33715 Fri Jan 14 22:22:36 -0800 2005 3 1 San Francisco Bay Area 0 150962 When my MacWorld lunch date fell through, I rang up Felice who came over from Mission Bay to join me at 21st Amendment. The Cuban sandwich had been highly recommended on this board, but sadly, we were shorted today. After two bites dominated by ham, I opened up my sandwich to try to find the promised cumin-marinated roast pork. None to be found, and no roast pork in Felice's half either. I asked our busser to call our waitress over. When I pointed out to her that our Cuban was missing the roast pork promised in the menu description, she breezily replied, "oh, it's only ham today", and turned her back on us. This was a good ham and cheese san, albeit with too thick a layer of ham washing out the taste of the mustard, cheese and pickle, but we had paid for a Cubano and didn't get it. Doubly disappointing as Chef Blyden was in the house leading me to expect more from the food. Otherwise bright notes were the arugula and baby spinach salad with pears and walnuts, and the delicious spicy ale (seasonal). The sweet sticks - shoestring sweet potato fries - were okay too when you hit a crisp and not soggy one. Image: http://home.earthlink.net/~melaniewong/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/21stamend.jpg Fri Jan 14 22:22:36 -0800 2005 0 Melanie Wong 1 150985 I passed a sandwich shop on the ground floor of the embarcadero building closest to the bay (facing the ice skating rink) I forgot the name but went to look passing through.The cuban sandwiches looked fantastic. If you get down that way you might want to try one. Sat Jan 15 09:16:16 -0800 2005 150962 0 originaljoe 2 150995 Probably Birley's, at 4EC. I heard they were making Cubans. It's a London chain, but heck, the Brits invented the sandwich, didn't they? Sat Jan 15 13:55:12 -0800 2005 150985 0 Gary Soup 2 151137 I mentioned this incident to a friend, and he said he was surprised that I didn't just walk out after that kind of response. I checked Birley's website and it does offer Cuban sandwiches. It says they're made with "carnitas". Maybe they mean the Cuban-style marinated fried pork. Mon Jan 17 16:30:43 -0800 2005 150985 0 Melanie Wong