Ceviche House

**** Ceviche House has closed

The combination of super hot and muggy weather and missing all the great cebiche we recently had in Lima, where we cebiche 6 times and tiradito 3 times in four days, finally gave me a chance to visit Ceviche House. Located on a quieter part of 30th street, close to Fall Brewing and the new location of Chris' Ono Grinds (I still have to check them out), the place just kind of slipped my mind.

I finally made it a point to visit Ceviche House. It was mid-afternoon and I'd had breakfast earlier, so I thought a light lunch would be great.

The shop is tiny, with a few tables outside….roasting in the hot sun on this day.

The young lady working was very nice, she did a great job with customers who had questions, and was wonderful to deal with.

I went with the Gobernador Tostada ($8), which looked nothing at all like the Gobernador tacos I enjoy, which are rustic, yet so delicious.

This was a rather small appetizer sized tostada, though the shrimp a la plancha was nicely done, very tasty, moist , and plump, though there wasn't much of it. Enjoyed the Chipotle Cream sauce which was smoky, with a light kick. The young lady also brought me some extra sauce, a very nice touch. The avocado and the micro greens added nice texture, though I wished for some pungency and perhaps some sweetness. The fire roasted cheese cubes really didn't do it for me. I kind of missed that nice layer of queso at the bottom of the tortilla shielding it from all the juices. Still, this was quite tasty.

So, I returned the next day….still the weekend, still scorching. This time I got the Ceviche, the "Acalpulco" ($6.50).

The fish, a whitefish that was nice, perhaps a bit more tender than the usual Lenguado (sole) that is the staple of the Peruvian Ceviche I enjoy so much was marinated well. It had spent the perfect amount of time in the marinade preventing it from becoming too "cooked" and mushy. Enjoyed all the ingredients, which added nice textures. My one problem was with flavor….this was really mild, with hardly any flavor. However, I was given a small container of "aguachile" sauce (mmm aguachile, another one of my favorites), which turned out to be too much too sour for this ceviche and even with the chips to temper the flavors, kind of sent things in the wrong direction for me.

Still, the service was great as always, so I decided on one more visit. I'd see one of my favorite dishes, tiradito, a product of the Nikkei Perujin, on the menu. Every version of tiradito I've had has been different, but this, the Yellowtail Tiradito ($12) might take the cake for the oddest…..not in an over-the-top way as the Tiradito at Alfresco in Miraflores was, nor even this version which we recently had in Lima at Punto Azul; the one on the right was made with a parmesan cream and was actually pretty good.

I'm used to the type with a slightly creamy aji Amarillo based sauce; like this version from Cevicheria Bam Bam in back of Surquillo Market in Lima.

No, this might be the oddest "Tiradito" I've ever encountered….because it basically looked like plain old sashimi with microgreens over bean sprouts and avocado.

The yellowtail was dry and too chewy for my taste. The sauce was a very sour-salty-spicy soy based concoction that edged on bitter and seemed oddly out of place on everything but the blanched bean sprouts……where it made it taste like a very sour namul. It really didn't do the avocado any favors. The cut was a bit too thick even for the traditional "usuzukuri" cutting technique used on yellowtail. And frankly, I prefer the more traditional thinner cut strips fish, which is sometimes then flattened a bit with the knife to tenderize, but that's just me.

I did love the Sparkling Grapefruit drink which kind of revived things for me.

Overall, very nice service, though the flavors seemed to be a bit out of synch with the food. Well, I'm not sure it's worth going out of your way for. They told me that a Peruvian style ceviche with leche de tigre was in the works….but after having that tiradito, I'm not quite sure.

Ceviche House
4594 30th St
San Diego, CA 92116