Tropical tastes
Latin traditions get a modern edge at Sabor Tropical in Bay View.
You can get mofongo, Puerto Rico’s green-plaintain mash that’s heady with garlic, around Milwaukee, but often not the way Sabor Tropical in Bay View serves its mofongo rellenos: traditionally, in a pilón, or Puerto Rican mortar, with a modern garnish of microgreens.
Mofongo, flecked with bits of fried pork skin, lines the mortar’s bowl. The center is filled with what you will — chicken, shrimp, even lobster or a seafood combination ($15 to $24). What I will is carne frita ($17); those crisped chunks of fried pork against creamy, garlicky plantain are perfection to me.
Sabor Tropical, calling itself a Latininspired kitchen and lounge, opened late last year in the former site of Mexican restaurant Riviera Maya, which moved down the block on KK.
Sabor stretches its menu beyond Puerto Rican dishes to include some from Cuba, Peru, Mexico and Argentina. Food there is presented with care and a modern edge.
And the restaurant itself, where a mural of famous Latino musicians oversees the dining area, leans a little upscale; it’s got some polish for date night. You might see families having dinner early in the evening, and tables of 20somethings later at night, cocktails at hand.
Still, Sabor Tropical is relaxed, and the menu has expanded its casual options in the past few months under a new chef. There’s now a build-your-own burger section that includes toppings (at $1 or $2) that you won’t see at Five Guys, among them chorizo, sweet plantain and guacamole (that came across as a little sweet, oddly).
The patty itself ($7), an Angus 7-ouncer cooked well-done by default, tasted unremarkable — it needed more flavor, more juice, more fat. But get the chimichurri ($1) to douse it with, and the sauce’s herbs and oil transform it into a burger to savor. For $3 more, diners can have it with steak fries, tostones or, my favorite, yuca sticks, firmer, starchier fries.
Also added to the menu: El Jibarito with fries ($11), the Puerto Rican sandwich by way of Chicago. In place of bread, enormous flattened plantain freshly fried, piping hot and crisp; in between are thin, grilled rib-eye steak pieces (or chicken breast, or pulled pork) that are layered with tomato and lettuce. It’s a great sandwich for Sabor Tropical’s daily lunch, but it’s served at dinner, as well, as is the Cuban sandwich ($10) that’s built on proper Cuban bread.
Easily shared appetizers get dinner started, like tostones rellenos ($8 to $10 for three), little fried plaintain cups filled with a choice of chicken, pork, steak or shrimp in lightly spicy sauce with avocado cream. Or empanadillas, the appealingly crisp little turnovers filled with Cuban-style ground beef ($3), shrimp in Puerto Rican Creole sauce ($4), spicy chicken ($3) or pulled pork ($3).
Entrées can be grilled, like the outstanding churrasco Argentino ($23), 10 ounces of expertly prepared skirt steak that’s better than some steaks you’d have elsewhere at twice the price. It’s topped with a choice of sauces, chimichurri, shiitake gravy or oil with rosemary, thyme and garlic. The churrasco and other grilled items come with one of a dozen side-dish choices, such as Puerto Rican rice (moist rice with pigeon peas), garlic mashed potatoes and mofongo.
Other plates are complete, like the mofongo rellenos, or flaky grouper ($15) in tomato-based Creole sauce with bell peppers and onions, served with yuca fries.
Ropa vieja ($12) was a miss, though. It wasn’t flavor of the Cuban dish — flank steak in tomato, bell pepper and onion — but the texture. Long cooking should render the meat into shreds meant to resemble old clothes or rags, but here it was cubed like stew awash in sauce.
Main dishes can be substantial, but Sabor Tropical wisely has some lighter dishes on hand: a salad of greens with corn, avocado and black beans that gets its snap from pickled onion, grilled bell pepper and jalapeño-lime vinaigrette ($10), for one; avocado halves ($15), for another, stuffed with shrimp, or chicken, or steak, or pork, and served with seasoned rice and beans — Puerto Rico’s mamposteao rice.
There’s a vegan hot main dish, too, a stew of lentils, red beans and chickpeas in tomato sauce and sofrito, the Puerto Rican flavor-booster of garlic, onions, cilantro and peppers ($10) — delicious.
With that dish, Sabor Tropical’s menu has something for everyone. And the way it looks to traditional dishes through a modern lens is entirely appealing.
Carol Deptolla has been reviewing restaurants in Milwaukee and Wisconsin since 2008. She investigates the dining scene anonymously, to make sure she’s getting the same experience that the rest of us receive. When she reviews a restaurant, she visits at least three times to better evaluate food and service. In her visits, she usually brings along other diners to sample as many flavors as possible. Like all Journal Sentinel reporters, she buys all meals, accepts no gifts and is independent of all establishments she covers, working only for our readers.
Contact her at carol.deptolla@ jrn.com or (414) 224-2841, or through the Journal Sentinel Food & Home page on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter at @mkediner or Instagram at @mke_ diner.