The only excuse to go to Ikea, PORTO'S!!!

Well I'm a little bit late posting my weekend blog, so we are gonna do it all right now!! Get ready and buckle up kiddos cause here was my weekend adventure!! So as we all know my cleanse was on the way out, (now its officially over!). So with this, I was allowed to enter the world of food again! And boy did I, with a possible end of the cleanse coming a bit too soon. It all started with a visit to Ikea. Yes Ikea!! It was so fun walking around the showroom, dragging my poor little Petie around looking at all the different views of how my future apartment could look like. But I unfortunately was not there for me, I was there for Peter and his apartment. The boy definitely has lived in his apt since October and still has not been to Ikea. So how do I finally get him to drive out to Burbank, with the promise of a delicious meal of course! And no it wasn't the Swedish meatballs in the Ikea cafeteria. It was Porto's, a recommendation I got the night before from a forgettable meal I dont even want to think about/or even write about. Anyways, these lovely friends/foodies told me to go to Porto's since I would be going to Ikea. Porto's I asked, what is it? Well its a cuban deli/bakery!!! Cuban sandwiches I thought? mmm it reminded me instantly of my trip to El Conchito in Silver Lake.....mmm do I love cuban sandwiches, oh the ham!! The pig is literally one of the most delicous animals ever. And NO I DONT WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING NEGATIVE ABOUT IT YOU PIG HATERS!!! (people think that their views of the pig are implanted on the person when you eat it, and then there are those people that cant eat it due to their religious views, which I totally accept but Im glad Im not them). So after the trip to Ikea, we drive to Porto's on Magnolia. On the way we see this plume of smoke in the distance. As we drive closer, we see its coming from an outside grill, where there is carne asada, chicken and who knows what else. We look at each other and think about throwing the plans and stopping here instead. But no, its Porto's time and we cannot be taken off course.

So we park, we enter and its big with ALOT of people inside. Peter gets scared. I say don't worry the lines move fast. And it did. In due time we got to order. I had the Cuban Sandwich which was Ham, roasted pork, and Swiss cheese served with mayonnaise, mustard, and pickles on Cuban bread). Peter ordered the Roasted Pork Sandwich (Pan con Lechon) which was Oven roasted pork served with special Spanish garlic dressing (Mojo) on Cuban bread. We also HAD to get the Potato Balls (which my foodie friend suggested we HAD to try). The Potato balls consisted of mashed potato's with beef and spices inside, which peter compared to a Kanishce, which I unfortunately have no idea what that is so I just said okay. At the last minute I snuck in a meat pie, it looked delicious in its flaky puffy dough crust.

So we ordered, sat down and waited. Luckily we got to start eating right away with our appetizers, our potato balls and the meat pie, MEAT PIE!! So let me start explaining the potato ball. Literally mashed potato's surrounding meat filling and then lightly fried. These were gooooood. Mmmmm. Peter and I each got our own, but had to share the meat pie. The meat pie had the same meat filling but instead of being fried with mashed potatoes it was backed in a delicious puffy crust. I actually liked this MUCH MORE than the fried potato ball. But this is due to my history with my mothers witch's pockets (apples wrapped in a puff pastry dough). So when I see puff pastry, my heart literally melts. And boy oh boy did it melt. And boy oh boy am I still annoyed I had to share it. (I DONT LIKE TO SHARE, GET OVER IT!)

Finally we got our sandwiches, my Cubano was delicious. It was not as pressed as I expected or as warm as I hoped, but none the less it was still yum yum yum. What I really enjoyed about the cubaon was the crisp pickle that I had with every bite. The conversion of the sweet bread, salty pork and sour crunchy pickle was just overall a great combo. Oh did you know that the sandwiches come with fried plantain chips!!!! The Pan con Lechon was tasty too. The pork was like a pulled pork, dry, with spices. The difference between the sandwiches were great even though they were both ham based. I mean this is why I love the pig, there are just so many different things you can do with it and yet always (well usually) tastes great!

Unfortunately I was not able to taste any of the sweets, due to the cleanse, I was still not eating sugar, though I totally cheated eating bread, but shhhhhhh.

Porto's Bakery 3614 W Magnolia Blvd Burbank, CA 91504 (818) 846-9100

www.portosbakery.com