Willow, Latin Cantina
811 South Broadway
Fells Point, MD 21231
(443) 835-4086
Another friend and I came upon this restaurant on a
trip to Fell’s point about six months ago and it looked really cute and the
menu looked very good, so I told Melissa about it and we decided to try it.
Unfortunately, Willow turned out to be an illustration of the veracity of the
phrases, looks can be deceiving and you can’t judge a book by its cover. This
“cantina” left a lot to be desired. The menu and the face of the place are the
only things about it that were cute and/or good.
The décor included broken furniture, mismatched
couches and mirrors, old shag carpets and windows with no view. It was a
mishmash of items, almost as if they gave every employee a wall to decorate
with stuff from home. When you walk in the front door there is a small seating
area to the right. Behind this is a bar that takes up the middle of the
restaurant. Behind the bar is a lounge area. The lounge area is where the three
mismatched couches are situated in a three sided seating area. These sofas sit atop a 1970’s slightly dingy
shag carpet of indiscriminate color. Behind the sofas are a mirror and TVs with
different stations on and no sound emanating from them. The bottom line here is
that this restaurant could use a good top to bottom cleaning and a consult with
an interior decorator.
This restaurant is located right on the square in
Fells Point, MD across from BOP (brick oven pizza), Pitango gelato and Adela,
all restaurants we have reviewed and greatly enjoyed. Metered street
parking is the only available parking. This is not the sort of restaurant where
we would take anyone… friends, family, coworkers… enemies. Neither of us can
think of anyone we would chose to take here. Mostly because we won’t be going
back under any circumstance ourselves. The service was one of the better things
about the restaurant, I will say, the staff being friendly and the owner/head
chef coming over and introducing himself and recommending dishes as well as
checking on our progress periodically. The prices are fine but the food, though
perhaps well conceptualized was not well executed. Overall, we give Willow ♪ and a half. The half is given only because the service was pretty
good and the menu only needs slight tweaking to be better.
QUESO FLAMEADO
This dish was prepared tableside and served with house made
tortilla chips. It consisted of queso fresco and manchego cheese flamed
with brandy and topped with chorizo, almonds and fresh cilantro. The chips were
handmade with herbs and were light and crunchy if a bit greasy. The cheeses
used are very mild and not very flavorful on their own causing them to pick up
the flavor of the chorizo and brandy well. The almonds added a slight sweetness
but would have been much better toasted. The texture of the cheese was not the
best for the dish however. It did not melt smoothly and became spongy as it lost
heat, but was good while it lasted.
DUCK CONFIT AND AVOCADO SPRING ROLLS
This dish consisted of preserved duckling and fresh avocado,
wrapped in rice paper and fried. It was accompanied by a spicy pineapple
mango sauce. The duck was a bit dry but had a good flavor. The spicy sauce was
flavorful and complemented the duck well.
CRISPY CAULIFLOWER TACOS/TOSTADAS
You are given the choice to have this dish served as three tacos
or tostados. We chose tacos. This dish consisted of breaded cauliflower topped
with cheese, smoked tomato salsa, mushroom confit and shaved onion. The
breading was unnecessary. Cauliflower has a very delicate flavor and there was
too much salt and old bay flavoring added. These things resulted in the flavor
of the cauliflower being obscured and overpowered. There was too much onion as
well. The accompanying smoked tomato salsa was good. The mushroom confit added
a bit of earthiness but was also a bit obscured here.
TUNA TARTAR TACO
Here too, you are given the choice to have this dish served as
three tacos or tostados and we chose tacos. This dish consisted of fresh ahi
tuna dressed with sesame poblano dressing. This was then topped with cheese,
fresh tomato salsa, cucumber, wasabi vinaigrette and fresh avocado. The tuna
tartare was flavorful, but was unfortunately cooked to mush. It was so bad it
could have been spread onto a cracker like pate… ick. Anyone who has been with
us a while KNOWS how much Angela likes tuna tartare… SMH. It was a sin and a
shame how that poor tuna was treated. The cheese was completely unnecessary in
this dish. I am not sure why it was necessary to have two different kinds of
dressing here either. One or the other would have done nicely.
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