Road Trip: Seviche--Louisville

Hubby and I took off for Louisville recently for just a quick little getaway.  I have a long list of places to eat in Louisville and had a hard time deciding which one to go to this time.  But Seviche was recommended by several people, and just sounded good to me.  If it were cold and wintry, I would have probably gone a different direction, but it was still warm and ceviches sounded good.  The restaurant serves other things as well, and bills itself as a Latin restaurant.  The walls near the bathroom were loaded with lots of press about the Chef, Anthony Lamas, and he appears to have some serious credentials.

Honestly, the starters and ceviches all sounded so good, we decided to blow off the main dishes (some of the mains coming out to other tables didn’t look as exciting to me) and just get a couple of starters and a giant plate of ceviches to share.  We started with the Kentucky bison empanadas (they also have chicken empanadas and mushroom and goat cheese empanadas) ($9) and the chicken tostada ($11).  We were really torn about which flavor of empanadas to get, but went with red meat since we knew we were about to get a giant plate of mainly seafood.

The empanada was quite tasty—the pastry was perfectly done and obviously freshly made.  It was just light and flaky enough, but could hold up to the ground bison inside which was quite tender.   It was served on top of a sauce made from avocado and cilantro and jalapenos. Similar in flavor to guacamole perhaps, but a much smoother, thinner consistency. It was delicious. If I had any complaint, I just wished for more of that sauce (partly because hubby ate a little more than his fair share if you ask me). It was garnished with a nice fresh pico de gallo as well which added a touch of freshness and brightness.

But the tostada was my favorite of the warm appetizers.  It was a crisp tortilla topped with a little Manchego cheese, the most lovely, tender smoked chicken pieces, avocado, and more of the pico de gallo. The whole thing sat in a pool of Poblano demi glace and a bit more of the avocado cream.  The chicken is what made this dish for both of us.  It had a nice smoky flavor, but was so tender as well.  I liked a bit of the demi glace, but a little went a long way. I was glad they served it around the dish so you could sort of take as much as you wanted. Although, it would be hard to not order this one again, I would also be tempted by the chicken empanada if it is made with the same chicken. Although there were many, many other items I really wanted to try on the appetizer menu, so if I return, I will force myself to try something new (probably).

We got the sampler of 5 different ceviches—you get to make your own choices, although a couple of items have an up charge, for $41.  But that was split between both of us and served as our main dish.  We had, as mentioned, the crab, the beef (their version of carpaccio), the tuna tacuitos, the wahoo, and the shrimp.  Our favorites were definitely the tuna and the wahoo.  The tuna was chopped tuna which was well seasoned with lime and yuzu and served in little teeny taco shells.  The tuna in this case was chopped into small pieces, sort of tartare style.  The wahoo was served tiradito style which means in slices (think more like sashimi). And the seasonings were slightly more Asian in style as well—there was soy, chile and ginger and some nice slices of red onion on top.  This dish was great in its simplicity, but also because the fish was so good. I appreciated the texture variation of the onion as well. Next, in order of preference probably would have been the crab.  It was lump crab meat served with chopped and sliced tomato.  The crab wasn’t overly exciting, it seemed like it could be really good quality canned to be honest.  The tomatoes were nice and sweet and I liked the swipe of lemon cilantro sauce underneath, but it needed more of the seasoning.  The bites of everything together were good, but we ran out of the sauce way before we ran out of crab and tomatoes. Next was the beef. It was also served tiradito style, and similar to the fish, was cut in about the same thickness as sashimi.  It was also seared on the edges, as well as being marinated. The seasonings here were toasted garlic and Serrano chiles.  It wasn’t bad, but there was nothing really making this stand out for me. And with beef served raw (or raw-ish), I prefer either really thin slices (a la carpaccio) or finely chopped (a la tartare).  These were just a little too thick. Lastly was the shrimp.  The shrimp were whole and served in what I am assuming was the marinade, which had little flavor. Thus, the shrimp also had little flavor.  And they were tough. There were some fresh slices of avocado on top, as well as some fresh tomato dices, but it needed more than that. The shrimp was a definite pass.  I would certainly get the tuna tacuitos and the wahoo again, but next time I would try some of the specials (should have had that bass).  Or maybe get a sampler of three of the ceviches ($25) and try another one of those delicious sounding appetizers.

Dessert.  Oh my. Dessert was insanely delicious.  We were torn because there were a couple of things that sounded good, but were intrigued by the special dessert of the day. It was brown butter and macadamia nut ice cream with house made caramel corn that was flash frozen in liquid nitrogen.  The caramel corn was good, and it was interesting eating it really cold, but not mushy at all, but that part of it was not the star. The star was that ice cream. It was also made in house and it was amazing. Seriously, why have I never thought of putting brown butter into ice cream?  That is going to be happening at our house soon.

And hey, since I have this long list of restaurants to try in Louisville, I am wondering, what are your favorite other non-food things to do there?  We’re looking for ideas to kill time between meals.

Seviche

1538 Bardstown Road

Louisville, KY 40205

502/473-8560

www.sevicherestaurant.com