In honor of Stuck on the Palmetto's poll this week asking readers for their favorite Cuban sandwiches, we thought we'd delve a bit into the history of Miami's favorite sandwich.

The story we'd heard most often was that the sandwich -- slices of roast pork, sweet ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and yellow mustard pressed on Cuban bread -- is a creation of the Cuban community in Tampa (Ybor City to be exact) in the first half of the twentieth century. But a quick search on Wikipedia, that ever-reliable source (hey, it finds out about murders before the police do!), reveals that the sandwiches were popular in Cuba in the early 1900s; the sandwich likely came to Tampa with the immigrants, where they started talking to some Italians who suggested adding yet another pork product to the sandwich: Genoa salami.

The place to get Cuban sandwiches now, of course, is Miami. Specifically, we're big fans of the ones at Sergio's and La Carreta. There's always Versailles of course, but we go there more for the ambiance than the sandwiches.

Sergio's [MenuPages]
La Carreta [MenuPages]
La Carreta [Official Site]
Versailles [MenuPages]

Boca Raton chef Micah Edelstein got the knife on last night's episode of Top Chef: Miami for her dry, terrible take on the good old American classic meatloaf and mashed potatoes. After the tears on last week's episode, we knew she'd be going home some time soon. (There are many more tears on the exit interviews, in case you're interested.) And so the second South Florida chef (after last week's elimination of Tantra's Sandee Birdsong) exits.

Edelstein wasn't too happy -- actually, none of the contestants were -- about the Elimination Challenge, which required them to pick a classic, fatty American dish and modernize it. Oh, yeah, and they had to keep the cholesterol in the dish at a minimum. Edelstein made a meatloaf with pine nuts, sun-dried tomatoes and raisins and topped it with some mashed potatoes; it was by far the judges' least favorite dish. At the judges' table, she explained that she's from South Africa, and she's never had meatloaf. Which is interesting, because earlier this week some old high school photographs that surfaced on the web show that Edelstein went to high school in Bridgewater, Mass. Apparently she did junior high there too, and she's lived in the States since then. So she's managed to avoid eating meatloaf for at least 15 years. That takes a lot of skill. Also, isn't South African bobotie a meatloaf of sorts?

The good news is that Miami native Howie Kleinberg, formerly of The Food Gang, pulled himself out of the gutter -- he'd finished at the bottom in the last two episodes -- to win the Elimination Challenge with his updated version of pork chops and applesauce.