Homemade and Happening
Roja is NOT just another Tex-Mex restaurant, plenty of eye candy and dessert
By Jim Delmont
A new Roja Tex-Mex place has opened in the Old Market in the space that, a few restaurants ago, was occupied by the Garden Café. The new Roja does not occupy all of the huge space Garden Café had, but is still plenty roomy – a high-ceilinged spot with rough-hewn wooden beams, industrial ductwork, lots of brick and glass and bright red accents, as in the panels over the bar. The bar area is big, horseshoe-shaped, and full of 20-somethings meeting one another (boys looking for girls should hit Roja first – it was full of young women customers on a recent Saturday evening). The setting sun floods this attractive and noisy eatery with light and the mood is upbeat. It holds about 250 inside, including bar, and another 50 to 60 outside on an attractive sidewalk patio. Three hours of free parking is available in a ramp right next door.
Roja chef Alex Tomes is continuing the culinary policies he oversaw at the West Roja location: made-from-scratch corn and flour tortillas, homemade chips and salsa, seafood flown in daily, a chicken mole enchilada with an authentic mole-cum-chocolate recipe, fresh guacamole, lots of combo offerings and more than 100 different tequilas. The result is a real restaurant, not just another Tex-Mex place.
“Tony (Gentile) spent a lot of time on this menu,” Tomes said. “We went back and looked at internal ingredients – all sauces and fillings – and tweaked or changed a lot of things. We poach chicken now so it is moister, and fire-roast our green chiles for a smoky flavor. We looked at flavor combinations, added some new combos: the Puerco Guapo, a pulled pork enchilada with a pork tamale and adobo pork tacos, plus green chile; and the Don Carmelo, a cheese chile relleno with red chile and a beef enchilada.” The corn chips that everyone gets with salsa are light, golden corn chips made fresh daily.
Corporate chef for both Roja locations, Gentile is originally from Texas and has a handle on Tex-Mex from that angle, too. “We downisized our menu a bit,” he said, “and went more traditional.” Gentile is a partner in the restaurant group that also owns three Blue Sushi spots in Omaha and a new one in Ft. Worth, Texas. The result of changes over the past year or two at both Roja locations is an emphasis on freshness, made-from-scratch, bright but not overbearing seasoning and flavors, and some imagination in appetizers and combos.
The soft shell tacos are not listed as appetizers but would be splendid choices – imaginative and a bit elegant, they are folded into warm soft tamales, rather like thick crepes. The Carne Asada taco, rich in flavor, has seared fajita beef with onions, a fresh lively salsa verde, avocado, fresh cilantro and lime juice and queso fresco, a moist, mildly acidic cheese. The Adobo taco is new: seared pork nubs with mango adobo (a marinade), avocado, pickled red radish, queso cheese and fresh cilantro – but the pork nubs could have been tenderized a bit more. The Al Carbon taco has seared, marinated chicken with achiote, orange juice, red onion, cilantro and questo fresco cheese, getting its color from the achiote paste and orange juice. The salsa verde in some dishes is made from fresh green tomatillos and is bright with flavor. There are several other tacos, including a veggie choice – and all are around ten bucks for two tacos.
But the regular appetizer menu has some knockouts, too: an absolutely terrific skewered, grilled shrimp offering – Shrimp Alambres ($9.99), in which plump shrimp are wrapped in bacon, magically grilled on a hybrid grill that does use some wood for smokier flavoring, perfectly turned out so that the bacon is neither undercooked (as is so often the case) or overcooked. The bacon, shrimp and lemon-butter dip flavors meld into ambrosia. These are also available in fajitas. They do a huge tamale here (pork or chicken) at about ten dollars with beans and rice.
Two soups were wunderbar, if better for cooler weather, but worth a try anytime: a delicious tortilla soup with pulled chicken, jack cheese, avocado, cilantro and hominy in a spicy broth; and a pork green chile soup, homemade from stock, thicker and more pungent than the tortilla soup, with sour cream, tomatilloes, jack cheese, and tortilla strips strewn across the surface. This is more like traditional chili. Both soups are $5.99. Nachos and lots of other appetizers beckon – and guacamole as a side dish is made fresh twice daily.
You can get a regular cheese enchilada if you like (cheese and onion with chili at $9.99), but more interesting is the shrimp and crab version with chile verde or green chile sour cream ($11.99). The freshness of the ingredients, including the shrimp, are evident and fresh pumpkin seeds scattered on top provide a crunch. Fajitas (mostly $12 to $14) are excellent, with tender, seasoned steak or shrimp or chicken – or a combination. They are now available in combination for one, rather than two, as previously, with choice of corn or homemade flour tortillas
The chile chicken verde chicken enchilada is made, if you choose, with an authentic mole sauce – including a bit of Mexican chocolate with cinnamon ($9.99). Roja does a chile relleno that is not cooked to limpness, with choice of sauce. New are Picadas – masa cakes, deep fried like pancakes, topped with mashed black beans, hand-pulled chicken, fire-roasted chiles, cilantro, lettuce, tomato, sour cream and Mexican cheese. They are like small, thick pizzas ($10.99).
Sauces – a half dozen of them, are listed on the menu and described in detail, as you have choices with most dishes. The beans that come with rice as a side, are never mushy; they remain firm and sport a bright flavor ingeniously arrived at by being prepared in rendered bacon fat, dark chili powder, cumin, garlic, carmelized onion and even a little beer.
The enormous tequila list (a beverage available in four sizes), is unique, as are some of the fancy margaritas and specialty drinks. Dos Equis amber (on tap) was a perfect beverage with this fare, but a short wine list with good prices is an alternative. The beer list could be expanded to include some European and American specialty beers.
Desserts include traditional sopapillas – but smaller and more dense, like New Orleans beignets and, like beignets, served with powdered sugar ($4.99), plus Kahlua chocolate cheese cake, fried ice cream and the house specialty, Cookie Dough Chimichanga ($5.99) – a thick, crisp chimichanga wrapper filled with what appeared to be a fudgy chocolate-cinnamon-sugar filling and topped with raspberry and chocolate sauces with a side of home-made ice cream.
This is not a Tex-Mex spot where everything seems the same, covered with gloppy, gloopy cheese. Here the independent ingredients of each dish can be tasted and savored – and everything is fresh, most of it made to order.