“S” is for Sevilla..Cafe Sevilla that is.

Latin food holds a special place in my heart. Having spent the early years of my life in South America, I developed a taste for some of the more exotic spices this Latin cuisine has to offer. For this particular evening, it was my wife’s birthday, so I made reservations at Cafe Sevilla in Downtown Long Beach (Yep, I used OpenTable.com again). Cafe Sevilla is a Spanish restaurant, bar and night club located between Broadway and 1st along Pine Avenue in Long Beach. Pretty much where all the action is Fridays and Saturdays nights. (I would know, I lived there for 3 years, noisy as heck, but a lot of fun.) There are two other locations for this restaurant, one in Riverside and another in San Diego.

This being my 4th time at Cafe Sevilla and my 3rd time dining there (the 1st time I just went Salsa dancing, no food involved; No, I still don’t Salsa very well), so I was fairly familiar with the menu and knew what items to avoid and which ones to try. You know how there are two types of diners; the ones that order the same thing because they love it, and the ones that like to try new things each time; I’m the latter. Eating is more about discovery to me. My food philosophy is generally “If it doesn’t move and I can get past the smell (or looks), I’ll eat it”. In any case, we started off with a pitcher of some premium Mojito. I love Mojitos personally, some say its kinda girly, but I don’t care. I like mint, I like rum and I like sugar. so I drink it, case closed. So we followed the Mojitos with a couple of Tapas, Shrimp/Fish Ceviche, Stuffed Olives and Spanish Sausages and Onions (Chorizo,not the Mexican type, the Spanish one, which is very different). The Ceviche was excellent, if you don’t know what its, its basically raw seafood cooked using lemon juice. The acidity from the lemon essentially cooks the seafood. This particular one had some grapefruit, onions and mango. Yummy.

I am personally a big fan of green and black olives…not so much the brown ones because they are a bit too salty. These in particular were pretty good. They were stuffed with almonds and served with some red peppers. Good stuff.

The Spanish Sausages AKA Chorizo are nothing like their Mexican counterparts. The Mexican version is much spicier (not like its a bad thing really since I like spicy foods) and greasier. Spanish Chorizo is more like a Chinese sausage, in my opinion, with a hint of sweetness. The onions complemented it very well. The main disappointment was there wasn’t enough to go around.

The staple Spanish dish is typically the Paella. Specially the Valenciana, which pretty much has everything except the kitchen sink. The 1st time I had it…it was sort of disappointing, the rice was way too soggy which made it taste more like porridge than Paella. This time around I avoided it, but my brother-in-law ordered it. The funniest response of the night came from him when he said “I feel like the food critic from Ratatouille” Talk about flashback. Apparently his mom use to make paella’s a lot and it basically took him right back. Now that, is cool! I also tried some and I have to say, WAY better than my 1st visit. Compliments to the chef on that one.

As you can see here, they load it up with a lot of seafood. So if you like seafood and pasta, this is pretty much the dish you should go with. I personally haven’t tried it, so I can’t quite comment on it, but it looks pretty good.

The Australian Sea Bass came highly recommended by our server. It didn’t disappoint. The sea bass was soft and flaky. The lemon reduction sauce used a long with the green onions and capers were fantastic. The cous cous was a bit weird, I am used to the smaller finer ones. This were gigantic, like fish eggs. But they did taste good. The wife really enjoyed this dish.

This was my main entrée. The grilled salmon was covered in a Pesto sauce with olives, served over a very interesting potato pie, along with some roasted zucchinis and caramelized onions. In summary, loved the zucchinis, caramelized onions; liked the potato pie and the grilled pesto salmon; disliked the brown olives…soooo salty!

For dessert, I went with the flan. Can’t really go wrong with flan, its like one of the best desserts ever made, along with creme brulee, tiramisu and chocolate souffle. I devoured this one in about 10 seconds…its not big, but its legit. Made with real eggs (good in some ways, bad in others) so its firm, just the way mom used to make it

This ceme bulee was made of chocolate, which is a bit different than that ones I’ve tried before. But the caramelized layer of sugar on top is undeniably creme brulee. The interior is a smooth, silky chocolate creme that is simply delicious.

What can I really say about Cafe Sevilla? Sure, I might be a little biased when it comes to Spanish food in general. After all, I love cooking it and I love eating it. Then again, this sort of makes me “knowledgeable” when it comes to Spanish food, so maybe I am not too biased after all. Good food, good ambiance, live band, Spanish music, dancing all under one roof. Can’t go wrong with that! So until I find a better Spanish restaurant in Southern California, Cafe Sevilla is probably going to remain one of my top favorites.

Cafe Sevilla
140 Pine Avenue
Long Beach, CA 90802
Phone 1-562-495-1111