The Ceviche Mixto At Logan Square S Ceviche Lights Up The Night

• Mike Sula
• Ceviche mixto, in the cruel light of the iPhone

I was right chuffed when I read the menu description for the ceviche mixto at Logan Square’s aptly named Ceviche, a new Peruvian restaurant from the folks behind the well-established and well-liked Ay Ay Picante. Not only are the actual menus from Ay Ay Picante itself employed here, but the classic dish is said to be composed of a “variety of seafood and tilapia,” as if the proprietors recognize that tofu with fins, as the Houston Chronicle once put it, doesn’t really count as seafood. But that’s why tilapia is an ideal species for ceviche, as it soaks in all that salivatory leche de tigre; sharp lime and fruity, stinging rocoto pepper, an almost creamy, pink-tinged elixir that transforms the fillet into firm, nearly chewy fish flesh. It does a pretty good job on the fat shrimp, calamari, and strips of sweet red onion too. The whole plate is starched up with a serving of choclo, or hominy, and a slab of sweet potato for $14.

• Mike Sula
• Ceviche