I had dinner with Nora and my cousins Jen, Jass and Cora and Cora’s fiancé Peter. Jen suggested Calle Ocho, a place that Cora also loves. We went to the one on the Upper West Side at Columbus Avenue between 81st and 82nd Street. I would definitely recommend having reservations, there was a decent amount of people waiting when we got there and when we were leaving. When you peak in from their lace covered window, it looks kind of small, but when you walk in, there’s actually a huge room in the back.
Shortly after we got seated, we got the bread, which Cora raved about. The look like little biscuits, and have a crispy outside and an almost gooey inside and are kind of sweet, and served with a bean dip. They were pretty delicious and the sweetness of the bread goes well with the saltiness of the bean dip. We ordered a sangria and for appetizers, we couldn’t decide so we got the picada (a selection of appetizers) and the ceviche sampler. The picada came with datiles (bacon wrapped almond stuffed dates), chicharron (crispy calamari with Dominican honey and organic sprout salad), camarones ( Puerto Rican rum glazed shrimp and a crispy onion with an avocado salad) and empanadas (lobster empanadas with green papaya, seaweed slaw and mirasol peppers). The ceviche sampler came with conchitas (bay scallops in salsa verde, avocado and pico de gallo), tropical (rock shrimp with roasted tomato and mango-passion citrus), mariscos (Maine lobster and shrimp with lemon oil, jalapeno, and lime) and a fourth one we couldn’t identify but we think it was a fish. The appetizer sampler and ceviche sampler were both really good and very ambitious of us. By the time we finished the appetizers and got the second refill on bread, we were pretty stuffed and didn’t know how we would eat our entrees.
Our entrees come out and Peter, Cora, Jen and I ordered the Vaca Frita Al Caballo (Cuban skirt steak on Latin fried rice with tomato chimichurri and avocado on the side), Nora got the Vegetariano (wild mushroom paella with a green bean salad with sweet pea vinaigrette) and I think Jass got salmon (panella glazed salmon with calabaza hash and coconut essence). The skirt steak was so tender and I loved the Latin fried rice. Nora’s wild mushroom paella was also pretty delicious. And if that wasn’t enough food, we also had a side of sweet plantains, which hit the spot.
But of course, the dessert menu comes around, and even though we are all sooooo stuffed, we get the originales (sampler of three desserts). It came with the Caramelo (traditional flan, tocinillo del cielo, whipped sour cream), Domino (dark chocolate cake, dulce de leche ice cream) and Cocos (toasted coconut ice cream with a chocolate shell and pineapple sauce). I liked the cocos the best, but it was hard breaking the chocolate shell. The domino was pretty good too, not too sweet. The caramelo was too sweet and was very dense for a flan and had a strong yolky taste).
So what do we do after we have just gorged on food? We decide to walk down to Times Square, from 81st Street! We did the walk in about 50 minutes, not too bad and we really needed to walk off some of the food.
I can’t wait to go back and introduce it to Henry!