Mama Roomba

Bakersfield · Caribbean · $$

Downtown Bakersfield hides more in its alleys than it advertises, and Mama Roomba has worked one of them near the Padre Hotel for years as a Caribbean and Cuban tapas kitchen, which is not a sentence you expect to write about Kern County. Everything is built for sharing: beef and raisin empanadas, calamari with chipotle aioli, and churrasco tri-tip under chimichurri that quietly acknowledges what county it is in. Loud after dark, and better for it.