“How’s it,” she asked as he took a bite of the ham and cheese croquette. She was yet to start on hers.
“It’s out of the world,” he replied. The crunchy bread-crumb-covered deep-fried ham and cheese ball, with a cheesy mushy heart, melted in his mouth like ambrosia. Food for the Gods. The dash of roasted pepper sauce that crowned the croquettes added an electrifying touch to each bite.
“They are fabulous,” she said once she had one, and added, “I like it that they are smaller in size than the croquettes we had in Spain. This makes them easier to manage.”
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| Croquette Nazis |
They gobbled the croquettes as if there was no tomorrow and he was not sure at the end who had more and hoped that they were shared equally. Chivalry and all that jazz you know.
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| Kale & brussel sprouts, La Loca Maria. Don’t miss the murir moa in white. |
Next came the kale and Brussels sprouts salad. He wryly observed that they would never order salads when they ate out back in the day. Twenty-one years of marriage and the physiological changes that these brought in, made them salad people today.
They both liked the crunch of the salad. She found the passionfruit dressing a bit too tart. He did not mind it as he liked his salads to be vinegary. He smiled when he read the words ‘seeds granola’ on the menu. It was nothing but the murir moa that he had grown up in on Kolkata!
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| Charred octopus, La Loca Maria |
“I have never had octopus cooked so well,” she said after trying out the charred octopus.
“I agree,” he concurred.
Octopus is rarely available on Indian menus but he had had them often outside of India and liked the texture of the one served here. Not chewy at all, beyond what’s natural to this 8 tentacled shellfish.
“I like the crunch of the sweet potatoes in the dish,” he said, ever the slave to the temptations of the deep-fried world. “The tomato chutney is dense and choppy and pairs well with the crunch.” He did not actually say this. That would have been rather nerdy!
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| Grilled steak, La Loca Maria |
Then came the grilled tenderloin with lots of fanfare. The sprinkling of coarse salt on it reminded him of the steaks of Barcelona.
“A bit disappointing,” she said after she took a bite.
He could not agree more. He had asked for medium rare but this erred on the side of medium. Its chewy texture made eating it feel like strength training for the teeth. The meat was water buffalo. The reason why he does not order steaks in India. In most cases, they lead to deep angst. This was no exception.
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| Few moments before the heartbreak |
‘The mushroom ragu is nice,” he said.
“And the potatoes too,” she added.
You know how a dish is when the sides get praised instead. On the plus side, the steak was seasoned perfectly.
3 out of 4. That’s not a bad score.
They had gone to La Loca Maria in its early days when it operated out of a small outlet. They were underwhelmed. He kept his counsel, even when he saw people rave about it. He had reached a stage in life where he would rather move on than diss a place.
He went back a couple of months back to the new location which is much larger and brighter. He went with a former colleague of theirs from the ad agency where they first met. She is vegetarian and he ordered the mushroom and truffle (oil) croquettes and paella de verduras. Vegetable paella. This was actually vegetarian unlike the one with seafood he had been served at the house of the Director of Gastronomy of the Catalan Government when invited home at Barcelona. The gentleman said his daughter had recently turned vegetarian apart and hence the ‘vegetarian’ version.
Coming back to La Loca Maria, he found the food, service and ambience good enough this time to go back with the missus and was happy to see that she had a good time when he eventually did. The cheerful ambiance and warm service added to the experience.
A feature common across each of my three visits over four years was the calm but very focused presence of chef-owner Manual Olveira Seller at the pass. Need I say more.
Update: I saw the shorts of my earlier visit to the new venue. I tried the charred octopus then too and liked it. I had the braised lamb and enjoyed it more than I had the tenderloin this time. We had the mushroom and told them not to put truffle oil and that worked out well. The veg paella was well received.
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| Chef Manual Olveira Sellar at the pass |
Edited By: Baby Loaf
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| Google says La Loca means crazy |
