Maruch Cafeteria

The food is great, the prices are fair, and the portion size is pretty generous is you ask me. I’ve come here a couple of times with family and we’ve always left happy. The staff has always been very sweet to us, we’ve never had a problem with the servers. Parking can be a little bit of a hassle depending on when you decide to stop by, but it’s never ruined our experience there.

La mejor comida de miami, una vaca frita espectacular super bien cocinada y con un sabor especial!!! El fufu de platano el mejor sin dudas, un sabor unico! Recomiendo este lugar a todos, todo es super fresco y bien elaborado y lo mejor es q hacen en grandes cantidades por si tienes fiestas en la casa! gracias maruchi por tu excelente cocina

Food is good, prices are fair and their FLAN IS AMAZING!!! The only sucky part is the people that work there are total asshats, very snotty and pompous and look down at you if you don’t speak proper Spanish. I think the owners are fascists cause they have a bunch of women barefoot and pregnant serving the food… The only way to get any respect from these ladies is to parallel their complete disregard for respect. I hate talking down or being mean to someone but its the only way to be treated fair here. The Food or better said, their flan is worth it though… If it weren’t for the terrible service I’d give them a five.

A pleasant surprise, amazing legit cuban food. The place looks clean and food is delicious (best chicken soup). Inexpensive cuban classics, I will definitely go back with my family.

I live literally two blocks from this place so i have visited very often. They have a variety of «authentic» cuban food you can order in or take out. They als serve breakfast & have a quick cafeteria. Honestly the staff could be better older cuban ladies arent the best bit they get the job done. The food is tasty, i feel like the parking should be better. There is never a long wait or line. & its an alright place aside from the staff.

Didn’t want to leave a Star, but didn’t have much of a choice.
Never been to the place, nor will I. I’ve been getting these random spam message on my wireless phone. A restaurant who advertises illegally by sending spam messages should be held accountable through FPSC. Spam is Spam never been to this dump and at this point will never,

Stop by this place for breakfast after a long flight from South America. The cafeteria setting was nice, I was a bit confused about the ordering method, no menus, you select your order from a picture menu hanging from the ceiling. Food was really good, coffee was so good too. But. Interacting with the staff was odd, they were not as friendly as most Cuban servers are. 4 stars this time. I would come back and recommend.

True Cuban food! I love this place over any other cuban restaurant in Miami. Not only the food is great but the service is amazing. It makes you think you are not in Miami. Everyone is nice and polite. It is also very clean. If you are a tourist looking for good service and great Cuban food. Don’t go anywhere else but here. You won’t regret it!

Get slapped with goodness as you’re entering. Your stomach and heart will jump for joy

The staff is courteous and look after you. Tasty inexpensive fresh food. A place to visit regularly.

this place is an amazing authentic cuban restuarant market… quick eats but they make things legit!
I love their café colada… sweet, packs a punch, and just strong…
the sandwiches and food just ooze that homemade taste…
Make it a stop and u wont regret it!

Very good food for great prices. I have also ordered food from here for a party and everyone loved it as well.

I am simply amazed that such a simple place can have such amazing food. I don’t eat here enough because when I go out I’d rather eat Chinese Italian American since I eat Cuban at home. However Maruch might make me change my mind. Last nights masitas de cerdo fritas were beyond delicious. And as I was eyeballing the food, I caught a glimpse of what looked like amazing tamales. And a nice surprise; they have the cutest wine section! I guess I can get faded on Cuban food, and walk off the calories!

Grilled chicken breast is tasty. Lunch time is the best. After that, it’s slim pickin’s…

I was pleasantly surprised by this place today. Went there for lunch with a group of friends. Good Cuban food at a great price. Very generous servings (enough that one meal was plenty to share between two). Cafeteria style so service is very fast. I was a little lost at first because it wasn’t regular cafeteria style where you go down the line with a tray. At Maruch, you tell one of the servers what you want and then it is brought out to your table.
I had the fried grouper (huge) with a side of rice and beans and calabaza (pumpkin) with garlicky mojo sauce. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Very clean and friendly service.

Everything they cook is great. I am a picky eater when it comes to cuban food but they make everything tasty.

Located just a few minutes’ taxi ride Miami Airport, Maruch Cafeteria is a perfect example of how real Cuban food can be sampled from a working class perspective, rather than from the haute cuisine perspective, or even the «real restaurant» approach, as Maruch is more akin to the million delis that dot New York City with hot food, but from a Cuban angle.
There are about twenty small tables, and a small army of Cuban women of all shades, ages and shapes working behind the hot food counter, which is an array of Cuban food ranging from the kind of food that you’ll see at any Cuban restaurant around the world, such as ropa vieja, tostones, black bean soup, yucca, etc., to less common but still very Cuban items such as vaca frita, ajiaco, tasajo, chicharron and more. If it is a sandwich that one desires, it is custom-​made on the spot, and they offer the ubiquitous Cuban hot pressed sandwich or the lesser known, but tastier (at least to my taste) medianoche sandwich.
As you enter Maruch, the smell of garlic and cumin warn you that this is the real deal, and all the food (except for desserts) are behind a hot food counter with handwritten Spanish signs above each item. The prices are also written above each item, and range from $ 4.95 to $ 9.95 or so for a plate.
A plate usually includes one main item (pork, fish, chicken, goat, and beef) and two sides, plus rice and black beans or congri (both the congri made with black beans and the one from Oriente province made with red beans).
Congri is sort of a Cuban version of dirty rice, as the rice and beans are cooked together, and the white rice turns black or red, depending on the bean used.
There are several items of each kind of meat, such as 2 – 3 kinds of fish choices, 3 – 4 pork choices, etc.
The meat portions are huge.
In fact they are an exaggeration of culinary offering and would probably distress a hoity toity restaurant critic, but fit perfectly into the cultural norm of a neighborhood Cuban hole in the wall, mom & pop restaurant cafeteria, such as Maruch is.
When I say big, I mean really huge. Imagine a steak the size of a laptop screen, or a piece of fish 2 – 3 times the size that one normally gets in a restaurant.
In fact, I have never seen bigger portions of food served in any Cuban restaurant, or any other for that matter, anywhere else in the gazillions of restaurants that I have been in my life. These are Texas-​sized portions times two!
When I last visited Maruch, I ordered chuleta de puerco, rice and black beans, yucca con mojo, platanos fritos, boniato and a couple of beers.
It was an enormous meal; an exaggeration of food to a spectacular degree and I enjoyed every bit of it. The pork was tender and well-​seasoned, the black bean soup gave up their garlicky cuminy smell that separates Cuban black beans from all other ethnic Latin American black bean dishes, and the mojo for the boiled yucca was spectacular, reeking of garlic, olive oil, onions, and lime juice. The boniato (Cuban yam) was sweet and tender and the platanos fritos thick and sweet. This orgy of starches really complemented the huge portion of pork, and I ate it all.
In spite of the huge meal, afterwards I had a cuatro leches for dessert. «You must try cuatro leches,» said in Spanish the raven-​haired and green-​eyed Cuban waitress, who looked more like a tanned Irish woman than what Hollywood thinks as Cuban. «The owner makes it herself.»
Cuatro Leches is a taste numbing Cuban dessert cake made from four different kinds of milk (such as cow’s milk, evaporated milk, condensed milk, etc.). Cuban culinary urban legend has it that there are ocho leches makers out there, who introduce other milks (such as goat milk, and other milks that one better not ask about) into the recipe, which is not for calorie counters, even at just four milks.
I finished my meal with a café cubano, or a Cuban coffee, which is a tiny shot of super-​sweet espresso with enough caffeine to ensure that I’d be up half the night remembering the orgy of food that I had consumed.