Caribbean, meet Manhattan Beach [restaurant review]
Mia’s Kitchen owner Lisa Salinas with Chef Silas making a Trinidadian flatbread. Photo . There’s a common cliché about the cranky old person trying to explain how awful things were when they were young. An example for someone who appreciates good restaurants might be to say, “In my youth, Manhattan Beach had two Chinese restaurants, one Mexican place, and everything else was a diner, bar & grill, or steakhouse.” That level of cultural deprivation is unimaginable to someone who grew up in the multicultural dining destination we are now. The latest addition to the world of dining choices is by far the most interesting in recent memory. Mia’s Cafe popped up in the former Sando’s space on Rosecrans, serving food from the Caribbean island of Trinidad. The cuisine has been shaped by Spanish, French, Dutch, and British colonialism, as well as large populations of slaves and workers from Africa, Eastern India, and Colombia. Very few Trinis, as the population is known, moved to California, so this cuisine is a rarity even in cosmopolitan neighborhoods. Mia’s is a labor of love by Lisa Salinas, who named the restaurant after her mother Euphemia, nicknamed Mia. The restaurant opened in July…
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