Casa Panza Restaurant
- 1620 SW Eighth St.
- Little Havana, FL 33135
- 305-643-5343
- http://www.casapanza.com
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Located in the heart of Little Havana, in the colorful Calle Ocho, Casa Panza catches the eye with its Spanish fortress façade. Its gorgeous interior includes Spanish tile, bodega-style wooden wine racks, hanging ceramics and tablas taken over by flamenco dancers and cantaores. Its menu includes tapas, exquisite red wines, gazpacho, crema catalana and traditional Spanish entrees. A genuinely fun place where dinner turns into an all-night party.
Those Spaniards, they know how to have a good time. Take Casa Panza, a bright and friendly spot on Calle Ocho, site of Tuesday and Thursday flamenco dancing parties, romantic Spanish guitar on quieter nights, good food and drink all the time.
A place where they don't just hand you a wine list but bring the bottles to the table to choose from, urging you to pop one open and get the party started. Where the pitchers of sangria are as big as buckets and spiked deeply with rum. Where the coffee, brought at the end of our meal as a freebie, is sweetened with condensed milk -- and brandy. If by then you can see clearly enough to pay the bill, you'll wonder how you could have had so much fun at such a fair price.
The best food here is in nibbles, the Spanish appetizers called tapas. If you're a party of four, order maybe eight or nine; expect to pay about $5 apiece, and there's enough for a healthy sample for each of you.
Brought free to start was a tapa featured on the menu, patatas alioli ($3.45 a la carte). Presented along with thick slices of soft, angel-food-texture bread, the soft potatoes were coated with a thick slick of garlic-flavored mayonnaise, not creamy with the stuff, just enough to hold the salad together. Butter, too, was flavored with garlic, a theme here.
More garlic in the sopa de ajo ($2.95), a tureen supporting a delicate broth, fortified with strips of onion and bread, with slices of fresh garlic floating in there, too. We found it less garlicky than we wanted, albeit pleasant to sip, like a mild bouillon. Far more flavorful, and hearty enough to masquerade as an entree, is the caldo gallego ($2.95), the rich Spanish soup made with ham and ham fat, greens and white beans, warm and motherly, salty and soft to the teeth, an excellent version.
Tapas are split into hot ones and cold, ranging in price from $3 for a potato omelet to $5.50 for octopus or grilled sardines. That omelet tapa was a full quarter-size of the giant ones you get at Latin American Cafeteria, chock full of potato and onion though needy of salt.
We tried a number of other little bites, including gambas al infierno ($4.99), not quite shrimp from hell, but spicy indeed, dredged in garlic and oil and hot pepper, five shrimp in all. Plus mejillones en vinagreta ($4.99), four giant clams in their shells afloat like rafters in a pool of vinegar and minced vegetables, a pungent marinade for the sweet shellfish.
Patatas bravas ($3.50), the only hot potato dish, was spicy, too; chunks of soft browned potato coated with a fiery- hot red sauce, soft and delicious. Cooling things off was a pie-plate arrangement of queso manchego ($5.45), thin-cut triangles of mild Spanish cheese, simply fabulous with Spanish red wine.
Pollitos al ajillo ($4.50) were chicken tenders, sizzled in garlic, parsley and oil; all were marvelously flavored, though one of our half-dozen tenders was way overcooked.
Put in a request from the guitarist and dig into a couple of entrees (two are all you will need for your party of four, if you've dipped into a few tapas). We tried a pair from the sea, including pargo a la parrilla al perfume de ajo ($11.95), a simply grilled chunk of dolphin, drizzled with essence of garlic, served with two chunks of white potato, nothing more. The fat piece of fish was perfectly done, and the potato a quiet if filling bystander.
Zestier and more interesting, though, with another white potato, was camarones Costa del Sol ($11.50), a deep dish of 10- plus large shrimp in a bubbly tomato sauce that was a dead ringer for Creole, flavored with garlic, white wine, onion and pepper, yet mild. Shrimp were taut, fresh and good, and the sauce was savory, not oily; we wished we had asked for white rice on the side to soak it -- and some of the sangria -- up.
Choose from five homemade Spanish desserts, all $2.95, or do as we did and settle for the thick, strong, sweetened coffee, the one with the little kick. Whichever you choose, you'll get a kick out of Casa Panza.
Hours
Noon-2 a.m. Tuesday, Thursday-Sunday; noon-10 p.m. Monday, WednesdayDetails
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Recent Reviews
See all reviews- Current 78.8 °F
- It's a romantic night
- Dine alfresco on Miami Beach
Come here on the last Friday of each month for Little Havana”s "Cultural Nights". Live music, art gallery openings. I recommend the Tapas; you can order 2 per person and a bottle of wine (any Rioja will do). The Flamenco dancers will get you going. A lively place where you wont need your passport
Posted by: BOliva on Fri, 2008-03-21 17:01