Located inside a Citgo station, El Carajo ("crow's nest") was carved out of a wine shop where you can buy retail from the 2,000-bottle inventory and have wine with your meal for a $10 corkage fee. This is a good place to come with a group of friends and share a few rounds of tapas at one of the sturdy wood tables set in a faux courtyard with Moorish-fortress look. Choose from beef carpaccio with Manchego, grilled octopus with seafood, potato tortilla, marinated olives, chorizo sausage in cider and cheese plates with quince paste. The house specials are paella of the day and planks-wooden boards heaped with grilled meats, sausages, peppers and potatoes or seafood. Save room for sinful desserts including soursop flan with fruit.
Richard Fonseca and his cousin Jorge Reyes caused quite a stir last year when they opened a café on Red Road named El Carajo. The dictionary meaning of the Spanish term is crow's nest, and their logo includes the mast and crow's nest of a Spanish galleon, but West Miami officials focused on its slang use as a vulgarity for, shall we say, another erect structure.
The fuss died down when the city learned it couldn't deny them a sign permit, and now Fonseca and Reyes have opened a second, larger El Carajo International Tapas and Wines, this one inside the Citgo gas station at U.S. 1 and Southwest 17th Avenue.
Cuban immigrants who arrived in Miami via New Jersey in 1980, Fonseca and Reyes owned gas stations and were mechanics before getting into the restaurant business through their love of wine. They carved out the café in a wine shop that had been inside the station for 16 years.
They transformed part of the shop into a faux courtyard with a Moorish-fortress look. One wall is painted like bricks while the other has decorative arabesque arches. Sturdy wood tables, wrought-iron chairs and wooden ceiling beams complete the decor.
The food, by Argentine-born, Italian-trained chef Luis Javier Cano, includes hot and cold tapas, salads, soups, pastas, seafoods and meats. Drop by for a wine tasting at the bar and stay for a round of tapas or a full meal. This is a perfect place to bring a group of friends.
Start with rosy-red slices of beef carpaccio plated with paper-thin ribbons of celery, slices of carrot and a pyramid of Manchego cheese dressed in extra-virgin olive oil with a touch of vinegar and ground capers. Salpicón de mariscos brings a heap of grilled and vinaigrette-marinated octopus with clams and mussels in the shell topped with a grilled, split, blue-legged langouste (sea crawfish).
Other cold tapas include marinated olives, octopus in vinaigrette, corvina ceviche, fresh anchovies, potatoes in garlic alioli and a cheese plate with quince paste. Hot tapas range from potato tortilla (Spanish omelet) and chorizo sausage in cider sauce to mushrooms sautéed in cabernet, grilled sardines and shrimp in garlic sauce.
The house special is paella of the day and planks -- a wooden board or tabla heaped with grilled meats, blood sausage bell peppers and wedges of potato that are parboiled, deep fried and finished in a special sauce. The seafood tabla includes grilled fish, squid, shrimp, mussels, clams and octopus with potatoes and peppers. The ''love table'' comes laden with beef carpaccio, steak, caviar, osso buco, lobster empanadas and chocolate-dipped strawberries.
If you have room, end with creamy, guanabana (soursop) flan with caramelized bananas and strawberries. You can pay retail for a wine from the shop's 2,000-bottle inventory and have it with your meal for a $10 corkage fee -- we'll drink to that!
