Seviche - a Latin Bistro

Seviche - a Latin Bistro has been one my local favorites for several years. I first heard about Seviche when my sister recommended it to me for a special celebration dinner. On that occasion, I travelled over to Bardstown Rd. and found an instant favorite. So, it was with high expectations that I arrived recently at their new, second location on Goose Creek Rd.

We arrived fairly early on a Thursday night. We were seated quickly and received prompt attention from our waitress. The wine menu was very generous with wines in every price range. However, I quickly settled on a personal favorite - Cakebread. This is an excellent Napa valley winery with some of the best tasting wine around.

While looking over the menu, we decided to order one item from each group. One appetizer, one salad, one entree and one desert and split everything between us. While I like seviches, my wife doesn't care for them, so we chose a standard appetizer instead of a seviche. For those not a familiar, a seviche is a mixture of meat (beef or seafood), vegetables, and/or fruit that is "cooked" with highly acidic fruit juices. I let the waitress know that our plan was to split everything. She went the extra step of having the kitchen pre-split everything on two plates for us (except desert, of course, when they just brought two spoons).

We started off with the corn cake with green chilis and shrimp. The flavor of this dish was exceptional. The shrimp were perfectly cooked. I'm not sure what I expected with the corn cake itself, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a polenta, cheese, and green chili patty that had been pan fried. The only problem I had with the dish was that I felt there should have been two of the corn cakes with a shrimp each instead of one corn cake with three shrimp.

After that, we had the spinach salad with strawberries, roasted pears and goat cheese. Again, the flavors were wonderfully combined. The stawberries were big and full of flavor, which is a rare treat this time of year. The pears however, were lifeless.

On to the main course, we ordered the "Gaucho" special. The Gaucho is a chef's choice non-seafood entree-of-the-day. The day we were there it was a 12 ounce bone-in pork loin chop served on chorizo dirty rice with asparagus on top of it all. In order to split this onto two plates for us, they deboned the chop after it was cooked. We ordered the chop medium well and it was sublime. It was done all the way through (no pink left), but still juicy and moist. In addition to the chop, the rice, and the asparagus, there were also a couple of slices of tomato on each plate - one yellow and one red. The yellow tomato was quite good while the red was standard for this time of year.

After our main course, we ordered the Black-and-White Tres Leches for desert. This is an over-the-top version of Tres Leches with caramel, chocolate, blueberries, and raspberries on top. Honestly, it was big enough and rich enough that 4 people could easily split it and they would all be satisfied. As wonderful as it was, we couldn't finish it.

The obvious comparison for this experience is my initial experience at the Bardstown Rd. location. Food quality, presentation, and service are all identical between the two locations. However, the Bardstown Rd. location "feels" more like a high-end restaurant. My biggest complaint about the Goose Creek Rd. location is the low ceilings. Because of the low ceilings, I felt cramped and crowded even though the restaurant was not full.

One more note about the Goose Creek Rd. location. While we were there, they informed us about their new Sunday hours and specials. They are now open 4-9pm Sunday evening with 1/2 price bottles of wine, 1/2 price appetizers and seviches, specially priced "trial size" seviches and appetizers, along with any regular entree for under $20.

Overall, I rate the food and the service very high, while the atmosphere is more average.

Health Department Rating: A (98%)
Appetizers and seviches - $9-16
Salads - $8-12
Entrees - $15-30
Deserts - $6-8
Wines - $20-368/bottle

Overall Rating: 8