Casa Verde brings Ecuadorian ceviche and plantain-heavy Latin dishes to Chinatown

Casa Verde Latin Kitchen opened in mid-June on Somerset Street West, in Ottawa's Chinatown. The Ecuadorian ceviche, made with shrimp and served with plantain chips, costs $26 and is the reviewer's favourite dish at lunch. The rest of the menu runs from the Verde Platter at $22.99 to a loaded patacón at $18.99, and at least half of its 10 signature items feature plantain, most often as patacones, unripe plantain chunks fried, smashed flat and fried again.

The broth is tomato-based and tangy, which the reviewer described as "very Ecuadorian," with toothsome chilled shrimp. The reviewer compared it with the Peruvian ceviche at Petit Peru in Hull and at Tayanti in the ByWard Market.

The tigrillo, at $19.99, is mashed green plantain with fried pork belly and two fried eggs. The arrocito bowl at $21.99 pairs steamed rice with patacones on the side. Plantain also turns up as a burger bun at $19.99. Nachos are $21 and salchipapa $14.99.

Chef and co-owner Adriana Plaza, a recent Algonquin College graduate from Ecuador, runs the kitchen. Her husband and co-owner Deymar Morales, from Colombia, works the front of house, and described the Verde Platter and the loaded patacón as traditional Colombian dishes. The room seats about two dozen in a plain, wood-lined setting. The address was home to Lola's Kitchen, the Filipino restaurant that moved two blocks west.

The reviewer called the menu compact and well-designed, the cooking "direct and tasty," and the room modest but welcoming.