Ole’ Ole’: A Review

Liz/ and I had dinner tonight at Ole’ Ole’. It’s one of those places that serves “latin food”. A little bit of Mexican, a little bit of Spanish, a little bit of South American style barbecue. Sounds like an interesting mix. Unfortunately, it’s also a mix of good and bad.

A quick aside… one of the interesting things about not having television at home is that when you are confronted with a television in a public place… it can quickly become the focal point of the conversation. We had been talking about Africa (because of the Live8 shows), but once we noticed Iron Chef playing on the TV above the bar… we started to watch the show while continuing our Africa conversation. Oh… and no… we don’t always talk about such serious subjects at dinner. 😉

The service throughout our meal was excellent. We had an American server, but he did a great job of pronouncing everything accurately. He also did a great job of keeping our glasses filled with beer. 😀

We started our meal with one of the Tapas and some Queso Fundido. The Tapas was crab stuffed red pepper with a romesco sauce. Queso Fundido for those not in the know… is melted cheese served with chips. 😉

The stuffed red pepper was… bland. It was red pepper that had been blanched and peeled. These strips of red pepper were then rolled into little pockets that were stuffed with crab meat. The crab was mixed with red onion which did give it a little flavor, but not much. I thought perhaps the romesco sauce would help, but it was so subtle that you couldn’t tell it apart from the bland pepper.

The Queso Fundido was excellent. But hey… how can you mess up melted cheese? Seriously, though, the cheese was flavorful, with just a hint of heat (from spice, not temperature).

I had a hankering for Mexican so we decided to split the Enchiladas. We chose to get one of each: Spinach, Chicken and Beef. It took a bit of time for our enchiladas to come out. No problem there as the conversation was good and the beer was cold. Enchiladas were smothered in cheese. Did I say smothered? I meant, completely covered with several layers of cheese. Now I like cheese, but this was excessive.

Fortunately, the enchiladas themselves were tasty. The spinach and beef were especially good. Liz had a minor complaint about the chicken feeling dry. The rice on this dish was excellent… fluffy and moist. The beans had a nice creamy consistency. The guacamole was fresh, but could have used a bit more spice. Despite, the cheese, this was overall good.

We sat and finished our beers as the clock ticked on Iron Chef. It was tag team Iron Chef. Morimoto and Bobby Flay were on one team. Sakai and Mario Batali were on the other team. I love Sakai. He’s always calm behind those granny glasses. It was interesting to watch him and Batali serenely make some culinary masterpiece versus Flay and Morimoto’s more frenetic pace.

Then we ordered dessert and coffee. The coffee came in a French Press. It was my first time having coffee made this way, and I must admit that it was very good. It had a hint of nut that reminded me of Turkish coffee before they add the spices.

I ordered the Tres Leches. It’s one of those benchmark desserts. A lot of places simply serve soggy cake and call it Tres Leches, but those of us that have eaten a fair amount of the good stuff know that it’s more than just soggy cake. If it’s done right, the cake should be sweetened by the soaking, but not so soggy that it just falls apart. Ole’ Ole’s version of Tres Leches was a sturdy and sweet cake that had a hint of caramel. It was soaked, but not soggy. While I would have liked it a little more soggy than it was, I can appreciate how difficult it is to make a perfect Tres Leches… and well… this was pretty damn good. It was topped with whipped cream that I could have done without. But the chocolate and strawberry sauce that it was served with was excellent.

All in all, it was a good meal. I would return, but I doubt I’ll ever order that stuffed pepper again in this lifetime. The prices are moderate to expensive (at least on my budget).

–sam