5 Countries in 5 Blocks - El Rincon de Chabuca - North Beach

[sorry, this restaurant has closed]

The food of Peru is possibly the original "fusion cuisine." Indigenous, Spanish, and Asian influences all have made their contributions. An abundance of produce, including more potato varieties than can be imagined, exotic chiles and herbs, as well as ready access to all sorts of seafood, also play a significant role in the uniqueness and diversity of Peruvian cuisine - which is represented in my "5 Countries in 5 Blocks" series on North Beach restaurants by El Rincón de Chabuca (or, as we call it in my household, El Rincón de Chewbacca).

El Rincón de Chabuca is a modest eatery along Collins Avenue just past 71st Street in the North Beach neighborhood where, as I've previously noted, you'll find a multitude of eating options from around Latin America. It's not much to look at, and it's probably not in contention for the best Peruvian food in all of Miami (most people think that honor goes to Francesco in Coral Gables), but some things are quite good.

If there is one item that people think of when they think of Peruvian food, it would most likely be ceviche, or its cousin, tiradito. Traditionally, a ceviche features raw fish or seafood that has been marinated in citrus juices, the citric acid in effect "cooking" the fish. With Chabuca's shrimp ceviche, the shrimp seemed to have been previously cooked, which with shrimp is not that unusual, doused in a mixture of lime juice, salt, garlic, and chile paste (they ask how spicy you want it and it is prepared to order), served over a bed of lettuce, topped with slivered red onions, and plated with traditional accompaniments of steamed sweet potato, choclo (a South American variety of corn with starchy, gigantic kernels), and corn nuts. Ours was good if a tad oversalted (a common refrain for many of the dishes we tried). Their ceviche can also be had with only fish, or with a mix of seafood (calamari, octopus, mussels and shrimp). I was intrigued by a menu item called "Ceviche Caliente Exotico," described as "crispy on the outside and yet fresh on the inside" and apparently involving seafood prepared ceviche-style and then deep-fried - but not intrigued enough to try it. You'll find a broader variety of preparations at a place like Francesco or La Cofradia, where they offer their ceviches either traditional style, or with an aji amarillo chile sauce or a rocoto chile sauce, and sometimes even more esoteric, non-traditional versions.

Cobaya Experiment #3 - Chef Jonathan Eismann

When Chef Jonathan Eismann, of Pacific Time and Pizzavolante (and soon to be a couple more), and I first started discussing the prospect of doing one of our "underground dinners," he was completely into it. After months of trying to nail down a date and location, several weeks ago Chef told me "I have a spot" and everything quickly fell into place.

The spot turned out to be the not-yet-opened location of his new seafood restaurant "Fin," which is nestled within his also not-yet-opened new restaurant "Q" (which will be a barbecue place). Both are in what Miamians will likely fondly recall as the location of the old "Sheba" Ethiopian restaurant which closed a year or so ago, along Miami Avenue in the Design District. The "Fin" space occupies a cozy corner of the space (I'm pretty sure this is where the little art gallery used to be in Sheba) and is decorated in a Cape Cod style, very clean and simple.

The fish-centric concept of the new restaurant (everything will be fresh, local and simply prepared) and Chef Eismann's love of seafood helped set the theme for the dinner. After considering the seafood angle and the late December date, I mentioned something about the Italian Christmas tradition of the "Feast of Seven Fishes," and Chef Eismann and his team ran with it from there. Everything on our menu was brought in from the waters up and down the East Coast within 48 hours before our dinner, and Chef Eismann's team of chefs all assisted in creating several courses out of the ocean's bounty. In all, we had nine courses, all fish and seafood, fresh from Maine down to the Keys.

Though our menu said "Fin" on it, and the new restaurant will share the seafood focus, you won't see most of the specific dishes we had on the restaurant menu, at least not in the particular incarnations we saw. Most of what we 34 guinea pigs experienced (our largest group yet for one sitting, and very cozy for a 32-seat restaurant!) was created just for this dinner. Unfortunately I forgot to bring a camera and so for present purposes can only offer this low-quality scan of the menu and my recollections (I've put a request out to the other diners to see if someone will share their pictures Thanks to guinea pig Brad Nichol for providing some pictures, his full album from the dinner is here).

CSA Week 3 - roll 'em if you got 'em

When I first saw a bag of big, strange leaves in my CSA box, I didn't even know what I was looking at. Thankfully, the newsletter helpfully explained that these were piper betel leaves. They looked like they really wanted to be wrapped around something, and eventually my mind got to thinking about the Vietnamese dish called bò lá lốt, or grilled beef wrapped in leaves.

Lo and behold, the traditional wrapper for the dish would appear to be none other than betel leaves! I looked up a few different iterations of the recipe, all of which appeared to be variations on the same theme, and improvised some. For a pound of ground beef, I added about 2 tbsp. of finely chopped lemongrass, 2 tbsp. chopped green onion, a clove of finely chopped garlic, a couple tsp. of curry powder, a couple glugs of fish sauce, a spoonful of sugar, a pinch of salt, a grinding of black pepper, and mixed well with my hands. I laid out the leaves and added a torpedo-shaped spoonful to the upper third of the leaf and rolled it backwards on itself. My basic assembly guide can be found here.

If the leaves still have the stem attached you can use that as a sort of toothpick to hold the roll together, otherwise an actual toothpick will work (as will a longer skewer, which you can stick through several at once). Then just brush with a little oil and grill them in a hot grill pan:

The leaves, which start off feeling somewhat waxy, quickly soften and then get slightly crispy. After about 3-4 minutes, turn or roll them to cook the other side. Conveniently, once the leaves are wilted and cooked all over, the meat inside will also be done. I only got five leaves in my box, not nearly enough for a pound of beef, but I did have another leafy green hanging around. I trimmed off the leaves of some of the white chard and quickly blanched them for a minute or two in boiling water, then dried them on a paper towel.  I wrapped the rest of the beef in the chard leaves and gave them the same treatment:

I also whipped up a quick nước chấm to use as a dipping sauce. There seem to be many different schools of thought on the proportion of ingredients in a nước chấm. I used the juice of two limes, one thinly sliced chile pepper, one clove of minced garlic, about a tsp. of sugar, about 2 tbsp. hot water, a squirt of sriracha chile sauce, and about 1/4 cup of fish sauce. It wasn't bad but it could have used more tweaking if I wasn't ready to eat, right then and now.

The betel leaf wrappers had a wonderful frilly, slightly crispy texture and an interesting, subtly smoky flavor. The chard had a more substantial bite, but took nicely to grilling and had a slightly sweeter flavor. I liked the filling, which when cooked has a nice firm, but not tough, texture with brightness from the lemongrass and scallion.

The betel leaves seem like they could come in handy for a number of other uses. I will no longer feel the urge to panic when I see them in my CSA share. In fact, I'll be looking for more in the extras box.