Kat's 9 Lives

I have been wanting to go to this restaraunt for like two years. Seeing that it was on dine about LA week, I was ecstatic. The food was awesome, but the service was horrendous! Can they get a dumber manager? Lunch took forever! People who got their after us all finished before we did. I don't know if they just forgot about us or what. It wasn't like we sat away from everyone else, but I think the lunch staff must be incompetent idiots. Maybe I will come back for dinner, and I mean MAYBE.

I made the mistake to share an appetizer with my friend, I should have just ordered what everyone ordered. I ordered the Lemongrass Skewered Chicken, a coconut thai chili marinade. The chicken was nicely prepared but the flavor was lacking. It was just a so-so dish.
What was truly amazing was the Braised Pulled Pork Empañadas with a smoked chili dipping sauce. Everything inside the empañadas was prepared to perfection. The side citrus salad was wonderful as well. I would definitely recommend everyone to choose this starter, and to order it if you go there outside dine about LA week.
For the second course I chose the Miso Cured Alaskan Butterfish. It was a small piece of fish but extremely flavorful. I believe the server said that it was marinated for 2 days before served. The cuban black bean and edamamesalad had a yuzu vinaigrette, which was delicious. I hate beans so I picked them all out and only ate the edamame. It also came with tempura shisito peppers that were kind of washed out from the batter, but still good if you are afraid of a strong shisito flavor.
My friend ordered the Cuban BBQ Chicken with Thai Coconut Sticky Rice & Avocado Fruit Salsa. I tried the chicken and that was delicious, but my friend said that the rice was not good at all. From what I saw, I would agree that they totally overcooked the rice and ruined it.
Dessert took FOREVER to come, I was seriously thinking about leaving before it came. Like I said, service was embarrassingly bad. My friend was dying of spice and they never bothered to refill the water glasses. The dessert was actually great. My friend had the Caribbean Carrot Cake layered with pineapple cream cheese & a lemongrass rhum raisin ice cream. I was astonished at how good the carrot cake was and they gave a generous slice. My friend and I eventually ended up switching desserts.
I ordered the Cuban Opera Cake made with rich chocolate cake layered with milk chocolate buttercream & coffee mousse with coffee-brittle ice cream. It sounded very good and was presented nicely, but I personally thought it was too overwhelming. I love chocolate, but this dish was way too heavy for my tastes and luckily my friend liked it a lot so we swapped.
Overall, their restaurant week menu was pretty good and tasty but I am not sure if it can out-weigh the horrendous service we received. Even the manager was really stupid. Either they need better day shift workers or they generally have bad service. I think I might give the place one more try for dinner and I would definitely order some drinks. Their white sangría looked very tempting.

Asia de Cuba