Ybor City--Cuban Paradise

Tampa is a surprising boiling pot of cultures and I very much enjoyed getting to experience a few of them. My parents lived in Germany for a number of years after they got married in the late 70s and my dad lived there as a child as well so I've grown up with a lot of German influence, particularly the food. We love German food and often have some type of sausage, bread, red cabbage, and sauerkraut for dinner. We ate a meal at Mr. Dunderbakt's--a great pub/restaurant near my Grandma's house and we definitely indulged ourselves and felt it in our stuffed tummies for the rest of the day.

Another super cool part of downtown Tampa is Ybor City. This is a Hispanic conglomerate. It is where lots and lots of cigar factories were once booming and now it's more of culture and food paradise as well as partyville at night. We enjoyed Cuban sandwiches and yellow rice at Hugo's and then walked around enjoying watching an old man hand roll cigars and seeing all of the beautiful architecture surrounded by palm trees. It is definitely a colorful part of town and I am sure if we would have stuck around til the sun went down we would have seen an even more colorful crowd--but I don't think my 86 year old grandma was up for that!