SEASONAL EATS: Latkes for Hanukkah

Sometimes the simplest things are the best. For me, this holds true for the classic potato latke. It's a Hanukkah staple; all fried foods are (8 days of dieting this is not). And while I love fried chicken and fried rice balls and fried doughnuts in which many indulge during the Jewish Festival of Lights, I will take the lovely latke over all of them, any day.

Socca street vendor in Nice, France

The latke (the word is Yiddish) is a basic pancake or fritter, something most cuisine cultures share -- think Swiss rosti, French pommes anna, and German kartoffelpuffer. On a larger scale, savory pancakes and fritters are found all over the world, from Chinese scallion pancakes to South American corn arepas, from Russian blini to chickpea pancakes in Sicily (called panelle) and Nice (socca). 

Chinese scallion pancakes

And we haven't even crossed over into sweet versions. 

But back to the latke. The potato pancake seems to have originated in Eastern and Central Europe, where basically every country has its own version, though versions can be found north to the UK and Scandinavia as well. It's even considered the national dish of Belarus! Before the potato -- a New World food item -- arrived in the Old World, these pancakes were made with various other types of legumes, vegetables, and tubers. But once the lowly, most basic of ingredients was introduced, the potato brought fame to this fritter and put it on the map, so to speak.  And on Hanukkah menus the world over.

I had a cooking instructor in culinary school who once called potato-salt-fat "the holy trinity of food" (thanks, Erica). And it's true: as long as the proportions are right, there's nothing better. My straightforward, classic potato latkes are damned good. But I think it's best not to put this into recipe form...I'd rather tell you as a grandmother might explain how to prepare a favorite dish. Then you can decide on quantity.

So. You're going to want to make a pretty big batch of these babies. No one goes through the process to make a couple of latkes, mostly because no one can eat just a couple of latkes. To start, let's say for every 3 large russet potatoes, you want one medium onion. Both need to be peeled and grated on a box grater, into the same bowl. 

Once this is done (and work swiftly, to keep the potatoes from turning dark), squeeze the potato-onion mixture either in a dish towel or with just your hands, to get the water content out. Once the mixture is fairly dry, add 2 eggs and about 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of a half-flour-half-matzoh meal mixture. Add plenty of salt and pepper to taste.

Use a good skillet -- cast iron is always great, but any seasoned skillet will do, even non-stick. I like a combination of vegetable and olive oil mixed (that Italian influence again) with a little shmaltz (chicken fat), though you can use anything from all-veggie oil to duck fat or lard, or whatever your little heart desires. Obviously, if you're using lard, kosher eating is not your lifestyle choice. But hey, everyone loves latkes.

So, fry the latkes in patties by dropping the mixture by spoonfuls into the hot oil (it should sizzle when it hits the skillet). A couple of minutes each side, drain on paper towel-lined plates, and you're done. The best way to see if they're seasoned to taste is to make one, fry it, then taste and adjust accordingly. Once you've logged some latke-making time, it will become instinctual.

These are traditionally eaten with sour cream and some scallions, and apple sauce. But I make all kinds of toppings for my latkes. (for an elegant party app, try creme fraiche, smoked salmon, and caviar). I also make a sweet potato version that's kick-ass. But that version's recipe is for next year...  

HAPPY HANUKKAH, everyone!

SEASONAL FOODS: Pumpkin

Autumn is represented by many things: colorful leaves, apples, jackets and sweaters and boots for cooler weather. But perhaps most representative of the change in the kitchen from summer garden to fall's harvest bounty? The pumpkin. 

In the U.S., the image we have of pumpkins is often of the jack-o-lantern. The members of the pumpkin family that we generally consider good eating fall under the "squash" moniker: butternut, acorn, spaghetti...but they're all members of the gourd family, which also incidentally includes cucumbers, melons, and zucchini. 

These plants are all native to The Americas -- particularly Central America and Mexico -- which is why pumpkin and squash are often featured in our traditional Thanksgiving meal. Pumpkin can go savory or sweet (or straddle the line between the two): served as a vegetable dish, roasted with garlic, onions, and savory herbs...or in the traditional pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, doughnuts, even ice cream. 

It's said that Columbus brought pumpkin back to Spain from the New World, introducing this (among many other food items) into the European culinary vernacular. Like so many other vegetables and fruits that have become integral to Italian cooking, pumpkin landed on the Italian peninsula with Spanish and Portuguese Jews after the Inquisition. Venice, the city that invented the word ghetto (stemming from gettare, to throw or toss aside) to describe the neighborhoods where Jews were "thrown out", also gave rise to numerous dishes that include pumpkin, and the Jewish population of Mantua is often credited with creating the much-loved ravioli con la zucca. In the Jewish-Italian tradition, pumpkin pastas often combine savory and sweet elements. 

Ravioli are stuffed with a pumpkin puree and are served with sage and butter sauce, and topped either with parmigiano (savory) or crumbled amaretti cookies (sweet) -- and sometimes with mostarda di Cremona, from the town of Cremona -- candied fruit in a mustard-flavored syrup that accents the sweetness of the pumpkin filling. 

Any way you slice it, these pumpkin dishes are of a northern Italian bent. But pumpkin is also popular in Rome, where the country's largest Jewish population resides. I often purchased chunks of zucca gialla at the market in Campo de' Fiori, instructing my "guy" Claudio to cut me the perfect size slice for what I was making. Sometimes the pumpkin would get roasted, or thinly sliced and grilled. 

Sometimes I would turn the pumpkin into a warming risotto, like they often do in the Veneto in colder months. Sometimes I would also buy the zucchine flowers. A favorite Roman antipasto is fiori di zucca fritti, stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies, and battered and fried, found in every pizzeria worth its sale in Rome. I'd often prepare them stuffed with an herbed ricotta and goat cheese mixture, topped with a butter and herb sauce. I've done my fair share of cooking with pumpkin products.

One of my favorite dishes to make is a simple pasta dish. I often taught it during my autumn and winter cooking classes in Rome, and it's remained a favorite of mine since I started cooking professionally. The sous chef at San Domenico NY once made a similar version as a special on the menu. I remember loving it, and over the years I tweaked it and made it my own. I like to think it's something that's a little bit Roman, a little bit northern Italian and Italian-Jewish, a little bit New York, a little bit New World. A little bit like me -- at heart, anyway.


PASTA ALLA ZUCCA (4 people)

3-4 TBS extra-virgin olive oil
4 TBS. unsalted butter
1 clove garlic
1 small-medium-sized butternut squash or other creamy pumpkin variety
8 oz. heavy cream
Salt & pepper to taste
1 lb. ziti, bombolotti, or short pasta of choice
1/2 cup grated pecorino romano (for the Roman touch) or parmigiano reggiano
Fresh thyme or chiffonade of basil

- Bring a large pot of water and one medium pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, add a generous dash of salt to the water.

- Peel the squash and/or pumpkin and cut into 1-2-inch dice.

- Boil squash in large pot of boiling water until tender but not falling apart, about 15 minutes. Drain...OR roast the pumpkin on a sheet pan in the oven, tossed with olive oil and salt and pepper, until tender, 30 minutes or so.

- Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and add the oil and butter together, until bubbling. Add garlic clove (whole) and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes.

- Add squash/pumpkin and saute over medium heat for 5 minutes. Turn down heat and cook covered for another 10 minutes.

- Add cream and cook for another 5-10 minutes, stirring. The squash/pumpkin flesh should break down into a chunky sauce.

- Cook the pasta until tender but firm, al dente.

- Remove pasta from the water with tongs, or drain in a colander and add it to the pan.

- Turn pasta to coat, add the pecorino, and turn to mix thoroughly. Add fresh thyme and/or basil and serve.

 

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Primo -- Rockland, Maine

Primo, in Italian, can be a double entendre: it means first (and often the best), but also primary, as in ingredients. And at PRIMO restaurant in Rockland, Maine, where the growing season is shorter than in many places in America, chef Melissa Kelly has managed to draw on the natural resources of the land. She runs what she dubs a "full circle kitchen," the idea of which I love. 

Like most kitchens that understand the restaurant business model for turning a profit, the idea of not wasting anything figures heavily. But Chef Kelly also raises animals for food, from hens to pigs, collecting eggs, curing meat -- and grows vegetables on acres of land and in greenhouses, harvesting edible flowers and collecting honey produced on-site. Not everything she uses comes from her land, but everything that comes from her land gets used. The rest is filled in by local producers she knows and trusts. In a time when so many chefs throw around terms like "locavore" and "farm-to-table," Primo is really doing it, as they've done for years, and the end result is a happy place to eat and drink. 

Primo encompasses both an American culinary ethos and an Italian adherence to tradition. Seasonality is obviously paramount in a kitchen so reliant on produce and proteins that are grown and raised locally: this has always been the way Italians cook, and eat. The idea of vegetables and fruits playing pivotal roles in a cuisine -- also Italian. So is the custom of serving cheeses and salumi and artisanal pizza, all center stage here. What's American about Primo is the dedication and hard work that are behind making this restaurant a success despite the odds, and that the driving force behind this is a woman -- something all too rare in the restaurant industry, though the U.S leads the way in this department.

So here, I'm writing less of a review of the restaurant's menu -- that changes a little too frequently -- and more of the restaurant on the whole. Though I can tell you that it's worth trying their house-made salumi and local cheeses. It's definitely worth considering one of their homemade pizzas, and often there's a pizza bianca with some seasonal greens, local tomatoes, and delicious, gooey cheese.

Quite often you can find a great foie gras appetizer, like the one pictured here, seared to perfection over garlic toast with champagne grapes and a frisee salad with figs and a sour-sweet port sauce. Who can argue with classic flavor pairings and high-quality ingredients, especially when it's so lovingly presented on colorful dishes?

Primi -- that's Italian for first courses, mostly pastas -- are expertly-prepared at Primo. And the pasta is homemade, like the fettucine served with shrimp, arugula pesto, roasted tomatoes, and lots of parmigiano (though most seafood pastas do not get cheese under any circumstances, shrimp is the one sometime-exception to that rule. I'm assuming Chef Kelly knows this about Italian food...)

Main courses include various iterations of local seafood, like cod, or dayboat scallops, sometimes even the ubiquitous Maine lobster. But chances are, even if the ingredients are common in these parts, the preparations won't be. Seared duck breast gets paired with an earthy warm farro salad and grilled cipollini, and grilled swordfish gets a spicy tomato-and-chile broth over charred vegetables. And all dishes get a flourish of homegrown greens and edible flowers so they look picture-perfect. 

Sometimes the dishes are a little heavy-handed in their presentation. Sometimes one too many ingredients are used in a dish. Not everything is perfect. But that's also part of the charm here. You can't find fault with the quality of the ingredients, nor the provenance. The flavor is there, as is the love in the preparation. And pride in the whole operation. When our attentive waiter found out I am a chef, he pulled me aside on my way back from the ladies' room and offered me a tour of the establishment. He showed me the other dining rooms and more casual bar where locals come to order pizza, appetizers, and share a bottle of wine. He brought me into the kitchen and explained how things work, where their in-house primary ingredients become their homemade menu items. It was a general and thorough behind-the-scenes: transparency, and pride in what they do as a team. They were happy to share all of this with a colleague, and I really appreciated it. 

We all loved our meal, some of us visitors from Manhattan, others relative natives who live nearby and can call Primo a top-notch local spot. Lucky them. In this restaurant they have a warm and wonderful place where they can eat, and dine (we know these are two different things), welcomed to a homey spot where the food is a bit more formal than the service, but neither is overbearing. And they can rest assured that the food they're eating has been raised, cultivated, butchered, caught, cooked, and served with love and pride. We need more places like this in America, and everywhere.


PRIMO
2 South Main Street 
Rockland, Maine
(207) 596.0770
www.primorestaurant.com 

*Additional locations now in Orlando, FL and Tuscon, AZ

Have Knives, Will Travel

Cradling my beloved Sicilian pachino tomatoes at Da Claudio, my favorite stand in the Campo de' Fiori market

I don't want to be boastful here, but it's not every day that you have an article written about you and your work in The New York Times. So, like a special birthday or anniversary, a milestone, I am going to celebrate this occasion. I'm showing my appreciation for the profile in this week's Frequent Flier column by re-posting the link to the article that ran this past Tuesday, October 16th in the business section of The Times, page B8. 

The column is dedicated to those who travel a lot, for business and/or pleasure. And I certainly do travel, and overall, I love it. The flying part of it? Not as much. Those who know me know I've had my fair share of travel drama (and missed flights -- particularly when going to or coming from London. Not sure what it is with that place and me missing my plane!). Flying has become considerably less fun since 9/11, and ever more complicated when traveling with knives, as one might imagine. For me, bringing my knife roll along is like a business person carrying a briefcase: it is my work stuff. But try convincing an overworked and cranky TSA agent of that. Anyway, the article sheds a little light on how it is to travel when your business is cooking for clients. 

This column, however, is not long enough to discuss all the fun I've had traveling and cooking for clients along the way, and over the past nearly-10 years that my company, Blu Aubergine, has been in existence. From teaching cooking classes and giving culinary tours in Rome when it was my full-time home, to traveling outside of the city to teach in a gorgeous villa in Tuscany, or a beautiful home in Westchester, to working with corporate clients on team-building cooking classes among international employees, I've loved teaching others about the food I love. And I've loved traveling to cook for others all over the world, whether it was for clients from New York City to Martha's Vineyard to South Florida, or overseas, from up and down the Italian peninsula to raucous dinner parties in London, to cooking for friends in the French countryside or in southern Spain. And while eating during the course of all of my travels around the world, I've gained enormous inspiration that informs my cooking, from Thailand to Argentina, Sardegna to Croatia, Israel to Brazil, the Greek Islands to the Caribbean islands. I explore so that wherever I might be, in whatever kitchen I find myself, I bring a taste of the world to my cuisine. And I hope to keep doing so for a very long time. 

If you need a hand in the kitchen, anywhere around the world, I have the answer: I have knives. And I will travel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/business/a-chefs-travel-adventures-in-pursuit-of-culinary-inspiration.html

SEASONAL INGREDIENTS: Passion. Fruit. Passionfruit!

It's one of my favorite flavors in the world, and one of the best names for any food, in almost any language: passion fruit. Frutta della passione in Italian. Maracuja in Portuguese. Hawaiians call it lilikoi. Beautiful. The taste is sour and sweet at once, and the small black seeds lend a crunch to the pulpy fruit. It's used in savory and sweet preparations all over South and Central America and the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and in Portugal and South Africa. The fruit is one of many species of the passion flower. And though one might assume the name came from the passion this tasty fruit can elicit from those who adore it as I do, it was actually named by missionaries who thought parts of the flower resembled devices used in the "passion" (torture) of Christ prior to his crucifixion.

But I'd prefer to equate the fruit and the flower with passion and love -- definitely a more romantic notion. The flower is the official flower of Paraguay, by the way, so I'm not the only one who prefers to romanticize the passiflora.

When I'm in countries of the world that feel as passionately as I do about passion fruit, I try to indulge in the fruit in all its forms. I equate the fruit with tropical climes and vacations I've taken to far-flung islands and south-of-the-equator escapes. I definitely enjoyed passion fruit in Thailand, where locals sell fruit juices and salads from pushcarts all along the coast and on the islands in the Andaman Sea. I indulged in a refreshing frozen passion fruit smoothie on the beach in Tel Aviv last summer: perfection.

But where I came closest to overdosing on passion fruit has been in Portuguese-speaking countries: Brazil and Portugal. One of my long-time favorite cocktails has been the caipiroska, the sister drink to Brazil's national drink, the caipirinha.

The "-oska" uses vodka in place of the rot-gut sugarcane liquor, cachaca (also known to fuel a Brazilian car in place of gas in a pinch. I kid you not). When I'm in Brazil, make mine maracuja! I remember lolling on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, and in restaurants and bars in the evenings on the island of Morro de Sao Paolo, in northern Bahia...a place where you never have to wear shoes if you don't want to, where all the bars have tables sunken into the sand, and you can while away the hours listening to amazing Brazilian music, sipping your caipiroska while chatting with the locals. Pretty heavenly.

In Portugal (we're talking about the mother country of Brazil, after all), passion fruit is just as ubiquitous. Here I am at right, enjoying a passion fruit popsicle on a hot day by the water in Lisbon. It was humid and incredibly sunny that June afternoon, and I spotted an ice cream truck by the park where my friends and I were strolling -- and jumped at the chance to indulge my passion, and to cool off.  

In many of the delicious restaurants of Portugal's capital city, passion fruit figures in various custom cocktails, in sauces for meats, in salad dressings, and of course in dessert as well. I couldn't resist a very Portuguese pairing of passion fruit sorbet with a glass of port.

If you've not yet developed a passion for a particular food -- and I don't mean a food group, like chocolate (wink-wink), or a prepared food, like french fries -- I mean one ingredient, one fruit or vegetable...well, I highly recommend it. To have (at least) one food item that you can enjoy in numerous forms, in various preparations, collected from cultures around the globe that cultivate and celebrate this food, is a wonderful thing. And lucky for me, and my travels, and my work, passion fruit is one of my top 5 single ingredients about which I'm passionate. (And when I have a passion fruit caipiroska, I'm drinking two of my most beloved ingredients at once!). Passion is great. Passionfruit is fabulous. It inspired the dessert below, into which I poured a whole lotta love: passion fruit cheesecake topped with fresh summer fruits.

What food are you passionate about? Do share....
    

RECIPE: Spaghetti alle vongole

What's the perfect seafood dish for seaside summer dining? In Italy, a peninsula surrounded by gorgeous Mediterranean waters and beautiful beaches, it's hard to choose just one. But at all the restaurants at all the stabilimenti (beachside establishments) in the country, and trattorie up and down the coasts, the top answer just might be SPAGHETTI ALLE VONGOLE. 

Now, the classic Italian version of this is not what many Americans are used to in various red sauce joints in America. This dish, in Italy, is prepared in a manner called "in bianco" -- "in white," meaning without tomatoes, just some olive oil and white wine. 

And in this case, it's prepared with the addition of the natural briny "liquor" from the clams as they cook, plus plenty of garlic and butter to finish it off. Lots of fresh chopped parsley keeps it clean-tasting, though you can mix it up and add another fresh herb at the end: basil for a hit of anise flavor, a little thyme or chervil for a French touch, or freshly chopped cilantro for a Portuguese twist. But we're doing it all'italiana today, so we'll stick to flat-leaf (Italian) parsley.  

If I were preparing this in Italy, as I've done countless times, I would be using the Italian vongole veraci which are the tiny little clams perfect for this pasta dish, because they're small (so you can put lots in with the pasta), lightweight (their shells are thinner so they cook quickly), and deliciously sweet and saline. But since I've never been able to find them on this side of the Atlantic, we have to do as the Italians would do and use local ingredients -- in this case, cooking in New York, I'm using Littleneck clams from Long Island. I'm also lending  a little color to the dish with fresh spinach tagliolini, just for fun. Feel free to play with this basic recipe as you like: once you have the process down, you can swap out various wines and liqueurs for the white wine, use various kinds of oils, herbs, and spices to change the end result. Adding a little chorizo or spicy sausage, for example,though not for purists, does bring the pasta dish to a new level. 

So, like most classic cooking, I say this: learn the dish in its original, purest form first. Get that under your belt. And then, feel free to riff and play as you like. All true artists learn the classics first...then they branch out and become the fauves and the cubists, the Twyla Tharps, the improvisational jazz musicians, the comedians with perfect timing, like Italy's own Alberto Sordi...

Buon appetito.

SPAGHETTI ALLA VONGOLE

3-4 TBS. extra-virgin olive oil

1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped roughly

2-3 lbs fresh clams

½ cup white wine

bunch of parsley (Italian flat-leaf variety)

Pinch of red pepper flakes

Salt & pepper to taste

1 lb. spaghetti (or pasta of choice, usually long pasta)

- In a large bowl/pot of water, add the clams and a healthy bit of salt or cornmeal. Let sit for 10 minutes. Then, using your hands, pick up a handful of clams in each hand, lift them out of the water a bit, and scrub together using the clams themselves to clean the outer shells. Repeat several times.

-Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

-Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and add the garlic and chile flakes to cook for one minute.

- Add the clams and stir a bit. Add the white wine, and cover, cooking over medium-low heat for 3 minutes. Add the salt and pepper to taste, and continue cooking until the shells of the clams have fully opened.

 - Add the chopped parsley and the butter to finish the sauce.

-Add a generous toss of salt to the boiling water, and cook the pasta until tender but firm, al dente. Remove pasta from the water with tongs, or drain in a colander and add it to the pan.

- Turn pasta to coat, adding olive oil and/or salt and pepper to taste, and turn to mix thoroughly. Serve at once.

QUICK BITE: Cremolata

 

It's not sorbetto,it's definitely not gelato, and it's not granita, either. So what in the world is cremolata, anyway?

The short answer is that it's like a fruit sorbetto but made with the pulp of the fruit and all the good bits mixed in, not strained to make a juice-only base like most sorbetti use. The result? Something a little chunkier, and more substantial -- and less creamy -- than sorbetto. But fewer ice crystals than granita. No dairy, so not gelato. 

But enough about what it's not. What is IS: delicious. And refreshing, particularly on a hot summer day in Rome. Which brings us to a nondescript little bar/gelateria right down the street from my apartment in the Jewish ghetto, and famous among those in-the-know frozen treat lovers in Rome: Alberto Pica. This bar, featuring some of the grumpiest counter help and cashiers on the Italian peninsula, does one thing very well: frozen desserts. Their gelato flavors change all the time, but they're most renowned for their riso alla cannella gelato, which is basically a cinammon-scented frozen rice pudding. Yeah. Pretty delicious. Their sorbetti feature a range of unusual flavors as well, including rosa, flavored with rose petals.

But the cremolate: it can be hard to select among the flavors, their juicy, bright fruity colors beckoning you to add a scoop of wild cherry, or Amalfi lemon to your cup...but choose I did. Watermelon and peach-spumante, as featured in the photo above. On a long afternoon passeggiata (stroll) through the center of Rome, it's just the ticket to refresh and revive.

Bar Alberto Pica; via Della Seggiola, 12 (corner of Via Arenula); +39-06-686-8405

RESTAURANT REVIEW: Miami's OLA

There weren't many chefs starting back in the '90s whose career trajectories I followed. But Douglas Rodriguez was always one of a handful of creative culinary figures of interest to me, in large part because of the exciting cuisine he pioneered along with his south Florida-based colleague, Norman Van Aiken: Nuevo Latino. 

Though he started in south Florida, his ground-breaking PATRIA in New York City was what brought his food to national attention. I loved that place: raucous and fun, yet sophisticated, like a great party. And the food was always not only delicious, but truly beautiful on the plate: plantain arcs bisecting ruby chunks of tuna speckled with electric green cilantro and creamy white coconut milk. Plus, my friend who's been a vegetarian since the age of 9 claimed it as one of her favorite places to eat in the city, because when you asked for a "vegetarian option" you left it up to the creativity of the kitchen, which always presented a gorgeous combination of vegetable and starch that was clearly no afterthought. 

Eventually Patria closed after a long run, and Rodriguez opened both Chicama and Pipa, one block apart, still in the Flatiron area. And Chicama became one of my favorite spots: great drinks, and an amazing assortment of ceviches that were out-of-this-world. Now, I could eat ceviche all day long and never tire of it. I hope to tour Peru and the rest of Latin America on a "ceviche grand tour 2013." To say that I still have dreams about his spicy, tart, and sweet ceviche with tuna, octopus and tamarind (note: if anyone can get their hands on this recipe for me, I'd be forever indebted!) -- reflects that it was truly one of the best things I ever consumed.

So when, after closing his New York outposts, I read that Rodriguez had opened in Miami, I knew I had to make the pilgrimage to worship at the altar of my favorite ceviche master. Though I have faith that all of his restaurants have been and will be excellent, his De Rodriguez Cuban place holds less interest for me than his ceviche-centric cocina, OLA, opened in late 2010. It was voted as "The Best Ceviche" by The Miami New Times's Best of Miami list. So to OLA I went.

The space is intimate, sultry, with Latin music humming in the background (this was lively, but certainly lacked the din and energy of the old Patria). We settled in for a very comfortable dining experience. The enthusiastic wait staff brought us some deliciously strong cocktails, including a cooling watermelon mojito that hit the spot on a steamy summer evening. The perfect accompaniment? Ceviche, of course: but how to choose?! I went for the mixto ceviche, with octopus, cobia, and shrimp in lime and orange juices with limo pepper, cilantro and kalamata olives. Delicious. 

But other amazing and diverse ceviches include the wahoo (love this fish!) with watermelon jalapeno juice, basil, diced cantaloupe, red onions and cucumber sorbet. Also interesting and rich is the tuna and foie gras, with kumquat-yuzu sauce, lemon oil, black pepper, serrano chiles and baby arugula. And for ceviche with an Asian twist, the himachi nikkei is mixed with yuzu, thai basil, togarashi peppers, cilantro, sweet soy glaze, and crushed seaweed and sesame seeds. And these are a separate menu from the starters, which are a series of mostly empanadas (try the short rib, lobster, or foie gras versions) and salads.

I must include some gorgeous photos of Chef Rodriguez's ceviche creations: truly edible art...

 

Back to OLA. Main courses tend to be generous portions of well-prepared proteins -- again, it's difficult to select from among all of the enticing options. I chose the sugar cane tuna, several pieces of adobo-rubbed and seared bright pink loin skewered on sugar cane and served over malanga goat cheese fondue, spinach, and shrimp escabeche. It's a playful preparation and offers a nice interplay of flavors and textures. Another signature dish is the mahi mahi crusted with green plantain, served over a braised oxtail stew with tomato escabeche. 
Another friend got the pescado a lo macho (macho fish?), which was the day's catch seared and served over sauteed baby spinach, grilled red onions with aji amarillo sauce, and clams, calamari, shrimp, and black mussels for a sort of deconstructed Latin seafood stew. And for meat lovers, there's the filet mignon churrasco, the signature carne, with grilled asparagus, chipotle crabmeat dressing and chimichurri. Of course, after all of this great food we were stuffed, but the desserts at Rodriguez's restaurants are always a treat as well, and worth saving a little room for.

Perhaps Chef Rodriguez's most iconic dessert, the "chocolate cigar," is an almond chocolate cake enrobed in semisweet chocolate mousse made to look exactly like a cuban cigar, and is served in an ashtray dish with coffee ice cream and a candy matchbox. Clever, adorable, and exquisite. It was my friend Mauro's birthday when we went, so when he excused himself to head to the men's room after the main course, we ordered a birthday dessert for him. Once he returned to the table, out came a beautiful plate on which was written "Happy Birthday Mauro" in chocolate sauce, with a flan de queso ice cream, pistachio cake, mixed berry salad, guava foam, and balsamic vinegar reduction: delicioso! 

Kudos to chef de cuisine Horacio Rivadero and Rodriguez's entire crew at OLA. I wish you all continued success, and hey Chef: come back to New York soon, we miss you!

OLA Miami at The Sanctuary
1745 James Street (between 17th and 18th Sts.)
Miami Beach, FL  33139
Phone: (305) 695-9125

www.olamiami.com