3 minute read
What's Cookin'
WHAT'SCOOKIN'
WITH MATT LAINE
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GOLLITA PERUVIAN CUISINE
4313 E MORGAN AVE, SUITE H EVANSVILLE, IN
People have been telling me to try this Peruvian restaurant in town for quite awhile now, and I can proudly say I have finally gotten around to checking it out. I must note that although it is Peruvian,
Gollita seems much different than past similarly-themed places I've been - there's no charcoal smell, there's a wider variety of dishes to try, and they also feature a lot of seafood. So, I was excited to dive in and check out
what else this type of cuisine could offer.
When you walk in, it’s a small little restaurant with lots of decorations to make you feel as though you just came in off the streets of Peru. They have flags, fishnets, fish figurines, and other Peruvian indicators to set the mood. I should also point out that they have a TV in the corner playing music and a speaker placed right in front of it. I mention this because the speaker is literally right next to a table, and although I doubt they sit people there, the noise might get a bit obnoxious. Outside of the speaker, everything else seemed in good order. Most importantly, my server was very attentive and helped me find some things to test my palate - he was so excited for me to try their food, and that totally got me jazzed up for the Gollita experience.
I wanted to start my meal off with an appetizer and went with the Pork Tamale. When it came out, it looked extremely moist and the pico de gallo was crisp and fresh. After trying the tamale, I have to say the cook was excellent, but the flavor was lacking just a bit. If it wasn’t for the pico saving it, this appetizer would’ve been a miss for me, but that pico was just so good it made the tamale sit at least on par in my opinion. Then when my Gollita Trio came out, once again the server got me psyched for the Ceviche.
I haven’t really had a seafood ceviche before, so this was where I wanted to start. This time the meat had tons of flavor, and the sauce just kicked it all up another level. The acidity from the sauce also carried a punch with it even though it was just medium on the spice level. It’s amazing how something that looks and sounds so simple could pack a Mike Tyson-like jab to the taste buds.
The middle course on the plate was their Seafood and Rice, and let me tell you what, that was the cream of the crop for me. The seafood was cooked to perfection and marinated in their red sauce, which I can only imagine would be their secret blend. The rice just urged the flavor bomb to multiply as I ate it, and this symphony of flavors left me begging for another bite. I want to emphasize how important the cook on the seafood was because I’ve had scallops and calamari cooked wrong at a lot of places, and this place did it perfectly in a way that seemed almost effortless; I literally can’t stress enough how they melted in my mouth. The final part of the trio was the Huancaina Potato, which was just slices of a potato in a creamy white sauce. This wasn’t just any old sauce though; it was almost like an alfredo sauce poured from the mountains of Peru gathering every bit of deliciousness they could offer. I put that sauce over everything on my plate, and it just made it all taste better. I think bottling that sauce could be a business in and of itself - it was that good. All in all, the main course was top bins for me. If ranking the trio, I’d say sauce, rice dish, ceviche, and then the potatoes.
Overall this place served up some amazing dishes. If you like seafood, I would highly suggest trying this place out!
