As someone with deep New York-style pizza roots, I usually find the Cuban version all kinds of wrong. The dough runs thick and fluffy, the sauce is basted on, the cheese is barely melted, and the toppings would have you quietly ejected from the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. Still, I'll give Cuban pizza this: those buttery, Detroit-style adjacent edges of caramelized cheese can do no wrong.
El Palenque serves personal pan pizzas with flatter, more savory dough without the milky sponge mouthfeel. Here, the cheese-to-sauce-to-bread ratio stays balanced, so the pie comes out crisper, folds more easily, and doesn't require utensils.
Your other menu option is a plate of very saucy Cuban-style spaghetti, which may explain why the pizza's sauce seems rationed. For sweets, you're looking at scoops of ice cream and milkshakes in Latin-loved flavors like Mango and Mantecado, a rich vanilla-custard classic.
Most El Palenque locations cluster in Hialeah, but Westchester gives you two options just five minutes apart on Bird Road. This one feels like the least chaotic because it closes "early" at 11 p.m., while most of the others run 24/7 like they're legally required to feed the Magic City.
A piksa n' batido combo will cost you less than $20, and the house sweetens the deal with a discount if you pay cash. In the end, El Palenque won't make me renounce my allegiance to New York-style pizza, but it absolutely earns my respect as a crisp, cheap, and highly portable Cuban pizza done right. read more