Tony Llizo and Lidya from Los Bobos
When Antonio “Tony Bobo” Llizo was a little kid, he remembers eating his family’s traditional holiday tamales, caldo gallego and fabada and tasting crème de víe, the Cuban version of eggnog. “My mom made it,” he says. “It was a big thing during the holidays.”
Today, Tony, the family and his mother – Calixta Lidya Llizo, called “Abuelita Lidya” by the kids – still celebrate with crème de víe, made every holiday season at their cafe, Los Bobos Cafeteria in Doral, located amid a commercial strip of window tinting services and automotive parts shops. For more than 40 years, the cash-only, stand-up counter has served loyal factory workers and those in-the-know searching for authentic Cuban food. The business opens at 5:30am every day except Sunday for dishes like rice and black beans, vaca frita and pan con tortilla. And when Nochebuena comes around, they’re ready with bottles of sweet crème de víe for celebrations.
“We sell around 1,100 bottles of crème de víe every holiday season,” says Tony. His recipe uses pasteurized egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, sugar, simple syrup, salt, cinnamon and rum. Tony himself makes the huge batches, blending the mixture to achieve that perfect smoothness he likes. Abuelita Lidya, 85, still comes to the kitchen. The secret to her energy? “Crème de Vie,” he says. “Cream of life!”
