Ceviche

Camarones Aguacate
Tortilla
Pulpo de Gallega
Chorizo al Brandy
Crema Catalana

The first thing one discovers upon opening the menu at Ceviche is that it is staggeringly large.  Not that your table will collapse, but you may go blind from the tiny print describing the, quite literally, hundred-or-so items that march across the page.  One should do their homework before going.  Our Protagonist, unfortunately, had not.  One could return for months, years even, and never work through the menu!  A possible suggestion to management; a sushi bar-style checklist might be in order for the tapas selections. 

Excellent bread began the evening, with lovely outside crispness giving way to a nice, chewy inside.  And not a bad pesto dipping sauce, to boot.  The "creamy" shrimp salad was just that; it proved the answer to the question, "what would potato salad taste like with shrimp instead of potatoes?"  Our Protagonist was expecting a stuffed avocado with a small lump of shrimp, not the other way around.  The Tortilla was exellent potato and onion omelet; served with greens only dressed with a few olives, this could be a vegetarian breakfast or lunch by itself.  As an exploratory gesture to octopus, the Pulpo was chewy but tasty, placed over sliced potatoes with a paprika schmear.  Said potatoes were extremely underdone; these were only eaten in order to get to the paprika flavor.  As was mentioned previously, research should be done in advance; as the Chorizo arrived, and only then was it discovered that it was the THIRD entree to involve potatoes, but clearly the best of all.  At this point our Protagonist began to wish not to have eaten either the potatoes with the pulpo, or the aguacate.  This was because of the extreme fillingness of the brandy sauce the potatoes were prepared in that accompanied the chorizo.  Between the addictiveness of the crispy bread and these potatoes, the stuffing level was at its peak.  While the sausage, itself, was nice, the potatoes were clearly the star of this dish; one should order this and then see if you want anything afterward.

Dessert then became the fun challenge for our Protagonist of what wouldn't simply kill him, a la Monty Python's Meaning of Life.  The Crema Catalana was a nice finish, but nearly did him in; this take on creme brulee was in a crisp chocolate shell for that "extra touch", or, more correctly, the straw that broke the camel's back.  Four pounds later, our Protagonist thinks fondly on the meal altogether, appreciating the inherent dangers of the exploratory process.

Ceviche
1216 1st Street
Sarasota, FL 34236
941-952-1036