Dining on my birthday—El Veneno Mariscos

Part 1 of a series of posts on the great foods I had for my birthday...

It is incredibly rare that I don’t trust my first impression of a restaurant and go back for a second meal before forming a staunch opinion.  In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever not gone with my gut (no pun intended).   But, although I loved the first meal I had at El Veneno Mariscos, I couldn’t escape the feeling that I had eaten a terrible meal there once before [turns out I had it confused with another restaurant on Buford Highway] and wanted to rule out the possibility that my enthusiasm for the superb shrimp tacos was somehow a fluke.  It wasn’t; I could eat those tacos every day.

If anyone reading this actually decides to go eat at El Veneno Mariscos, don’t be put off by the ambiance.  I’m not sure there is much, although the mariachis at lunchtime do help.  On both visits there has been practically no one else eating there, at most two other tables in a rather large restaurant.  As much as I like a hidden gem, I also like to know that other people actually eat there.  I’m working on both.  And, while the nautical décor complements the theme of Mexican-style seafood, the place is rather dingy and I doubt would ever be confused with a ship or anything remotely near the ocean.  But did I mention the mariachis?  At lunchtime?

At first glance, the menu is also a bit off putting for a lunchtime outing.  Most of the dishes are in the $15-20 range, or more if you get the lobster (the house specialty), which is a lot for Buford Highway dining at lunchtime.   But there are a few more reasonably priced options buried in the menu, and quite good ones at that.

For my birthday, my friend and fellow book tart, B2, took me to El Veneno Mariscos for lunch.  As with my previous visit, we were treated with complimentary marlin ceviche tostadas to start.  In my enthusiasm for the tostadas, I managed to knock over my glass of water onto the tostada, the table, and B2.  The restaurant was kind enough to give me a new one (tostada), which was eminently delicious. Other starters included a basket of chips and a gut-wrenchingly hot but delicious habanero salsa and an order of guacamole, which comes spread across a plate rather than in a bowl, and is just delicious, filled with nice chunks of onion, cilantro, and tomatoes.  For our meal, we both had the shrimp tacos (for some mysterious reason that I have yet to figure out, they are always out of the fish tacos).  The shrimp tacos were fabulous, with several perfectly grilled shrimp, a bit of crema, and a lot of greens on top of two corn tortillas.  I can't recommend these tacos enough, and they were the perfect start to a wonderful week of birthday eating!

Tomatoes

The bounty of the summer tomato harvest is upon us, and it is amazing. On Monday I harvested 9 large tomatoes and 2 dozen cherry tomatoes, yesterday another dozen large and two dozen cherry, not too bad for a patch of only six plants. Despite an infestation of leaf-footed bugs that carefully score the tops of all of the fruit, our biggest problem is that the tomato plants are so big that the plants beside them are shaded. The resourceful cucumbers have solved the problem by growing though the forest of tomato plants, wrapping their tendrils around whatever they can find to steady themselves, but the less mobile peppers are not happy.  This is hardly a terrible problem; the tomatoes are truly amazing.

With the onslaught of tomatoes has come the need for new recipes in order to be able to use them all.  I'm certainly not complaining:  there have been countless tomato sandwiches, caprese salads, sliced tomatoes, all of which are amazing, but at some point the tomatoes outnumbered my ability to use them.  I need recipes that use lots of tomatoes at once.  Last week while doing a long overdue email inbox file/delete,  I came across a recipe for a tomato-basil cream sauce, which seemed like the perfect dish to highlight all of our lovely tomatoes as well as the remnants of some overgrown basil. 

I wish I could give better credit to the creator of the recipe, but unfortunately I’d just saved it as from the ‘Lake Claire CSA’ [Lake Claire was my old Atlanta neighborhood]. This sauce is delectable, so thank you to whomever wrote this recipe. Yum. There really is nothing like a really good tomato sauce made with fresh from the garden ingredients.

Aside from increasing the time to cook the onions, I only made one change to the recipe. Since we didn’t have any heavy cream, I used sour cream, which worked perfectly. I only used 2/3 of a cup of sour cream; the container was in the back of the fridge and much of the sour cream was actually frozen so I used what I could get out. The level of creaminess was perfect and I don't think that anyone would ever have guessed that it was not made with heavy cream.  Also, sour cream is a cost effective substitute for heavy cream (I never would have thought of this, but came across several websites that mentioned this as I googled whether it would be okay to use sour cream as a substitute for the cream).  My only complaint was that the sauce was a bit thinner than I would have liked, probably because I didn’t start cooking until 9 pm and I was hungry and didn’t have much patience for reducing the sauce; this is easily remedied in the future by following the directions. Thinness aside, this sauce was a perfect way to show off the flavors of our wonderful summer vegetables and herbs.

Keep those tomatoes coming!

Tomato-Basil Cream Sauce 

From someone in the Lake Claire CSA

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 cups peeled, & chopped tomatoes (to peel, score tops and dunk in boiling water for 45 seconds then in cold water bath and skins will peel off easily) [I used four large tomatoes]
1 sprig thyme
Kosher Salt
Pinch crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable broth
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Sprigs of fresh basil, for garnishing

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until soft, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and thyme. Season with salt and crushed red pepper, and cook until the tomatoes give up their liquid, about 5 minutes, stirring from time to time. Add the broth and tomato paste, bring to a boil, and cook until reduced by 1/3 in volume.  Add the cream and cook until reduced by 1/3 in volume, or until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add the butter and basil and stir to combine. Remove the thyme sprigs. With an immersion blender, puree the sauce. (Alternatively, the sauce may be pureed, in batches, in a blender - be careful if the sauce is hot as it may splatter.) Taste and adjust the seasoning and consistency if necessary. Return to the saucepan and keep warm until serving. Serve over pasta of choice.