt cooks hers with chicken stock. Please let me know and if not, I will be making my trip there!
I’m so jealous! My cousins wife used to work at a Cuban restaurant in Maui and it had some wonderful vegetable cuban food. It was actually pretty amazing.
Foodeater – Yup, the fried plantains were delicious!
Faith – Thanks, I kinda thought it was something like that. It’s really good.
Colinski – Thanks, for clearing that up. The yuca didn’t seem to be fried though. It was more like it was steamed or something but still tasty.
sue – I read somewhere that they are vegan but I didn’t check myself as I neither placed the order or picked it up. So I can’t say for sure, you might want to ask yourself, preferably in Spanish. Or if you know someone who speaks Spanish, as there was a mix up with our order, not my food but the kid’s meal.
JoLynn-dreaminitvegan – Vegetable cuban food is amazing, I’m surprised it’s not better known.
I don’t think that are any vegan-friendly cuban restaurants around my area… I hadn’t even considered it before, either! It’s not a cuisine I know well, but that meal above certainly looks tasty at least.
RICE N BEANS! RICE N BEANS!
Ahh I was going to say it was probably Cassava! I’ve had it steamed before and it’s really nice! Especially nice made into fries!