LIMON ROTISSERIE..IT'S TAPAS..AND I'M STILL HUNGRY
It's a Saturday night and me and the SO are wandering around the Valencia Street corridor looking for a place to eat. With our hunger reaching a plateau we wander into
Limon Rotisserie.
The space is
huge and includes a mezzanine seating area from which I was able to take this lovely picture. After getting seated we start perusing the menu and realize--it's tapas. I sigh...here it is
Tapas means small plates, which can be fine, but I have a big appetite sometimes and oh well, let's order wine. We got a
Heinz Eifel Spatlese Riesling that is probably too much on the sweet side for most people but the pour was very healthy and it was nice and chilled, I really liked it. (Though at $10 a pop for a single glass, you can get a whole bottle at the store for about $2 more.) It gave us some time to look everything over (stare at the food at some of the other tables) and finally make a decision on 3 plates to dine on. Carne empanadas, yucca fries and chicharron de pollo.
Props for bringing things mostly at the same time. The carne empanadas were hand-cut top sirloin, sweated in onions and mixed with hard boiled eggs and raisins. The shells were crispy and hot, fresh out of the fryer. Served with a Peruvian
huacatay sauce with
aji amarillo peppers--it was spicy, minty and flavorful, we both really enjoyed it. Overall the dish was a winner and I wanted more. The yucca fries were also hot and crispy out of the fryer. They were chunky hearty and thick cut but the insides were nice and soft, they were very well done. It didn't come with a sauce, but I felt bad about asking for some ketchup. Next were chicharron de pollo--crispy pieces of chicken marinated in soy sauce, garlic and aji amarillo and topped with
salsa criolla. It was served with citrusy Asian inspired dipping sauce. It was okay, though the chicken was slightly overcooked and some of the pieces were a bit dry and we could have used more sauce to usher it along. Chicharrones are basically supposed to be like pork rinds so they were trying to go for a crispy outside and juicy inside but this time it didn't work so much. How does the old Meatloaf song go.."two out of three ain't bad?" Though, I'm still kind of hungry.
I guess ultimately this is a decent place and it has gotten some good reviews since it opened. Though considering how hungry we were, if we had known it was tapas we might have kept walking. If you are looking for a quick light bite before or after heading to a local watering hole this is a good place to stop in. If you are looking for a big dinner out then not so much.
