La Caridad 78

OMG. I love their food. I had the fried chicken and fried rice. To die for.

I googled this place because I was looking for somewhere affordable to eat. They say you get what you pay for. The server was rude and kept rushing us to order. He then brought the food out 5 minutes later. I am not sure how they were able to cook fresh food in 5 minutes. I usually appreciate a fast serving time, but 5 minutes seems sketchy. Then the flavor of the food was way off. The rice and beans did not taste like Cuban rice & beans. The noodles were flavorless. Like I said, we got what we paid for. Cheap fast food.

I wish my experience was as good as everyone else’s but unfortunately I drew the short stick I guess…
Our waiter was very rude with a horrible attitude. My lady tried to order half of veggie rice and half of veggie lo mein. The waiter was very rude and said she could not get half and half. She would have to place two order two orders. I never been to a restaurant where they couldn’t accommodate such a small request.
I ordered rice and beans with chicken. The rice and beans were flavorless but edible. The chicken tasted like it was 2 – 3 days old and was reheated in the microwave. I could not eat it. I told the waiter about it and they took half price off my meal.
This is not a Cuban restaurant! This is a Chinese restaurant that imitates Cuban food.

Food delicious and the size is big as well. I love love love their fried yucca. And also chicken wing with pork fried rice. Ox tail is one of my favorite as well. Every time I am in upper west side, I always stop by to have my yucca.

been here twice. this is a fusion between chinese and spanish or south american cuisine. the food was good and very affordable. ill sure be back when i visit again my aunt on upper west side and try other dish on the menu xd

Yummy food, fast service. Everything you would look for in chinese or spanish food conveniently in one restaurant.

I ordered lunch from here many time. Everything is good you can’t go wrong. Oxtail stew is the bomb!!! It’s not in lunch special menu but hey I just gotta have it!

A place where they speak English, Chinese and Spanish has got to be cool! I’ve lived on the UWS my whole life and have seen the many transitions and price changes of this place. The food quality is still the same. I always go for the yellow rice and black beans with my meals. My all-​time favorite is the pollo or bistec salteado, pepper steak/​chicken! It’s amazing! If you are in the mood for fried food go with the chuleta frita (fried pork chop) or the chicharones de pollo (awesome fried chicken)! The portions are huge and the service is fast! ENJOY!

I’ve been coming here for nearly 30 years. If you are looking for polite wait staff, ambiance or any of the fufu stuff you are in the wrong place! The food is great and it’s near about the first Cuban/​Chinese food I have ever seen anywhere. Since then I’ve seen a few come and go and a few that have stayed. Honestly the only place where both cuisines are good! You can order traditional Pernil and Wanton soup with sides of egg rolls and fried plantains and really confuse your palate as to what countries menu you are ordering from. This place expanded once but quickly realized it’s not what their customers expect from them. I enjoy my meal every time I come here but, in my 28 years coming here I have yet to eek out more than a three second conversation with the staff. It’s all about the food so set aside any talk about the weather, unless it’s with the folks you eat with! Enjoy :)

Love this place! It is one my fave spots to go to! The steamed dumplings are phenomenal but then again I haven’t eaten anything there that I didn’t like! The service or should I say the waitstaff is a little bit cranky at times but it’s the food that keeps me coming back! Worth driving to the city for !

Awesome spot that I wish I lived closer to. This is the go-​to spot when i’m in the neighborhood and want a quick delicious meal. I brought five starving friends here for dinner just recently and La Caridad didn’t disappoint. Food was so good that we polished off everything despite over-​ordering and left stuffed and happy. Portions are generous for the price and food arrives quickly. A no-​frills type of place so don’t come expecting romantic ambiance or amazing décor.
Avocado salad — Ever go to places like Pio Pio or Inka Pollo and order their avocado salads? A few thin slices of avocado on top of what is mostly a bed of lettuce with a few tomato pieces mixed in. Well, not here! Order the avocado salad here and you get a plate full of avocado!
beef stew — giant chunks of beef with potato cooked until tender. If you’re a beef stew lover then theirs is a must try. Saucy and perfect over rice.
oxtail — Many places are extremely stingy with their oxtail. La caridad gives a solid amount of oxtail and the meat has great flavor. I would definitely order this again from here.
ropa vieja — Another one of my favorite dishes from this place. Moist and flavorful.
Flan — for dessert their flan is awesome
Yellow rice and sweet plantains — always good here and always a must
Arroz con calamares — (calamari with squid ink rice) comes with pieces of squid, sausage (?), and peas and is actually black in color. A must try if you are a fried rice lover as this is an extremely tasty variation.
Broccoli — the side of broccoli is delicious. I know… you’re thinking «it’s broccoli… whats to rave about broccoli». I thought just that but in an attempt to infuse my very meat and potatoes heavy meal with some additional source of vitamins I ordered a side of broccoli on a whim on one of my visits and it was extremely flavorful and tasty without being smothered in oil or any type of dense unhealthy sauce.

Best rice and beans, beef stew, fried chicken crackling and roast chicken. The Chinese food’s pretty good too. A NY staple in Upper West Side for decades.

I love this place. Good food and good prices. I order only from the cuban menu, so I can’t speak to the chinese food, although I expect that would be good too. Great place to people watch… big glass windows overlooking Broadway, but also good people watching indoors… you get every cross section of New York City here. The waiters are chinese and don’t speak very good English, which can be a little frustrating when ordering… but just point to what you want in the menu, and you should be fine.

Food is great but the portions are getting smaller and the prices aren’t.

Ordered a orange chicken and fried rice, like it very much~
Cannot wait to come here again, I miss Chinese food!!!

So nostalgic for me. Probably have been eating here for at least 35 yrs. Used to live on the UWS (my first apt in 1977). We were just out of college and needed cheap, delicious stuff with definite leftovers. «Chinas/​Criollas» used to be all over town. My other fave is gone now. I think it was on 8^th nr 25^th, a shabby, cute old school criolla diner. I weep. We still sit at the same table in Caridad as in 1980, eat our meal of fried rice, chicken, shrimp dish, and bok choy. They still use those silver standing plates that I remember from the 1960s. Yum! and then do Zabars shopping!

Cuban Chinese! Who knew?
Lots of people, as it turns out – this place has been around for decades. Not always full but seemingly never quite empty, I’ve seen families here, friends, retirees, solo eaters, business folks, etc., often side by side. It’s not got much in the way of ambiance, but it’s a corner spot walled by glass, so it’s bright. Service falls just short of being an afterthought – friendly but abrupt, mostly attentive but only mostly. It’s a diner, would be the short way of saying this.
You can get your rice white or yellow, here, but note this is not fusion cuisine – the menu is divided into Chinese and Cuban sections and there doesn’t appear to be spillover. The Chinese is familiar (e.g. General Tso’s, pepper steak) and the Cuban includes dishes like Ropa Vieja, a stewed, shredded beef with a mild sweet flavor, pretty good with some hot sauce drizzled on it (make sure to ask for the Chinese chili oil). It’s not destination dining, but it’s solid stuff.
That said, some dishes are much better than others – the General Tso’s lunch special is generic, just pucks of white meat lightly fried and sauced, but the roast chicken with rice n’ beans looks like home cooking; the veg chow fun is just a massive plate of chewy noodles with a few sad vegetables mixed in, but the sautéed string beans are crispy and savory-​sweet. And for dessert, the pudin con leche (pudding) is a large portion and surprisingly light and not too sweet.
(There’s a backstory for this hemisphere-​spanning menu: Chinese folks who’d settled in Cuba before the ¡revolución! mostly left once it got going. Some of them settled in New York, and some of those were restaurateurs. They opened a number of eateries reflecting their life of immigrant hopscotch.)
Though the menu is mostly focused on meat, this place has become one of my favorites for a vegetarian meal. The options are few but they’re unimpeachable. My go-​to order for two:
— Bok choy, sauteed and loaded with garlic
— «Mixed» Salad, which is just a load of dry lettuce, topped with tomato, onion, a generous portion of avocado, and a couple of lemon wedges. (It’s dry and ought to be a bland nothing of a dish, but something about the crispness and rawness of it all, plus the abundance of avocado, makes it refreshing.)
— Yellow rice n’ beans
It sounds like it should be boring, like it’s a meal made of sides and no mains, but it works. I think it’s just tough to beat the simple deliciousness of sauteed bok choy and plain-​old Spanish rice n’ beans. To be able to get them both together, at the same place, is satisfying.

Amazing food! We thought it was a little odd to see a chinese restaurant with a Spanish name, but we loved it!

Something of a value leader, this Chinese Cuban classic never disappoints.
On the most recent visit, we went with Squid and Rice, something like a poor man’s squid ink paella, and garlic shrimp. Although pricier, the camarones were the better deal, with a generous portion (at least 10) of good sized shrimp in a savory garlic sauce.
We started with dumplings, at least we meant to, but they arrived a moment after the mains. No biggie.
There’s an array of condiments on your table, and more are available on request. Add as needed.

I didnt like this place very much. The staff isnt very friendly, food wasent all that great either. Soda was servee in a can, which I thought was very strange in a restaurant. Wasent too expensive though.

Next time, I’m just getting two orders of plantains. Amazing

Absolute CRAP! Staff are all A-​Holes! Prices are OUTRAGEOUS! Food is mediocre at best. The place smells like rat poison and toilet water! Despicable!!!

I sat in this restaurant for 20 minutes ignored being told that my waiter would come after asking three times
I walked out never to return. Not worth the vibe
Go to the place on 72^nd St. between Columbus and Amsterdam
La Dinastia

I’m surprised to see some very poor reviews on this restaurant. My daughter and I have been eating here since the 80s and we’ve never had a complaint about the food or service.
To be honest we’ve stuck mostly to the Cuban food because you can get Chinese food anywhere. The Bisteck Palomilla with onions & garlic, some maduros, yellow rice & black beans, unfailingly good, among other dishes.
Service is always good, quick, efficient.
Plenty of fresh filling food, great value

For many a decade I have been eating here from when they were a whole in the wall to their expansion to their downsize again. Their portions always on point, great turnover so always fresh the food is and quick. The staff mostly of which have been their since forever are always awesome.
And most importantly the price is always right. I live for this place

A pretty good place, fantastic if you know what to order. Fried sweet plantains, pork chop with yellow rice and black beans, and enormous wonton soup. Flan is also very good. Great neighborhood Upper West Side restaurant that has been this good for over 25 years. On a good night, there is great customer service. This place used to be twice the present size and grandeur, but it is still worth going to. Great for a date.

Hi there folks
I am sitting here at the La Caridad 78 it’s been here for years and I want to
Be fair with my reviews I use to come here years ago and I enjoyed it but today I guess was a bad day came by for lunch I ordered Fried Fish black beans and yellow rice the Fried fish was so hard and greasy that when I bit into it I almost lost a tooth and its taste still felt like it was frozen for some time this one is a Big NO NO to order. :-(I may give this another try but if it’s the same may have to pass on swinging by here again. Service is nice and fast just be careful what you order and ask questions. And I am happy I walked out with my teeth still intact.
Thank you all
Eat and be safe in NYC.

Best Chinese food I’ve had so far in the CIty

You can tell you are I NYC by the demeanor of the wait or today. No nonsense. Hoping the Cuban food is better than the Chinese my wife and I had last time. The eggplant was very good as was the bok choy. But the brown sauce was not great. Very good spot for people watching on the upper west side though. Today I’m trying the Cuban steak and plantains. It just arrived! Mmmmmmm gooooood! I’ll be back!

Communism never tasted so good! Who needs a democracy when you can eat dumplings and tostones at the same dinner table? Reasonably priced so even the proletariat can leave with a satisfied belly.
Fried Boneless Chicken Cracklings: They should just shorten this to crack! Very thin breading and very crisp. The meat manages to stay juicy and there is a ton of Latin flavor in each bite.
Steamed Pork Dumplings: Big and not too dense, yet with a nice dose of ground pork. I love alternating between dumplings and tostones!
Tostones: Fried discs of plantain heaven! The garlic vinegar sauce helps cut the salty friedness perfectly.
Maduros: Almost like a dessert, it’s so sweet and gooey. A great way to offset all the salty and savory bites.
Picadillo: Kind of like a Cuban version of meat-​only chili. A little can go a long way on a bed of yellow rice.
Roast Pork Cuban Style: Tender, but not falling apart. More like medium width slices of a Sunday pork roast covered in some sort of super flavorful Latin gravy. The roast pork actually reminds me a little of the roast pork you can get in Chinatown in those places with hanging ducks in the window.
Pork Chop: Big and loaded with tangy spices!
Black Beans: My first bean choice.
Red Beans: A good backup bean if you’re already getting black beans.