By Claudie Benjamin
Miguel Yip, one of the propitiators of the family-owned La Caridad 72, has worked at the exuberantly welcoming restaurant for 40 years. Yip is the son of Chinese parents who lived in Havana, Cuba. He came to New York in the late 1960s and has done just about every job that needed doing at the restaurant. As the manager, Yip is surrounded by a staff of relatives of different generations. The restaurant’s menu has remained virtually unchanged over the decades since it first opened uptown on Broadway and 78th Street.
Richard K. Lieberman, Professor of History at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, was a graduate student in 1967 when he first lived on the Upper West Side. “Money and where to eat was always a question,” he said. Beyond burgers, fries, and pizza, more exotic and interesting were the numerous Chinese Cuban (Comida China Y Criolla) restaurants. Among all at the time, Lieberman said, “La Caridad 78 was “the go-to place.”
In those pre-cellular days, customers rarely used land-lines to phone in orders. “We came, ordered, and waited if we were taking food out. It was better to eat there because the food was hot,” Lieberman recalled.
Generally, the food scene on the Upper West Side was far more limited. Restaurants were mostly on Broadway—almost none on Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues. 40-50 years ago was also well before farm-to-table or quick deliveries of Mexican Ceviche Tosada, Italian Cacio e Pepe pasta, Punjabi samosas or Turkish Kuru Fashlye, Sushi or ice cream ordered online. There were not yet food trucks serving international street fare. Most Upper West Siders did not have chopsticks, woks, or cupboards filled with a wide variety of spices at home.
Big occasions might be celebrated at a steak house like Mrs. J’s Sacred Cow on 72nd Street or a relatively fancy restaurant like Tip Toe Inn on 86th Street. Some families had a once-a-week tradition of going to a Chinese restaurant with the menus evolving from Cantonese to Szechwan cuisine.
Exotic was hard to come by, especially affordable exotic. A few exceptions in the 1960s, were for example, Maharaja, an Indian restaurant on Broadway between 92-93rd Street, and a few blocks north, the original Cleopatra, Egyptian restaurant (before it became Cleopatra’s Needle, a jazz spot.
Most certainly, Cuban Chinese restaurants like La Caridad 78 fit the bill for hungry, adventurous locals, who especially appreciated the low cost of tasty dishes. The menu offered the chance to savor tasty combinations of Cuban specialties alongside Chinese dishes.
You hear of movie stars and singers making a comeback. But, how often do you hear this phrase in terms of a restaurant? Well, La Caridad 78 did just that, closing during Covid reemerging about a year ago as Caridad 72 at 130 West 72nd Street. The menu (as from years ago) includes signature dishes like Rabo Encendido (Cuban Oxtail Stew) whose preparation is centuries old. General Tso’s Chicken (Masita De Pollo Frito) is a much more recent culinary invention that resides on the Chinese section of the menu.
Oxtail stew is prepared in many parts of the world. It is considered inexpensive and flavorful if cooked for a long time. The Cuban style is likely aligned with bullfighting in Spain and Sosin’s influence in Cuba. According to thetinyfairy.com, “In Spain, if the bull wins in a bull fight he is pardoned, but if he loses, he’s taken to the slaughterhouse and the meat from its tail and other organs would make its way to local butcher shops and restaurants.” At Caridad, it’s made with cow’s tail.
Regarding General Tso’s Chicken, a number of restaurants claim to have invented some version of the original recipe. But, a well-researched account presented by NPR points to the dish having been named for Tso Tsung-tang, a nineteenth-century general. The dish is reported to have been created in the 1950s by a chef named Peng Chang-kuei. Peng grew up in poverty in Hunan province but remarkably rose to fame as a chef for the Nationalist Chinese government. When the Nationalists fled the Communist regime to Taiwan, he left with them. He continued in his role as a highly respected chef. Later, he came to New York In 1973, where he opened a restaurant near the UN. “At that time, Hunanese food was unknown in the United States, and it wasn’t until his cooking attracted the attention of officials at the nearby United Nations HQ, and especially of the American Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, that he began to make his reputation. ‘Kissinger visited us every time he was in New York,’” Peng’s dish apparently had a far greater following in New York than back home when he returned to Taiwan in 1990.
Looking for something vegetarian? Plantains prepared green or sweet are among other vegetarian options at La Caridad 72. Cubans preserving culture claim, “No Cuban dish is complete without a side of maduros, or fried sweet plantains. Plantains, originally from India, were brought over by Spanish settlers to Cuba. They grew so well in the tropical region that they became an essential part of the Cuban diet.”
Envision Chinese family style ordering multiple dishes, including both Cuban and Chinese selections: filling your plate with a scoop of this and a serving of that along with a side dish of fried sweet plantains accompanied by a beer, coffee or hand crafted cocktail. The Comids China Y Criolla meal may be most satisfyingly completed with an all-Latin classic dessert of Tres Leches, described by the restaurant’s Instagram as a combination of “all in one bite” of sweetened condensed milk, Evaporated milk, and whole milk or cream.
Tres Leches is the traditional dessert that grew to fame in the 1930s when Nestle opened its plants in Mexico and had a recipe for this spongy goodness printed on the packages of evaporated and condensed milk as well as cream cans. You have a second chance of getting yours at La Caridad, now on West 72nd Street!