When you enter Talara, the Nuevo Latino Bistro in the Inner Harbor East section of Baltimore, you are captivated by the beautiful Latino art pieces hanging throughout the restaurant. The vibrant colors and music transport you to the tropics immediately. It's a great place to plan a group night out. The tropical fluorescent scheme works surprisingly well with the open atmosphere and natural light. Want to see what's cooking in the kitchen? It's not hard. In fact, you can peek in through the huge window where you will most likely find Talara Executive Chef James Rogers cooking the fare for the day. Chef Rogers is enthusiastic when talking food. He believes in and prides himself on the freshness of the product he uses at Talara.
One thing that sets Talara apart is its seviche bar. Seviche (also spelled ceviche or cebiche) is attributed to Peru. Its traditional preparation uses fresh seafood marinated with fresh lime juice. At Talara, a mix of ingredients (not just seafood) is marinated in the fresh lime juice and jalapeno pepper mixture. Talara's traditional menu is usually served on a fresh corn tortilla chips. The Seviche menu includes: Jumbo Lump Crab meat seviche, Ginger Tataki, Asian Tartare, and Curried Tropical Fruit seviche and other selections.
All selections were extremely fresh; however, the cream that rose to the top for this MCCN reporter was the Asian Tartare and Jumbo Lump Crab. The Asian Tartare was prepared with soy sauce, scallions, sesame oil and capers, and served on sushi rice and nori rolls with white truffle oil, wasabi mayonnaise, Tobiko caviar and fried lotus root. The Jumbo Lump Crab had a very clean taste with a nice pop, attributed to the marinated lime juice mixture. Speaking of mixtures, another mixture that was quite enjoyable was the non-alcoholic Mango Mojito made with mango puree and fresh mint. One of the waiters named "Slum Dog" (Don't ask!) recommended this one and it was a great compliment to the seviche.
Talara offers a tapas menu as well as mid-plates. Among the mid-plates offerings you'll find the traditional appetizing Spanish saffron rice dish - Paella de Mariscos. They offer a very generous helping chock full of calamari, mussels, diver scallop, Chorizo and shrimp. If you love seafood, you will enjoy this hearty and delicious dish.
And then there was cake! Oh yes...cake! The dessert was a welcomed, wet and wonderful treat. Tres Leches cake (Three Milk Cake) is a very popular dessert in Central America and Mexico. The three kinds of milk usually used are evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream, but at Talara, the heavy cream is ix-nayed in favor of coconut milk. A wet cake may not be everybody's cup of tea, but this is a sponge cake, so although it is wet, it's not a soggy mess that breaks apart easily. To the contrary it is actually very sturdy and dense without tasting heavy. The Tres Leches cake was topped with fresh strawberry and strawberry sauce – a sweet ending to our MCCN Talara visit.
Click here to view Talara's website
