Sangria Date at Montclair’s Cuban Pete’s

Hi friends, Happy Friday!

Long time no talk. I’ve been super busy all week enjoying the company of my loved ones, eating good food, fitting in workouts and working. As I’ve talked about before, I telecommute for my full-time job. So my office has been my parents’ kitchen all week, but I’m off all of next week for the holidays. Some of the things I’ve been up to this week include….

*A family tradition of baking massive quantities of Christmas cookies at my grandma’s house:

[with my mom, sister, aunt and grandma]

*Going to a martini bar with my baby sister & cousin, both of who turned 21 this year:

*A lunch date with my boss at Veggie Heaven, my favorite vegan restaurant:

Every time I’m in town, getting grub from Veggie Heaven is a must. They serve vegan Chinese food without the use of artificial flavors of preservatives, MSG, saturated fat, or cholesterol, and all of their dishes are filled with veggies and healthy “meats” made of taro root, bean curd, wheat gluten and mushrooms. Besides eating lunch there, I ordered takeout, which my mom and I have been eating all week.

*Relaxing by the fire with my family, including the 4 cats who live here and love to be their usual lazy selves and lay in front of the warm fireplace in ridiculous positions like this:

[Such a tough life right?]

*Meeting up with my best friend Meaghan for dinner and sangria at one of our old spots when we went to school at Montclair State University, Cuban Pete’s:

It’s an authentic Cuban restaurant where you bring your own wine, and they use it to make sangria. In fact, they offer a dozen sangria menu choices. That alone makes it my kind of place!

This downtown restaurant always has a festive atmosphere. It’s usually crowded and there’s always music playing. They don’t have many vegetarian menu choices, but the ones that they do offer are tasty. It’s not exactly a super health-conscious eatery, but I love it for a splurge of a meal. They have a big outside area to dine at, ya know, when it doesn’t look like this….

Both Meg and I had to drive through crazy icy roads and snowy weather to meet up, but once we sat down and began enjoying our pitcher of sangria, I knew it was a good idea to make the scary commute.

The restaurant is big on tapas, which I love because it allows you to enjoy small bites of different things. We tried goat cheese fritters and spinach empanadas:

The restaurant offers salads, soups, sandwiches, and classic Cuban dishes like chicken and rice. I ordered their garden paella, which had tons of sautéed veggies and plantains over a cilantro lime rice. Plantains are so good!

In contrast to their tapas, this paella dish was huge. Although I loved the plantains and really liked the dish overall, I ate maybe a quarter of it, then the rest came home with me as leftovers. I’ve never gotten to their dessert menu, but they offer a few traditional goodies like Cuban flan and rice pudding that always look yummy.

I had a lot of fun catching up with my girlfriend and dining at Cuban Pete’s! And speaking of girls’ nights, I have a fun one planned for tonight with a couple of my friends in NYC that I’m looking forward to. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Do you like Cuban food?