Not this time. There was only an icy hush.
Outside in the city roared a controversy over freedom of expression. It was a debate magnified one hundred times when the singer wrote a letter to The Herald in defense of Peggi McKinley, the Metro-Dade Film Advisory Board member ousted for speaking her mind.
The great faux pas that earned Estefan the cold shoulder that afternoon, and the building scorn of radio militants, was to defend something as fundamental as tolerance.
``OK,'' she braced herself in the tense silence of the restaurant, ``here it goes.''
What would follow for days on Spanish-language radio was a barrage of insults, diatribes, slurs and smears against Miami's favorite Cuban-American daughter. They questioned her patriotism, her motives, her womanhood even. They broadcast outright lies, claiming Estefan and her husband Emilio had business interests with the government of Fidel Castro. They threatened to burn her CDs in the middle of Calle Ocho.
It was the price Estefan says she expected for coming out of the silence, and she was ready for the fight. It was also the beginning of something truly significant in Cuban Miami, a blatant generational shift, a rebellion of sorts of the younger mainstream against the old dogma of rationalized intolerance.
In the past, the witch hunts had been met with the cheers of the usual lynch mob, the admonitions from the expected advocates of civil liberties, and the widespread silence of the disengaged.
The singer says she felt the burn of that silence as she read about McKinley's ousting. Then came a rush of memories from her favorite class at the University of Miami two decades ago, Literature of the Holocaust.
``It was in that class that I realized the world's silence had contributed to the Holocaust,'' the battle-tested singer recalled at home Tuesday.
``I don't know what it was. Se me hirvió la sangre. I don't know how you're going to translate that -- my blood boiled. But it was stronger than that. I was incensed. I realized my silence was giving them my approval. And I just couldn't do that anymore. I felt this responsibility. I mean, if I don't say what I believe, how will anyone know?''
Miami knew her singing voice, but they hadn't really heard this voice.
It is a voice, she says, that she has presented all around world, for international journalists often press her to talk about Cuba before she can talk about her music.
``In Miami, they think I'm just `Come-on-shake-your-body-baby do-that-conga.' Well, I'm more than that. I'm not the best singer in the world. I'm a communicator. And I want people to understand what comes from my lips.''
She says she realized how powerful a ``product'' she is. She is not only the most famous constituent in the district of Metro Commissioner Bruce Kaplan, who proposed McKinley's ousting. She is the most famous Cuban American in the world. She is the most famous Cuban after Fidel Castro.
``And what, they expect me to be like him?'' she vented some days ago.
Estefan says she was embarrassed that no Cuban American on the commission had risen in support of McKinley. With her letter, she wanted to prove Cuban Americans also stand for respect.
``In my letter, I had tried to bridge things -- and they, the radio people, destroyed those bridges,'' Estefan says. Her life contains a blur of projects. She's reading major film scripts. She's recording a new dance music album. In a couple of weeks, she'll record a number with Wyclef Jean of the Fugees. It's not like she needed a new project. But this is something she says hit her in the heart.
``My whole family paid a heavy price for freedom. My father not only fought in the Bay of Pigs, he volunteered to fight in Vietnam. He fought for these same freedoms. I watched him die a slow death for 14 years. I was not about to let anyone stomp on those ideals.''
She applauded the debate. ``This is exactly what is supposed to be happening,'' she told me last week in the thick of it. But as the verbal assaults intensified, she decided she needed to make a public appearance. ``They put words in my mouth. I wasn't talking about tolerance for Fidel Castro -- he doesn't live in Miami. I was talking about tolerance for one another. I thought, `Well, if you're gonna lie, I'm gonna have to talk.' ''
On Monday night, she appeared with her husband on the Jaime Bayly show, a hemispherically broadcast TV talk show on CBS-Telenoticias. And she spoke her mind.
It's funny, though, that the woman so demonized by radio commentators was echoing some of their long-held convictions. She supports the embargo against Cuba. She said she would not promote any Castro-backed musicians.
But she also talked about the contradictions of Spanish-language radio, how the radio militants blast people as pro-Castro and yet they broadcast commercials pitching travel and packages to Cuba. ``So they're getting paid to advertise those companies. And yet they rile up the community against people who want freedom of expression.''
The morning after the program, it was a different kind of Tuesday in Miami. You could hear the backpedaling of commentators, people who had condemned her just hours earlier were suddenly hailing her as a good Cuban.
``All good came out of this. It's time our generation makes itself known. It's time to get rid of the phantom. Tolerance is a lovely word, but people turn it around to make it sound subversive.''