South Bay: Cascal

Even though it was for my birthday dinner, I had to get my dad's approval on the cuisine. He single-handedly vetoed Korean, Indian, Mexican, and Mediterranean. We were at a stalemate before my ahyi suggested tapas at Cascal. Since my dad had never tried tapas before, we informed him that he wasn't in a position to reject it. Problem solved, we headed to the restaurant:

My ahyi's favorite part of the meal is the bread:

The olive oil wasn't really doing it for me, but the bread was quite dense and delicious.

There are few things in the world that can top chicken butt, but ceviche comes close. We ordered the ceviche sampler trio:

It came with ahi tuna tartar (ahi tuna with wasabi powder, diced apple, green papaya slaw, daikon sprouts, and curry-ginger aioli), Peruvian ceviche (halibut marinated in lime juice, red onion, ginger, chili arbol, and sea salt), and Brazilian scallop ceviche (scallops, lime juice, pineapple, chiles, red onion, and cilantro). I loved all of them, but my favorite might have been the ahi tuna. I'm not sure though, so I probably need to go back and try them all again.

My ahyi ordered the Spanish tapa sampler so that we could try a little of everything:



Get ready for a long list...serrano ham, marinated shrimp, eggplant piquillo tapenade, stuffed dates, octopus salad Galacia, anchovy tapenade, mussels, chicken liver mousse, stuffed deviled egg, carrot and tuna escabeche, Spanish chorizo, Manchego cheese, and quinze. Yea. My favorite was probably the eggplant tapenade, but everything was good with the exception of the octopus salad, which wasn't all that impressive. The liver tasted great the first bite until the liver-y taste hit me full blast and then it was game over.

Couldn't leave without paella. We ordered the paella Cascal:

It was a bit too salty, but the abundance of meat made up for that. There was chicken, pork, chorizo, shrimp, mussels, and clams.

To please my father, we ordered him the lamb chops:

The lamb was great, cooked just enough. The potatoes were fantastic. But in the end, it was too much food for the four of us.

Thank you, ahyi for an awesome birthday dinner!


Cascal
400 Castro St
Mountain View, CA 94041
(650) 940-9500
http://www.cascalrestaurant.com/