Cha Cha Cha

September 14, 2008 at 1:45 am · Filed under Caribbean, San Francisco, Way Good

Cha Cha Cha
1801 Haight St, San Francisco

Way Good!

Cha Cha Cha is a great stop for Caribbean style tapas on Haight in San Francisco.  Laura and I were making our semi-annual trek to the John Fluevog shoe store in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, and had the opportunity to grab lunch at Cha Cha Cha, a Caribbean just a few blocks down Haight from Fluevog’s.  This restaurant turned out to be quite a find.  The red, windowless main doors are a bit intimidating, but pushing past them brings you into a small, friendly, and nearly full dining room decorated in semi-outrageous Caribbean theme, with black walls, Virgin Mary statues, tinsel, and other island paraphernalia.

We immediately ordered a couple of beers, and then starting kicking ourselves as we realized that every other table was enjoying pitchers of homemade sangria, mixed in a huge container at the bar.  After deciding NOT to order a round of sangrias anyway, we enjoyed our beers while choosing ceviche, jerk chicken and fried platanos maduros (bananas with black beans) for our lunch.  Cha cha cha specializes in small plates, but these dishes are pretty big, so three was more than we could finish.  But we tried!  The ceviche was good, not great, but good.  But the jerk chicken, that was pretty pretty pretty good! We really liked that.  But, the plate to die for?  That honor was bestowed on the bananas and black beans, a combination that was new to me.  The bananas are caramelized, and served alongside pureed black beans topped with a dollop of sour cream.  Who knew that could be such a great combination?

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