Ballpark’s Cuban sandwiches are as real as Gurriel
For an unprecedented third time this season … I have a new “best thing I’ve ever eaten at a baseball game.”
In honor of the team’s new Cuban-born player, Yulieski Gurriel, the Astros have introduced a Cuban sandwich at Minute Maid Park. I tried it last week during the Astros big eighth-inning comeback game against the Oakland A’s.
It’s fantastic, and I know my Cuban sandwiches. When I was starting out in newspapers, I lived in Tampa for a year and ate Cuban sandwiches in Ybor City, the historic Cuban neighborhood where the sandwich was invented. After polishing one off at Minute Maid Park, I knew:
As Jerry screams at Kramer on “Seinfeld” — “They’re real Cubans!”
Here’s the Astros Cuban sandwich breakdown: slices of ham and slow-roasted pork shoulder, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard on a crusty roll. The sandwich is toasted on a panini press and served warm and melty. It costs $13, available at the Texas Smoke concession stands behind Sections 124 (main concourse) and 406 (upstairs), and the Urban Bistro behind Section 226.
“We had this idea brewing since the Astros signed Gurriel, and we were ready to unveil the sandwich once he joined the team. They’re selling really well, and we’re keeping
them on the menu for the rest of the season,” said Mat Drain, the “Pied Piper of Popcorn” for Aramark, the Astros concession company.
“The only other food item we’ve created in honor of someone was the ‘Springer Dinger Funnel Cake,’ which was born after George Springer hit a foul ball that landed in our funnel cake fryer. The next day we launched a funnel cake topped with a baseballsize scoop of ice cream with raspberry sauce for the laces. This is the fun part of the job, connecting food and beverage to the team and players.”
Drain gets a solid Aplus for creativity, but a disappointing F-minus for memory. The Cuban sandwich is not the “only other” time the Astros have immortalized a superior athlete in stadium food. Five years ago, the Astros introduced the “Ken Hoffman New York Hot Dog.” It’s the crown jewel in my collection of haute cuisine in Houston.
Oh, I’m not considered a superior athlete? Then I guess winning a ping-pong tournament on a cruise ship five years ago doesn’t count for anything. I beat a 12-yearold boy in the finals. We were the only two people who signed up for the tournament, and the kid was nervous because his Grammy was filming our game. I crushed the kid. A win is a win.
My first two “best things I’ve ever eaten at a baseball game” this season?”
The Shrimp Poboy at the NOLA Poboy stand behind Section 107 at Minute Maid Park and the Filet Mignon Sandwich at Pat LaFrieda’s stand behind the left-field fence at Citi Field in New York.
Mini movie review
I went to “Hands of Stone,” the new boxing movie starring Ed Ramirez as Roberto Duran, Robert De Niro as his trainer, Ray Arcel, and Usher as Sugar Ray Leonard. The movie is fair, no “Rocky,” and the theater was practically empty. The highlight of the film is the famous 1980 Duran-Leonard fight with Duran throwing up his arms, supposedly saying “no mas” (he denies it) and quitting. The final scene has Duran winning his 1983 “comeback” fight against Davey Moore and capturing the light middleweight title. And they all live happily ever after, except Arcel, who died in 1994.
Here’s the thing, I’m a big Duran fan. The movie, like Duran vs. Leonard, quits too early. Duran fought 38 more times after Moore, including a third bout with Leonard in 1989. Duran lost 12 of those fights, including the Leonard rematch, and kept punching until he was 50, embarrassingly well past his prime.
Rapid food wrap
Before “Hands of Stone” came on, I watched the trailer for “The Founder,” a movie about the history of McDonald’s, starring Michael Keaton as Ray Croc, the milkshake-machine salesman who turned a small hamburger stand into a multibillion-dollar, worldwide corporation. Their french fries are rather tasty.
McDonald’s has nothing to do with the movie, did not see the script beforehand or interfere with the film’s production. But if it’s true that any publicity is good publicity, then consider this movie a 90-minute commercial. That will explain the long line at every McDonald’s across the street from a movie theater.
Trivia: Why are they called “trailers” if they’re shown before the feature movie? It’s because trailers — really commercials for upcoming films — originally were played after the feature movie. However, film companies quickly realized that customers were leaving as soon as the feature movie was over and began playing trailers before the feature. The name “trailers” stuck.