texasmesquite

This place is a dive, man!
The bar is funky. The food is cooked in a truck. And the folks at Lake Worth's Havana Hideout are proud of it. They're even about to be featured on the Food Network!
By LESLIE GRAY STREETER
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 15, 2009

It's called Havana Hideout. Before that, it was the Lizard Den.

Havana Hideout owner Chrissy Benoit says her menu caters to diners who are charmed by interesting, cheap food and cheap drinks.

It's about to become known as the place where Guy Fieri ate.

The downtown Lake Worth bar will get some serious national exposure when it is featured on the Monday pisode of the Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, starring shock-blond chef Fieri.

Here's the funny part. If Havana, a tiki bar/taco joint that specializes in Chef Chrissy Benoit's take on traditional Latin street food, is a dive now - well, you should have seen it before.

"It was too scary," says Jeff Burnside of Lake Worth, while eating a taco plate on a recent day at the Hideout. "I just drove by it then."

In its Lizard Den days, the place was a decidedly downscale drinking establishment with a sparse garden dotted with flower pots full of cigarette butts, no kitchen, no credit card machine and a loyal collection of patrons that gathered when the doors opened around 9 a.m. and included a local woman always accompanied by the rat she wore on her shoulder.

But now, Havana Hideout is just what its name suggests, an oasis of Key West-meets-Cuba-meets-Lake Worth-inspired delights. The Lake Avenue establishment is hidden behind a pleasingly mysterious jungle of tropical plants, thatched roof-covered tables that form little private huts, colorful lawn furniture and an attractive garden. Its stage, decorated with a mural re-created from a wall in Havana, features live bands, movies and a popular open mic night.

"It's not pretentious. It's function over form," Burnside says. "Palm Beach is upscale, and this is an alternative. It's so quiet here you don't hear the street go by."

The California-bred Benoit, former chef at Lake Worth's trendy spot The Cottage, serves up food she makes in the full kitchen of the white van parked behind Havana's wooden deck, the home of her Adventurous Palate Catering.

"We want it to be accessible, but good," Benoit says. "A good night feels very much like a night with friends."

The menu boasts what Food Network Vice President of Programming Allison Page calls "legit food" like fresh ceviche, grilled achiote-rubbed fish tacos and handmade spicy chocolate chili pepper ice cream, plus a rotating selection of interesting beers and a rainbow assortment of flavored sangria.

"And it's made from jug wine!" Benoit adds.

The chef says that her menu caters to a crowd that knows its food but doesn't want to go broke. "In these economic times, you don't need to spend $25 for a rotisserie chicken. These people get cilantro. They know what rosemary is. People know better now, but you don't have to jack them."

Still, it's comfortable and neighborhoody enough to attract a mess of leather-clad motorcycle riders on Lake Worth's Thursday "Bike Night" celebrations. Food starts at $4 for chips and salsa and $10 for the nachos.

In 2008, it was voted "best hole in the wall" by Boca Raton Magazine. That's a distinction Benoit's so proud of, she's written it in electric-hued chalk on the front of the restaurant, right next to the specials.

So even though Havana Hideout's had a definite upgrade, both its staff and its taco-hungry patrons are happy to luxuriate in the "dive" label.

"Totally proud, man," Benoit says. "This is real people stuff, because a good dive feels like family."

Havana's upcoming episode of Diners, or "Triple D," as Page calls it, was filmed earlier this year, with colorful host Fieri leaving not only his familiar "Guy Ate Here" stamp on the front of the bar, but his creative mark on the truck.

"He said 'This truck needs a name,''" recalls Benoit, who witnessed the host climb up on top of the catering van "and tagging it."

"He named it Wanda. He said it just seemed like a Wanda."

Page says Havana came to the network's attention from media coverage about it, as well as from "a serious foodie who lives in the area (who) mentioned it to one of our researchers."

And once they checked it out, Page says Havana "had everything we look for - food, made from scratch, in a place with character, run by someone who, in the best sense of the word, is herself a character, in that she has a great personality and a real passion for what she's doing.

"It's her combination of flavors, the authentic ingredients, and the care with which (the food) is made. I mean, how often do you see a Cuban sandwich that starts with a fresh roasted pork butt?"

So why did it qualify as a dive according to the Food Network's standards?

"They're cooking in a truck," Page answers. "'Nuff said."

Benoit says the show's taping took three days and was "fun and cool."

"Guy was awesome. You notice how intelligent he is, how the wheels are constantly turning."

Benoit first moved to Florida in 1997 to work for Wolfgang Puck in Orlando, then to the Caribbean, the Inn at Quogue in the Hamptons, and then returned to Florida, where she eventually wound up at The Cottage, where she spent a year, leaving in the spring of 2006.

Not long after leaving The Cottage, she heard that the Lizard Den at 509 Lake Ave. was for sale. She'd never actually been inside - "I was scared of the place" - but when she went to check it out, she thought there was something there that "I saw in its bones."

She says she spent about $60,000 "to make it clean and safe and close to what it is now," laid-back like the Orange County beach eateries she grew up with. Because the tiny inside bar was too small for a kitchen, her father, who did a lot of the work on the place, had the genius idea of buying a catering truck, which had been used to sell Mexican food in West Palm.

The bar opened in September 2006, with the truck, which operates as a separate business with separate permits, opening for business the next July. With her in the kitchen is Dino Garcia, with whom she worked at The Cottage. The clientele is a mixture of some holdovers from the Lizard Den days - "the good ones," Benoit says - and new ones charmed by interesting, cheap food, cheap drinks and a place to just breathe.

Benoit is pleased to see her little dive gain national attention, but she says she doesn't claim a lot of the credit.

"This kind of magic was here when I got it," she says. "All I did was clean it up and give some love back."

Pionono

Note: All amounts of ingredients from raisins through olive oil are approximate, as they are done to taste.

4 ounces raisins

4 ounces green olives

2 tablespoons minced garlic

4 ounces tricolored bell peppers

4 ounces onions

8 ounces tomatoes

4 ounces olive oil

4 ounces tomato paste

3 ounces vinegar

2 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon black pepper

1 tablespoon cumin

2 tablespoon red chili flakes

4 ounces achiote powder

6 pounds ground chuck (80/20 fat content)

3 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

2 pounds ripe yellow plantains

1 stick butter

3 eggs


Sauté ingredients listed from raisins to tomatoes in olive oil till well sautéed. Add tomato paste, vinegar, salt, black pepper, cumin, chili flakes, achiote powder and ground chuck, cooking well and setting aside. Sauté plantains in oil, smashing them in a mashed potato-like consistency. Add butter.

Spray lasagna pan with nonstick cooking spray. Whisk eggs, and add a thin layer on bottom of pan, followed by a thin layer each of plantain, beef and Parmesan, repeating as if building a lasagna.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350º.

One portion is 4-by-4 square.


Cuban sandwiches, Hideout style

1 long French-style baguette

1/2 cup melted butter

Mozzarella cheese slices, enough to cover bread

Ham, enough to cover bread

5 pounds pork butt

4 whole garlic gloves

Garlic salt to taste

Yellow mustard to taste

Dill pickle slices, enough to cover bread


Punch four holes into pork butt, stuffing each with one garlic clove. Rub with salt and roast for 5 to 6 hours. Shred pork.

Half baguette, then cut into 4 6-inch sections. Build the sandwich on one half of bread. Slather mustard on the half you're building on, cover it with pickles side by side. Layer with ham slices, cover with shredded pork, and sprinkle with garlic salt. Top all items with slices of mozzarella cheese, and place the other half on top.

Take sections and brush with butter generously. Place butter side down on hot flat top or in a large sauté pan. Brush top side of bread and place a foil-wrapped brick on top to press the sandwich. Flip over after bottom is browning in butter and ingredients are melting. Bread will become crusty and dense.

Yields 4 6-inch sandwiches.

Recipes courtesy of Havana Hideout.


SEE HAVANA HIDEOUT ON TV, CELEBRATE WITH FREE FOOD!

Havana Hideout is having a party Monday to celebrate its appearance on Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

The fun starts at 8 p.m. and includes a viewing of the show at 10. All food featured on the show will be available for free.

Havana Hideout, 509 Lake Ave., Lake Worth. For more information, call (561) 585-8444.


Staff photos by BRUCE R. BENNETT