The red snapper in the ceviche at Pezcalato, the new Peruvian restaurant on Richmond, is so soft, I wonder if it's been ground up like hamburger meat. And I can't figure out what the bright white shreds mixed into the fish could be. So I call the waitress over and take a guess. Is this the white part of a hard-boiled egg? I ask her.
Troy Fields
Pezcalato features several unique seafood dishes.
Location Info
Details
Snapper ceviche $14
Fried seafood $15
Cau cau $13
Grilled grouper with shrimp $18
Hours: Mondays to
Fridays,
11:30
a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. to 11
p.m.; Saturdays, noon to 11 p.m.;
Sundays, noon to 8 p.m.
9419 Richmond, 713-952-4200.
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"No, that's calamari," she says. I have never tasted seafood this tender in ceviche. But then, I have never had Peruvian ceviche before.
In a Houston Tex-Mex restaurant, ceviche means rubbery chunks of "mystery fish" in a lime juice marinade. You eat it with the guacamole and the tortilla chips as an appetizer. And I had always been quite happy with the local version. But I think Pezcalato is going to spoil me.
You have to specify your fish when you order it here. There's grouper or snapper ceviche for $14 a plate. Tilapia or catfish ceviche is $12. All are served Peruvian-style with a slice of cold cooked sweet potato and a little round of cold cooked corn on the cob.
"Get the snapper," the manager says as he stops by our table on the way to the kitchen. "It mixes best with the marinade." The fish comes to the table combined with octopus, squid and mussels with red onion slices on top. Judging by the falling-apart texture, I suspect the octopus and squid are cooked a little before they're marinated. Flecks of a fresh green herb coat the seafood. The waitress explains that the stuff is cilantro, which has been ground so finely, it resembles a pesto. It's by far the best ceviche I have ever eaten.
Pezcalato is in a shopping center on Richmond that's home to several other South American eateries. And like the other restaurants around here, Pezcalato is decorated in a homey style. There's a giant photo of Machu Picchu hung on the wall along with some amateurish paintings and a hokey array of ceramic fish tacked up around a framed mirror.
Industrial chairs and tables are mixed up with home dining-room furniture to create an eccentric blend that looks like a cross between a residence and a restaurant. The mom-and-pop attitude is also evident in the service, which is friendly, if slightly inept. Your water glass doesn't get refilled often, but the beautiful young Colombian woman who waits on you is friendly -- provided you speak Spanish.
When she fails to understand me, I resort to pointing at the menu to order the entrée called pescado en salsa a lo macho. It's a grilled fish fillet topped with a "spicy sauce" containing shrimp, octopus, squid, clams and mussels. As with the ceviche, the price depends on which fish you select. I go with the salmon, at $14. Unfortunately, the sauce is not as spicy as advertised, nor is it particularly flavorful. Without any unifying sense of taste, the seafood mélange is just a pleasant garnish on the slightly overdone grilled salmon.
My dining companion gets cau cau de mariscos, a variation on a pre-Hispanic Peruvian stew. The original version of cau cau is tripe stew mixed with crushed potatoes. In cau cau de mariscos, a seafood stew is substituted for the tripe. Squid, shrimp, mussels, octopus and their cooking liquid are mixed with potatoes and green peas and an herb mixture that includes mint. The seafood stock is thickened by the potatoes and forms a delicious and unusual sauce.
First cultivated by the ancient Incas, potatoes are a mainstay of Peruvian cuisine. I didn't get a chance to try causa limena, a favorite summer appetizer in Peru. It's essentially a cold mashed-potato pie topped with layers of meat or fish and salad ingredients like tomatoes and avocado. According to the menu, Pezcalato's version features spicy mashed potatoes, chicken breast, mayonnaise and herb-seasoned vegetables.
On my second visit, I can't resist ordering another plate of ceviche. I try the grouper, which is a little tougher than the snapper, but still exceptional. For an entrée, I order pescado con salsa camarones, with catfish as the fish. The breaded and fried fish comes topped with big plump shrimp cooked in a wine-and-cream sauce with green beans, carrots and fried yellow potatoes, as well as a side bowl of perfectly cooked rice. The fish in shrimp cream sauce is tasty, but it's extremely rich. I'll appreciate this kind of seafood in heavy sauce better when the weather gets colder -- say six months or so from now.
The other entrée I sample is jalea, and it features deep-fried fish, squid, mussels, clams, shrimp and calamari in an enormous football-shaped jumble atop an oval platter. At the bottom of the pile are big deep-fried pieces of the potatolike tuber called yuca. The seafood is coated with a corn-based batter before being deep-fried. Strangely, the clams and mussels have been battered and fried in their partially opened shells.
On top of the jalea, there's a garnish of cilantro-coated red onions and a bunch of curious-looking seeds I mistake for pine nuts. They turn out to be crispy kernels of corn that taste like the unpopped "old maids" found at the bottom of a bowl of homemade popcorn. It's a fascinating plate of fried seafood. But like a typical American, I crave some sort of sauce on the side to dip the pieces of fish into.
