Carnivorous

I've passed by La Bella Managua many times on my way to Lalibela or Banjara. Wednesday night, I decided to check out this Nicaraguan restaurant. A cheery waitress greeted me as I sat down. The ambience was equally cheerful: yellow tables and posts, paintings of ships in harbours, wooden xylophones, ceramic urns and aztec figurines. Toe-tapping latin music played over the speakers.

I ordered the mixed ceviche ($8.95) for the appetizer and a carne asada ($11.99). I would have ordered a dessert as well but the waitress warned me that I might want to hold off as there was already a lot of food. Indeed, when the shrimp and fish ceviche came out, it was a generous amount for an appetizer. The chopped up lime-juice marinated shrimp and fish tasted good, especially with a dollop of habanero sauce. But I would have preferred that the fish be a little more raw a la Foxley for that great mouth-feel. The ceviche came with a huge mound of warm fried plantain chips and a couple of slices of avocado. The slightly sweet and crispy chips went great with the dish.

The carne asada was huge. A couple of generous strips of grilled beef steak rested on a large pile of gallo pinto (purple rice and 2 kinds of beans), I asked for both sweet and green fried plantains, and a cabbage salad with avocado. The steaks were well-done and had a nice smokey flavour (yum ... seared meat - this is not the place to get vegetarian dishes). But not surprisingly, since they were cheaper cuts of meat, I had to spit out about 3 small pieces when all attempts to completely chewed through them failed. The green plantains turned out to be the crispy chips from the ceviche. For this dish, the sweet plantain was better. The rice and beans were soft and chewy, and tasted differently from the typical rice and beans from Jamaican or Mexican places. I wonder if it's a different kind of rice? The cabbage was just for roughage, and was not improved by the sauce: a chopped onion, spicy chili, and lime juice mix that was too sour for me. It was definitely a full and belt-busting meal.


La Bella Managua is not a destination restaurant but I think it will replace El Jacal as the go-to Latin-American restaurant for me. Next time, I will order smaller plates so that I have room for the Cacao juice (made with Nicaraguan cocoa, according to the waitress) and Bunuelo, deep-fried dough fritter with yucca, for dessert.