Sabor Cubano Revisited: Better in Month Six? | Radcliff KY

Key Takeaways

• Sabor Cubano in Radcliff serves Cuban and Puerto Rican food, counter service, with a rotating lunch line
• Britten first covered it at its grand opening in the spring and went back to see how it is holding up
• Standouts: the braised beef, the Cuban sandwich, and empanadas he called unbelievable
• The plantain sliders won him over despite him not being a plantain fan
• Britten was live in studio this week rather than video only; Michele was not able to join

Summary

Britten McDowell returned to Sabor Cubano in Radcliff, the Cuban and Puerto Rican counter service spot he and Michele first reviewed at its grand opening in the spring. The revisit exists because of a rule he applies to every place he covers: if somewhere is good enough that he says he would go back, he goes back.

It matters because the question he is really asking is one most reviews never get to. Plenty of restaurants can put out a good product in month one. What he wants to know is whether the food in month five or six is better than it was at the start.

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Rachel handed off to the segment admitting she had missed lunch and was about to regret watching it. Britten was in studio live this week, which is a change from the usual video-only format, and he reacted to his own review alongside the panel.

The trip came about ordinarily enough. A friend suggested lunch and wanted to try the place. Britten had already been. "I've been there. It's great. So let's go back."

What he found is the thing he says he is always hoping for and rarely gets to report. Anybody in any business, he argued, ought to be better in month five or six than they were in month one or two. He drew the comparison directly to Rachel's world: a realtor may be fine in year one, but they ought to be considerably better after that.

The food, in his telling, delivered on it.

Sabor Cubano runs a lunch line with a rotating set of combinations, so what is on offer moves through the week. Britten worked through a fair amount of it across visits. The braised beef stood out, seasoned in a way he described as carrying almost a fajita note. There was a braised pork day he still thinks about. "I crave those."

The plantain sliders got the most honest review of the segment, because he led with the caveat. He is not a fan of plantains. He rated them anyway.

The Cuban sandwich he treated as the benchmark it is, calling it a classic and leaving it there. And the empanadas got the closest thing to an unqualified rave in the whole piece. He described them as little handmade fried pies, pointed them at Rachel specifically as being up her alley, and called them unbelievable.

There is also a shrimp preparation available at certain times during the week, which he mentioned but could not name on air.

Worth surfacing, because it says something about how the segment works: Britten noted there is a great deal of content viewers never see. When an experience is genuinely bad, he does not post it. He is not interested in damaging a local business over one meal. It is a quiet editorial standard, and it is the reason a positive Experienced Eater review carries weight.

He also mentioned, almost in passing, that recognition is starting to happen. Before the podcast he was at Walmart and heard somebody say "there's that guy from TikTok," and he has been recognised from the podcast at a couple of other events since.

Sabor Cubano is in Radcliff.