Lead With A Fork: Pacifico Restaurant

Pacifico Restaurant

My wife and I have started a new tradition where every year we try new places to eat during restaurant week. This year we chose Pacifico restaurant down town new haven. For those who don't know what restaurant week is, Restaurant week is different restaurants from across Connecticut will offer up special deals for restaurant week that might include a multi-course prix-fixe menu starting at a fix price. Pacifico had a 3 course meal for $30. There is a special menu for each participating restaurant and most have lunch and dinner specials for that week.

We both chose something different to taste and experience for the first course. I had Ceviche de Salmon & Camaron; Shrimp, salmon, sweet potato, corn, avocado, aji rocoto. When the waiter brought me the dish I was impressed by the presentation. The smell of the citrus and shrimp was delightful. Seeing the long fried plantain chip was exciting, it's one of my favorite foods to eat. At first bite you can taste every single ingredient and how fresh it is. The herbs, the seafood and even the sweet potato taste at the end. This was the first time I had a ceviche with salmon and I feel I been cheated all my life. The salmon works so well, gives the dish another level of texture and taste. What made it work was the salty plantain chip to help clean your pallet so you can experience that first bite all over again. My wife had Shrimp-corn chowder; Shrimp, corn, yucca, cilantro, crispy leeks. She enjoyed the dish very much, I had a very unique taste and it was a very well balanced dish. It is a dish I wouldn't ordinarily get but having a taste I would order it in the future.

For the second course we couldn't help but to get the same dish. We the guest sitting beside eating it and from what we read on the menu, we both simultaneously said we wanted the Steak a la Parrilla; Grilled hangar steak, morro rice, green chimichurri. My steak was well seasoned and tender. The fried onions topping gave a nice contrast in texture. If you know me you know that I have to be in the mood for rice. My culture like many others, rice is a big part of our diet. With that being said I had high hopes of this rice being well seasoned. I was excited to see that the rice had other ingredients in it such as variety of vegetables and one of my favorite things to eat with rice, sweet plantains. The side dish of the chimichurri sauce was made in house and with fresh herbs. The heavy use of cilantro gave it a strong herb taste and slightly overpowered the steak but it definitely gave the dish another fresh element and it elevated the steaks overall flavor.

One of my weaknesses is chocolate so for the final course I had to choose the Chocolate Lava Cake. This was the weakest dish of all of them but none the less it was delicious. I rarely write negative comments about a dish because I know how hard it is to create and execute a recipe. The cake and chocolate were good but the chocolate inside wasn't warm like I expected it to be seeing that it was called lava cake, but surely was quite tasty. My wife had the Tres Leches rice pudding in which she wasn't a fan of because of the texture, I on the other hand didn't mind it. We have never heard of tres leches rice pudding so willing to try and experience new things we ordered it and ate it. Over all the 3 course meal and special was good. The over all experience was great the atmosphere and the waiters were very polite and attentive. Pacifico has a bar so if you want to come have a drink as well you can. We will come back in the near future. So stay tuned for future visits of restaurant week coming this fall.

More info on Connecticut Restaurant Week click on link:

http://www.connecticutrestaurantweek.com/new-haven-restaurant-week/pacifico/