Restaurant Review: Canta Rana

For a long time Fruitville Road marked the northern border of downtown dining in Sarasota, but in the last five years restaurants have begun to cross that line. The latest is Canta Rana, a new Peruvian restaurant that has opened on the corner of Fruitville and Osprey Avenue, next to The Breakfast House.

This area, called Gillespie Village, has been undergoing gradual gentrification, and Canta Rana has settled in an attractively restored cottage. On the Osprey side a large shell-covered lot provides parking, and a ramp smelling of fresh wood runs up the side of the building and turns to the front entrance. A sign with a depiction of a jolly green frog in full-throated action reminds us that Canta Rana means “singing frog.”

With its engaging looks, wide-ranging menu and very reasonable prices, Canta Rana gives folks another good reason to dine north of Fruitville.

Inside, the arrangement balances a stylish modernity with comfort. New, light-colored hardwood floors give a sleek look, one emphasized by the color scheme, which consists of main walls painted a deep red with accent walls painted green and black. Black tablecloths complete the sophisticated look.

Adding to Sarasota’s already rich selection of Peruvian cooking, Canta Rana, which describes itself as featuring Peruvian Fusion Cooking, lives up to that billing with its many dishes building on the cuisines of other lands. Among these diners can find such examples as the Chinese inspired Arroz Chaufa ($11.99 – $13.99), better known as fried rice; a variation on Puerto Rican mofongo, Mofongo con Camarones al Aijillo ($14.99), which mixes shrimp and garlic into mashed plantains; a Paella Canta Rana ($28.99 for two), based on the famous Spanish dish; and, most intriguing to me, a dramatic twist on an Italian classic, Lasagna de Quinoa ($14.99), with the Peruvian grain standing in for the traditional noodle.

As inviting as some of these fusion blends sounded, we decided to stick with more purely Peruvian dishes. For appetizers that brought us to an Ocopo ($6.99) and a Tamalito Verde ($5.99). The ocopo is a potato dish bathed in a vivid green sauce whose prime ingredient is huacatay, known as black mint. Although I can’t explain how black mint comes out green, I can say that the sauce has great delicacy and complexity of flavor. It goes well with the boiled potatoes, whose blandness also allows the sauce to stand out, and its flavor is as cool and refreshing as I looks.

The Tamalito Verde ($5.99) is a tamale whose green color comes from cilantro, or so I’m told, because that evening the kitchen had substituted a rojo, or red, one. Whatever the color, it was an excellent version of a tamale, light and fluffy, studded with nuggets of chicken and olive, and if the red came from peppers, they were of the mild sort.

Canta Rana also carries the usual cevich dishes, for those who prefer to start their meal with one.
For the main course Canta Rana spreads its choices over seafood, pork, chicken and beef, with most of them reflecting their origins in the countryside. For example the exotic sounding Tacu Tacu ($13.99) will remind anyone from Louisiana of jambalaya, both dishes originating among poor people who needed to stretch their meager ingredients into a filling dish. For tacu tacu that means starting with a base of rice and beans—small white ones—then flavoring it with garlic and scallions, among other ingredients and then stuffing the mixture, as the menu describes it, with seafood, in this case mostly bay scallops.

An attractively presented Adobo ($12.99), which arrived in a hollowed-out wooden cylinder, also showed roots in simpler times. In this case, chunks of pork undergo a long marinade (the adobo) to tenderize them before being served with rice. The juicy, flavorful pork and seasoned rice made for a simple and robust dish.

Desserts finished the evening on a high note. A Flan de Coco ($4.99) was one of the best flans I’ve had in a long time, while a frothy Mousse de Lucuma ($4.99) gave me my first taste of lucuma, a Peruvian fruit with a fascinating caramel flavor.