Annie and I headed out for our yearly
shared birthday dinner last Friday night. We were looking to go a
little more low key this year and try something different than the
usual steakhouse. So I went searching for a place to suit our needs
and wound up suggesting a place that Annie had mentioned months ago.
Surfish is a Peruvian based restaurant in Park Slope whose chef,
Miguel Aguilar, was trained by Iron Chef Bobby Flay and featured on
the show “Chopped”.
Surfish is a small joint tucked into
5th Avenue. We were looking for it as we were driving and
nearly missed it. It's relatively small inside too, probably seating
for about 30. I'd imagine that at capacity the place would be
cramped. As it was, a person of my somewhat larger stature was just
barely on this side of comfortable. That being said, the wait staff
were sweet, helpful and attentive. Surprisingly, they were able to
be attentive and not obtrusive in a room that small.
Being who we are, we immediately
ordered ourselves a pitcher of sangria. You can't beat $20 pitchers
that got us 3 glasses each. Not bad at all. Also, the water had a
faint hint of orange which was a nice touch. It took us quite awhile
to figure out what to order. The menu has a lot of options and they
all were very appealing. A tapas menu is like a fresh hell for a Fat
Kid. It's hard to just pick a couple. I want to try them all. We
wound up going with a few of the tapas as appetizers and then
entrees.
We started out with a Ceviche Mixto,
which was a brightly flavored and refreshing mix of raw shrimp,
tilapia, mussels and octopus. I'll order almost anything that has
octopus and this didn't disappoint. Chicharron Sliders, which were
roast pork, sweet potatoes and salsa on tasty buns. Much bigger than
we expected. The three sliders were easily enough to be an entree.
That didn't stop us from devouring it all because they were
excellent. That was some good pig. Then we had Anticuchos,
miso-marinated beef hearts on skewers. I've never had beef hearts
before, but I definitely will again. So tender with a clearly beefy
taste and the sauce was bursting with flavor. I was tempted to lick
the plate. We closed out our appetizer section of the meal with
Zapallitos, which were sections of fried zucchini stuffed with
crabmeat, shrimp and goat cheese. Also with an excellent sauce. I
generally am not a fan of goat cheese but its tang was perfect in
this.
Then it was off to the entrees. I have
a hard time passing up paella whenever I see it on a menu. It's
generally a combination of things that I love...mussels, shrimp,
clams. Surfish's paella had those things along with squid and
chorizo with the usual saffron rice. All of the seafood was cooked
perfectly. The clams were HUGE. And the chorizo was exceptional
with a different garlicky kind of flavor. Great taste...and I always
love seeing shrimp with their heads still on. It's like getting a
toy with my meal. I'm always tempted to pop the head off and use it
as a finger puppet at the table. (It's not an accident that I call
this blog Loving Your Inner Fat “Kid”) Annie had the
Entrana Tacu Tacu which was skirt steak with sweet plantains and tacu
tacu (tacu tacu is a Peruvian mashed bean type dish). The steak
itself was cooked to a perfect medium and had a great charred flavor.
I always love sweet plantains. I thought the tacu tacu was kind of
bland (which is generally how I feel about tacu tacu anywhere I've
had it. So it may just be that the dish itself is generally not very
flavorful.). Topping it with a fried quail egg was a nice touch. It
definitely made Annie happy. She gets a little excited about
anything with eggs.
Surfish
351 5th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY, 11215
718-832-8200
www.surfishbistro.com
I've never really liked it. That seems to come as a surprise to a lot of people. I don't know why.
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