Seafood proves a good catch at Manny's

Sunday, July 23, 2007

Manny's Cocina — Manny's "Kitchen" — is the first restaurant we've reviewed to tell us how it wants to be judged.

The menu has the following bold note: "Manny's selects only the finest fresh seafood available. Each variety of fish is carefully prepared to highlight its own unique flavor. Manny's reputation is based on excellence in preparation of the finest seafood."

Seafood? Mexican?

Just look at a map. Between the Gulf of Mexico on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west, Mexico has an astonishing 5,797 miles of ocean coastline. The country's graceful cornucopia shape makes it difficult to live more than 200 miles from salt water.

Co-owner Filiberto Manuel Rivera, nicknamed "Manny," was born in Acapulco and raised in Ixtapa Zihuatanejo on the southern Pacific coast.

"I grew up with seafood for breakfast," he told us. "We just walked to the ocean to get it. For us it was free — chicken was a lot more expensive!"

During five visits, we focused on fish and shellfish, working our way — dish by beautiful dish — from the least to the most expensive of the menu's seafood offerings.

Manny's fish tacos are outstanding: short stacks of warm corn tortillas piled with julienned red cabbage and pico de gallo (a raw fresh salsa of diced tomatoes, onions and cilantro), drizzled with lime juice-jazzy ranch dressing and topped either by thin-battered cod filets deep-fried into beautifully seasoned crispness — Tacos del Mar, $10 — or by hefty swordfish or red snapper steaks bathed in garlic sauce and spices, and then grilled — Fish Tacos a la Parrilla, $13.

Friends of ours love these so much they'll order nothing else.

We also recommend seafood fajitas, $18; Tropical Coconut Jumbo White Shrimp with a fresh mango sauce, $17; the slightly spicy, intensely garlicky Shrimp Faro Viejo, $19; and the Lobster Enchiladas Costa Rica, $19.

Unfortunately, nobody warned Audrey about that lobster's sauté in pungent chipotle-cream sauce, so Jeff happily inherited her plate — while sadly relinquishing his fresh Chilean King Salmon en Papillote, $17, in return.

Audrey's tasty Chilean King Salmon en Papillote arrived baked in a parchment-paper pouch with capers, lemon zest, onions and chili poblano slices. Secret: It's Manny's favorite dish.

Fish designated "fresh" on the menu — salmon, halibut, sea bass and swordfish — are flash-frozen at sea, air-shipped to Minneapolis and not defrosted until they reach Manny's kitchen. This is the best method for inland restaurants.

All fresh fish we tried were cooked flawlessly.

The baked Halibut el Capitan arrived moist, firm, flavorful and topped with good crabmeat and that same chipotle-cream sauce. This time it provided Audrey with just a "steady, gentle heat," $22 (market price).

The incredible Sea Bass Acapulco, a study in tenderness, offered impossibly light, sweet, quivery, melt-in-your-mouth flakes of milk-glass-radiant fish, $22 (market price). We yearned to triple its accompanying cool salsa of fresh mangoes, oranges, mint, red bell peppers and jicama (a tropical tuber with crisp flesh).

The red snapper, though not designated "fresh," came deliciously prepared in the traditional Veracruz (Gulf coast) style: under a saucy blanket of tomatoes, green olives and onions sparked by lime and a little jalapeño, $18.

Most entrees here come with ho-hum Mexican red rice and usually good whole pinto beans. We prefer to substitute Manny's rich black beans and excellent white rice.

With any entree, you also can add soup or salad for 99 cents. We say: Skip the salad, or its palate-dulling spicy house dressing. But get the soup!

There's a soup genius in Manny's kitchen. Both Pozole soups — Rojo (red) and Verde (green) — have deeply chickeny broths delicately warmed by mildest red or green chilies and filled with succulent chicken shreds, ripe avocado slices, crisp minced fresh onion and soft hominy.

A Manny's meal begins with tortilla chips and salsa — and both may disappoint. On all but one visit, the chips were tough and undersalted, and the food-processed salsa fresca, made of fresh but hopelessly pallid tomatoes, was mushy, watery and nearly flavorless.

Advice: Get an appetizer bowl of Manny's classic guacamole instead. Silken, chunky and voluptuous, it's the best in the Chippewa Valley, $8.

Pescadillas are the other appetizer of note: grilled swordfish chunks and cilantroey pico de gallo enclosed in masa dough (made of corn), deep-fried and served with a thick cream sauce enriched by puréed poblano peppers, $8.

For dessert, opt for the velvety house-made flan, $5 — but get it plain, with only its caramel sauce. Manny's exuberant garnishes of canned whipped cream, chocolate and strawberry syrups and maraschino cherries drown out the custard's traditional quiet flavors.

Service during our visits was uneven: excellent at lunch but slow and sometimes perfunctory at dinner. Often we wished for more frequent attention and speedier drink and water refills. And yet our servers were all welcoming, friendly and obviously proud — both of Manny's food and of this beautiful and elegantly appointed new restaurant.

"Great fish," a friend said, "and a feast for the eyes as well."

Main Course, the Leader-Telegram’s restaurant review column, runs the fourth Sunday of the month. Diners’ Notebook,
a sampling of favorite restaurant offerings, runs the second Tuesday of the month.