The Rake Magazine

Tag: seafood

  • Las Mojarras – Seafood Mexican Style

    Every time I have set foot inside Las Mojarras, in the
    former Me Gusta space on E. Lake St., the place has been completely empty,
    which is a shame, because it’s one of the most ambitious and attractive Mexican
    restaurants in the Twin Cities.

    Which might actually be part of the problem. Prices are very
    reasonable by Uptown or Downtown standards, but not as low as the other Mexican
    restaurants on Lake Street. It might be a little too upscale to attract the
    working-class Mexican clientele that frequents La Poblanita and El Mercado, and
    a little too far from Hennepin Ave. to attract the Uptown diners.

    (Maybe things are livelier on Friday and Saturday nights, billed as salsa nights.)

    SirenaToo bad, because the food – at least what I have
    sampled so far – is really quite good. On my last visit, I brought my wife and
    niece, and we only sampled two dishes between the three of us. The Sirena
    ($16.95), a seafood cocktail, was fresh
    and lively, and brimming with staggering quantities of shrimp, oysters, squid,
    octopus, (and a little imitation crab) in a sweet tomato sauce topped with pico
    de gallo and avocado. (See picture of my niece, Tess, above, to get a sense of its size.)

    Parillada de mariscosEven more impressive was the parrillada de mariscos ($48.95),
    a big tabletop grill piled high with delicious shrimp, clams, mussels, snow crab legs,
    octopus, a split lobster tail, and a whole fried tilapia, over grilled peppers,
    nopales cactus strips and grilled onions, served with tortillas on the side.

    You can order the whole tilapia by itself for $7.77 a pound, or $12.99 for a1.5 pounder – with your choice of hot sauce, garlic sauce, chipotle cream sauce, grilled "a la plancha" or served "empapelado" – steamed in a pouch.

    There is a lot more on the menu I would like to try,
    including the fillete relleno, a fish stuffed with shrimp, cheese and ham,
    breaded and deep-fried ($17.95), the aguachile – raw shrimp marinated in
    jalapenos and lime juice ($12.99), and the costillas con camarones, a
    combination plate of spare rib tips and garlic shrimp, served with marinated
    cactus salad ($14.95).

    Las Mojarras, 1507 E. Lake St., 612-208-0120.

  • Sushi: The Naked Truth, part one!

    It seems that not even ten years ago sushi was hardly known, or worse in smaller communities it was known as "bait." And if you asked someone if they liked sushi or if they had eaten sushi, the typical response was, "What suesheee??? Nahhh, we don’t eat our bait!"

    Now if you look around today sushi is everywhere! Spreading like a wildfire, sushi restaurants are popping up in every community. Grocery stores are jumping on the band wagon, and even American restaurants are being influenced with a bit of sashimi or tuna tar tar, etc.

    Like anything else that gets popular with rapid growth, the core is often forgotten, lost, overseen, or simply ignored.

    Spicy tuna: Spicy tuna came to be because when a tuna loin is cut down you will only get about an inch or so of good meat left before the skin because the amount of fascia (white connective tissue) is too chewy for it to be used for nigiri, sashimi, or even a roll.

    Because it is good meat, and sometimes even great if it’s fatty, and it’s toro, we take a spoon and scrape the meat to separate it from the fascia. The end product looks like ground beef and is then made into spicy tuna.

    I’ve had a few customers complain that our spicy tuna is too soft or mushy. Well, that’s because it’s not frozen chunked tuna; this is the real deal!!

    On that note, if you go to a sushi bar and see spicy hamachi, spicy scallops, spicy this or that, it’s not good because they are not turning the fish and as its starts to stink it’s masked with spices and sold, when it should be tossed.

    Cheers,

    Henry C,
    Giapponese