Dining Out: Casa B in Somerville

Beef tenderloin sandwich, $10.

Cabré is particularly skilled when it comes to tapas. Actually, almost everything on the menu could be considered a small bite. Even the accompanying cutlery is miniature (though full-size utensils are available upon request). The selection of pinchos—hors d’oeuvres on nicely charred bread—includes mini beef tenderloin sandwiches ($10) served open-faced and topped with sautéed sweet onions, Cabré’s grandmother’s spice-doctored ketchup, and crisp fried shallots. Next time you crave a slider, try this instead. Or, if you’re feeling mildly adventurous, go for a pincho topped with one of Cabré’s grandfather’s specialties: chicken gizzards that have been slowly sautéed with butter and onions ($9).

Typical rookie mistakes keep Casa B from being more exciting. Too many dishes on the menu yield inconsistent results, and some surprisingly persistent service glitches included forgotten orders at two separate meals that only appeared at the table with repeated prodding—and sometimes not until dessert had arrived.

And aside from the ceviches, lightness is hard to come by—even in the salads. One, a clever Spanish take on a French frisée aux lardons, is a blend of fresh green and yellow beans overdressed in an oily vinaigrette and served over a cilantro aioli and frisée, with bits of sautéed Serrano ham ($14). Better is a Spanish take on the German potato salad—boiled yuca wedges ($14) marinated in cilantro vinaigrette and accompanied by roasted red pepper, a poached egg, and cubes of the aforementioned Colombian cheese.

Bean-and-frisée salad, $14

Yuca, that ubiquitous Latin-American tuber, is displayed at Casa B in its full versatility. In the “empanada de yuca” ($18), it’s ground up to thicken a coconut-milk soffritto, which is folded with crabmeat to become the filling for a yuca dough that’s grilled in banana leaves. The empanada is served unwrapped, like a giant tamale. The sweetness of the crab, tomato, and yuca, combined with the spice of an olive-and-pepper-infused criollo sauce, will entice you to finish the generous portion.

The kitchen falters most with its fancified larger courses. In a deconstructed seafood stew with a light tomato sauce ($25), the seafood is cooked separately and then combined at the last minute, which means the flavors don’t meld. When I tried the dish, the white wine in the tomato sauce was too alcoholic, and wasn’t given enough time to simmer and mellow. Arroz con pollo ($18), served in a cone-shaped mold of yellow rice with chicken, wine, and soffritto filling, was mealy and dry. Pot roast with yuca gnocchi in sage-infused brown butter was drowning in the rich sauce ($15). Much better were the nicely herbed albondigas, or beef meatballs, served in a guava-tomato sauce with sautéed onions ($10).

Cabré recovers—and it’s strong—on desserts. You’ll fall in love with his huge mound of soft, lush, sweet tres leches cake, served with a cinnamon-strewn meringue over a thick chocolate ganache ($10). Homemade ladyfinger-shaped, crisp meringues are filled with passion-fruit curd and whipped cream, then plated over a pool of raspberry sauce with a piped flower-shaped squiggle of Taza chocolate ($10). Cabré says the dessert is popular in his wife’s Colombian hometown, and, like everything else at Casa B, he’s made it elegant and quite good, too.

Casa B’s warm yet modern dining room includes a “living wall” of plants and lots of white accents.

Other Menu Highlights
Crab-and-yuca empanadas, $18
Tres leches cake, $10.

Critic Corby Kummer—an editor at The Atlantic and author of The Pleasures of Slow Food—has been reviewing Greater Boston’s top restaurants in our pages since 1997.