By Marty Rosen
Special to The Courier-Journal
Everything you need to know about Mojito can be summed up in three words: Worth. Waiting. For.
You likely will wait for a table. From the moment it opened, Mojito, the Spanish-themed restaurant operated by the same folks who run the popular Cuban-focused Havana Rumba, has drawn overflow crowds (reservations aren't accepted, but you can phone ahead and have your party added to the waiting list).
Photo by Michael Hayman, The Courier-Journal |
Never mind. Just keep repeating those three words: Worth. Waiting. For.
My advice, based on a couple of recent visits: Try arriving after 8:30 p.m., when the crowd starts to thin. Order the paella as soon as you're seated, then relax, order drinks, and begin sharing your way through the various hot and cold tapas — though one wouldn't be entirely wrong to sample some of the dishes carried over from Havana Rumba.
From the cold selections (tapas frias) order Ensalada Mediterranea, a salad destined to become a Louisville legend: greens nestle with olives, grape tomatoes, pine nuts, crisp almonds and feta under the sheerest of dressings — and then all of a sudden you come upon a fragment of fig bread, a sweet, chewy surprise.
Chunky, piquant guacamole ($4.50) arrives at the table in a white marble mortar, surrounded not by the ubiquitous corn chips, but by crisp, slender plantain chips — made daily, in-house.
From the tapas calientes, try sofrito mussels ($5.99), a dozen or so gleaming mollusks perched in an oblong bowl in chunky, garlicky tomato sauce — then gracefully draped with a plantain leaf.
A single crab cake ($3.99) is crab through and through, crisp, full of flavor, and charmingly outfitted in a pale avocado-lime sauce.
And if you're the sort of person who tracks every meatball you've ever encountered and can't really decide whether you prefer the German, Italian, Afghan or Turkish varieties, you might as well indulge in the saucy albondigas ($4.99), simmering in a brown cazuela.
It would be a terrible shame to skip the Tabla de Charcuteria ($9.99), a selection of four hard-to-find Spanish-style sausages served on a rustic wooden cutting board. The selection includes a thin coil of chewy Basque chorizo chistorra; thick, grill-charred butifarra; salchichon de vic, a garlickly, thin-sliced sausage that will remind you of the finest salami you've ever — or perhaps never — tasted; and hearty, rustic morcilla, one of the great black sausages of the world.
While your food is wending its way to the table, you'll notice the dining room's avocado-green walls, the brick comfort of the sheltered patio, the comfortable mix of booths and tables, and the burnished wood of the crowded bar.
You'll have sipped your way through a mojito or two. Unless you have a genuine sweet tooth, stick with the traditional mojito, $6.75 for a large, sexily curved glass or $25 for a pitcher. (Ask for your mojito on the dry side; the drink is a refreshing mix of rum, sugar, freshly squeezed lime juice and spearmint, but our server noted that unless we specified "dry," the bartender might sweeten things up with a squirt of Sprite).
You may also notice that in the crush, though dishes arrive speedily, the niceties, like clearing tables, are sometimes given short shrift; eventually your table will look like a school cafeteria.
And you may notice servers are still getting the hang of the more exotic items on the menu, and aren't always prepared to answer questions.
Still, if what you care about is food, mostly what you'll notice is a wish that the tapas menu were about three times as long as it is. You can't get enough.
Besides, about now the Paella Valenciana ($15.99 per person) or the Paella de Vegetales ($14 per person) will show up. And trust me: Worth. Waiting. For.
Paella must be ordered in increments of two or four (best strategy: go with three or four people, and order the paella for two; then share tapas and let everyone have at the paella).
To be blunt: the Paella Valenciana is the best new dish to arrive in Louisville in the last year. It's served, as it should be, still sizzling in the paella pan — so the rice at the bottom of the pan can form the coveted crusty base called socarrat.
Above that base, you'll find a golden feast of saffron-infused rice packed with chorizo, grouper, shrimp, chicken, bell peppers, tomatoes, peas and a generous splash of olives.
Perhaps you've eaten paella in other places, and came away wondering, "What's all the fuss?" If so, be prepared: Just the look of it will set you reeling. And that's before you've lifted a fork.
In our order, everything from the chicken to the grouper had been cooked to its perfect moment, including a bite-sized octopus and tender rings of calamari.
Even if you wind up taking a hefty box of paella home (it will still be wonderful the next day), try either the dense, tangy goat cheese flan or the loose, warm crema de catalena, with its torched, caramelized top, for dessert (both $5.99).
Then start planning your next visit.
Freelance restaurant critic Marty Rosen's review appears on Saturdays. You can e-mail him at cjdining@gmail.com
Mojito
2231 Holiday Manor Center, 502-425-0949
Rating: 3.5 stars