Havana Central Menlo Park Mall - Edison

Mother's Day was great. Food and drinks were great. Atmosphere was amazing they treated everyone with a live band, small dance floor but that was an extra, because spanish people are going to make a dance floor when good music is playing. Kid-friendliness: Kids menu, tasteful.

I 'll try and be straight to the point. To be clear, I 'm not trying to be rude. I actually really wanted to be able to give 5 stars across the board, but I can 't.The hostesses were great; they were welcoming and quick.We sat down and had to ask a passing employee to get our server because almost 10 minutes had passed, and no one came to the table. Then he comes, introduces himself, and does not apologize for making us wait so long. He asks if we 've ever been there before. We say no, and he begins to explain that it 's a Cuban restaurant and then says, we serve Spanish food !!! I am a Spaniard, married to a Cuban. They are not the same, and an employee working there should know the difference between Spanish and Cuban food. That 's a huge error.I know his name, but I do not want to get him in any trouble, so I won 't use his name. If his managers told him to say Spanish food, then shame on them.We then ordered a pitcher of mojitos. It came pretty quickly, but he just left the pitcher with empty glasses. He didn 't fill the glasses, and he didn 't leave a spoon in the pitcher so we could stir it and so that we could keep the ice from pouring out when we filled our own glasses.We ordered appetizers when we ordered the drinks. The appetizers came pretty quickly too, but they were dropped off, and we had no appetizer plates to use, and we still didn 't have settings. We had no forks and knives to eat with.I walked to the corner station myself and grabbed small plates for us to use. No one questioned me or apologized that I had to do this, and several employees saw me.We had to call him after he was done singing a birthday song nearby and ask him for settings.The shame of it all was that the food was really good. We all enjoyed our entrees and appetizers. We ordered 3 of the pernil and 1 ropa vieja. The mojitos were pretty good too, but the errors in service had us a little frustrated. I used to be a restaurant service manager, so this is not me nit picking; these were errors that shouldn 't have occurred and that are easily avoidable.To top it all off, I ordered a cafe con leche at the end of the meal, and although it tasted good, it wasn 't hot.We have been looking for a good Cuban restaurant in the area and had to come all the way from Staten Island to try one, in the rain.I 'm not sure I can convince my family and friends to give Havana Central another try.

I frequent Havana Central and this experience was definitely lacking! Our waiter Heshmat was mediocre to say the least, he definitely didn’t seem very interested in being there. We ordered drinks which came without all the “decor” on them..if I’m paying $20 or more for a drink it should look like the picture, when I mentioned it, my 2nd drink came like the picture, so it’s not like they didn’t have the fruit/items pictured, they just chose not to add it. After dropping off drinks it took him another 15-20 minutes to come back for our app order and wanted to take our dinner order at the same time, which we declined because we didn’t want it all to come at the same time. My appetizer came without the chimichurri and I had to ask for it. I also ordered a side of garlic ajillo sauce with my dinner which he claimed 3 separate times he was on his way to get and never did. When i finally waved him down he had no idea what I was talking about even after pulling up the menu on my phone to show him, which I find as a waiter, you should know what’s on the menu. After that I told him to forget about it. Lastly, my friends ordered passion fruit margaritas which were $14 on the monthly specials menu but were charged $18 each, so we had to get that fixed. Overall it was not the best experience and I was actually there for dinner for my birthday, so it dampened the mood.

Food and Service here are always top notch! Every dish is tasty and made to perfection. The drinks? Well.... Delicious! The staff, managers and host always makes it pleasurable. Thank you!

Food was amazing. I definitely recommend if your feeling like Spanish food is your top choice for dinner. The food was fresh and didn't have any problems at all. The waitress was amazing and super nice. The music will have you dancing in your seat.