Havana Restaurant & Gallery – Brunch

A lot has changed along The Drive over the last quarter century.  I recall back in the 80’s that there was still fairly noticeable remnants of “Little Italy” even despite the influx of Asian and other cultures.  We found ourselves in our old stomping grounds in early February after dropping off some donations to the nearby SPCA and noticed that many of the old shops have been replaced with an eclectic collection of restaurants.  While there were still a few old shops that we remembered, The Drive has seem to undergone a bit of gentrification… if you told me 25 years ago that there was going to be a fish and chips food truck parked in front of Grandview Park, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Havana Restaurant & Gallery was our destination this weekend morning and breakfast was on the agenda.  First off, was a Hot Chocolate ($3.75) to warm up with… this is the first hot chocolate that I’ve had served with a cincinnamon stick and salted-rimmed glass.

Breakfast is served everyday until 2pm and I picked the Chorizo Hash ($13.00).  The eggs were poached perfectly with runny yolks that bathed the crispy potatoes, red and green peppers, onions, tomatoes, and crumbled chorizo sausage.  The bread was super soft and fresh – I think they must get it all from local bakeries because we saw some staff walking in bags of freshly baked bread through the front door.

The Havana Mussels ($14.95) was served in a tomato lobster broth and served with the same housemade crumbled chorizo sausage (which is different from the deep red cured Spanish sausage variety).  While the broth was a bit on the salty side, the 1 lb of mussels were plump and succulent and overall, prepared quite well.

Havana’s  storefront has a large bay of windows which makes it the perfect spot to people watch.  The atmosphere had a bit of a high-energy vibe to it… probably owing to the servers and our food came out super fast.  They also brought out hot sauce to the table (we had the Jung & Walker Mango Fire hot sauce which had a good Caribbean kick from the scotch bonnet peppers).  I think the next time I come by here, I might want to try their Chicken & Waffles… if it’s anything like the fried chicken at The Reef, it would be awesome.

1212 Commercial Drive
Vancouver, BC

www.havanarestaurant.ca