Las Gaviotas Seafood, Cicero

I can't tell you how much I wanted to like this restaurant. First there's the neon Tecate sign in the window with the rolling soccer ball. Then there's the clean comfortable design, with sturdy diner-style turquoise chairs and formica tables. Best of all are the big wood panel paintings on the walls. A purple crab faces us in a menacing pose. A bird flies over a river with a smiling sun rising over the mountain. Two shrimp stand on their tales and dance. A blue octopus with giant eyes looks at the little yellow fish he's holding in one of his tentacles. Mexican soap operas on the tvs. It looked like front room was death and the back room was sex, but the front room was also where all the murals were so we put up with all the scenes of beautiful women weeping in and by hospital beds.

To my great relief, the food was excellent. It's strictly seafood. Even the kids' menu offers just a fish sandwich or fried fish. (Well, okay, out of the four or five pages, there's one section at the bottom of one page offering carne asada and beef or chicken fajitas--but that's it). Six or seven different fish soups. A whole page of shrimp (also available by the pound). Catfish offered in four or five different preparations.

In my effort to make scientific comparisons and keep myself happy, I ordered my campechana with shrimp and octopus. The presentation wasn't as classy as at Costa Azul; the shrimp were smaller and mixed in with the octopus instead of making a dramatic statement on top. (I'm sparing you my account of another place I ate at on the Cermak strip recently on the theory that maybe if I'd ordered something else it would have been good. But trust me, I now have very firmly in mind what a bad seafood cocktail tastes like ) But the seafood at Las Gaviotas was just as fresh and good as at Costa Azul and the sauce was even better.

Bill ordered one of the shrimp dishes, shrimp marinated in garlic and sauteed in the shell. Messy but fabulous. The shrimp were sitting on a nice little crispy collection of fried slices of garlic and scallions. As someone who's burned a lot of garlic in her time, I was particularly impressed that they got the garlic so nicely fried without burning any of it. I realize that sounds like faint praise, but I don't mean it that way. Just lots of great toasted garlic flavor and wonderful fresh shrimp. And lots of oil. There were two sauces to dip the shrimp in--not that they needed anything more. One was butter, garlic, and some herb. The other was some relative of tarter sauce--not impressive.

I'd be happy to work my way through their menu and report back as I do. In the meantime, give it a try. And take your camera. I wish I'd had mine.

Las Gaviotas Seafood
5830 Cermak
Cicero, IL

p.s. I forgot one interesting detail. Four hot sauces on the table. One from Mexico, a couple domestic, and one Thai.

Never let it be said I neglect a good lead from a member of the Fisher family; the most recent one, from Ed, was for Xni-Pec. I'm surprised it's taken me so long to take up Ma Fisher's rec of Las Gaviotas.

We had the Cocteles Campechana y Vuelve a la Vida – both full of plump and flavorful seafood; I really liked the firm scallops and the oysters were better than I've come to expect at south of the border seafood places (I realize that's potentially inflammatory, but I'm just going on a dozen or so such experiences in the past 18 months or so).

That’s a tostada of herring in the center there, which we also enjoyed. I thought it rare to run into herring in a Mexican joint…firm, tangy, nice.



This fried bass was under ten bucks. A helluva deal and tasty, fried hard, a la moda Mexicana.



There are scary paintings here:



Plus…a car wash!

Bumping this thread to say that last night Las Graviotas was as good as ever. Same funny paintings, same helpful but limited-English-speaking wait staff, same terrific food--with a special shout-out to the campechana. I want to add to the list of recommended dishes the bass fillet marinated in garlic. It comes looking like a simple piece of poached fish, but the taste is spectacular. I had the fried whole bass with garlic, pictured above, but next time I'm switching to the marinated fillet. The guest who had the fillet also really enjoyed the seafood soup, adding that it's very spicy.

Also, for those of you who, like me, sometimes bring non-seafood eaters to seafood restaurants, let me report that Bill said the steak fajitas were the best he'd ever eaten.

IMHO, this looks suspiciously like tilapia to me: