Yes, my girlfriend speaks almost fluent Spanish after doing an internship in Ecuador. She's used the live between the locals over there and expected to find hey way in Cuba
I've seen my cousin (who also speaks fluent Spanish) yesterday on Christmas and he confirmed the enormous change the country made the last 2 years. Especially the west of the country changed. Places like Vinales, Cienfuegos, Trinidad, Havana have been flooded with tourists. In the east you still can find some of the original atmosphere and cheap prices you mention above.
Ok, seems like there have been massive changes, what a shame..
I went to Vinales for a few days in the end of my trip to Cuba and since the small village almost had more tourists than locals it was impossible to find cheap street food there. But still, the people from the casa where I was staying at were amazing and invited my to the neighborhood dinner.
When I was visiting in 2015, in Havana, Trinidad and the other cities there was a very small touristy core where all the scammers and tourist-priced government places were, just two blocks away from that people were asking me if I was lost haha, it seems like most tourist only ever visit the tourist centre.
Santiago was quite different from the rest of Cuba but it certainly is an amazing place, I had the most amazing lemonade of my life there and visited an ice cream place where I met some great people, but it turned out that they had many different ice cream cups like Tutti Frutti on the menu, but actually the only difference between them were the number of cones and waffles you would get since they only had one kind of ice cream :D
I was so shocked to hear that a hurricane destroyed the small east coast town of Baracoa last year, I have met so many great people there..
Oh I know! So sad about Baracoa! I didn't get to go there, but one of my best friends knows TONS of people there and is just so upset about it. Breaks my heart...Cuba already has it hard enough