Sunday, July 24, 2011

Salu: Small Plates and Wine Bar

I've been hearing about Salu, a small plates restaurant on Magazine, for months now. Most of the hype I've heard is about their fabulous Happy Hour special, which offers an entire pitcher of delicious Mojitos for just 10 dollars, Monday through Friday from 3-7. Their mojitos are really fabulous, but I wasn't entirely won over by the cuisine. I can't say anything about their paelle, but their small plates are a little hit or miss. One of their better mini dishes is the wild mushrooms with sherry cream. You will love this 5 dollar small plate if you are a fungus lover like myself, but it's definitely not enough to fill you up. 
If you're looking for something more substantial to eat with your pitcher of Mojitos the 7 dollar grilled skirt steak over brandy mushroom cream sauce is not bad. The texture isn't phenomenal, but the flavor of the sauce is good. 
The better option for meatier small plates is the 8 dollar chicken with spinach, roasted peppers and portobello mushrooms. Clearly Salu likes mushrooms as much as I do. 
Their fried food is where I was disappointed. When I saw duck and manchego flautas on their menu I was very excited to try salu's version of this lovely spanish dish, but when I finally took that first bite they tasted more like egg rolls than flautas. 
The 7 dollar empanadas had a similar issue, tasting more like pizza rolls than any empanada I've ever had. Seriously, it was strange. 
Nothing was terrible, but nothing was spectacular either (aside from the Mojitos). The real issue was the cumulative price for small portions of not so great food. These 5 dishes would be either a good sized snack for two people, or a filling meal for one. That being said, the total of the five dishes above was $32.50 not including, dirnks, tax, or tip. The drink specials are still incredible, but their food pales in comparison.  
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3 comments:

  1. Cherry cream? $5 small plate and you're not full? Flautas taste like egg rolls? What exactly is a flauta? And what is an eggroll?

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  2. Sorry for the typos! Sherry not cherry... all fixed now. A flauta is a mexican dish I grew up with that usually consists of a rolled up corn tortilla that is filled with some sort of meat and crsipy fried. The flautas I'm used to have a distinct Mexican seasoning and are usually spicy, without that flavor they simply reminded me of duck eggrolls, or even a "southwest egg roll" still a tasty fried food, just not what I was looking for.

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