Broaden your horizons by eating someone else’s comfort food

There’s a theory that for any foreign cuisine to take root and become popular in the UK, its various traditions, flavours, ingredients and dishes have to be boiled down into a series of easily understandable archetypes. Unfortunately for an island that happily and absentmindedly trades in cliches and stereotypes, that means culinary cliches and stereotypes. Y’know how it goes. The continent-sized collections of gastronomic customs from China and India have been dumbed down to become chow mein and fried rice, curries and poppadums. Thai food, and all the rich, varied produce inherent to it, has been tabloidified as red and green curries with the interchangeable factory farm protein of your choice.

If Ecuadorian food were to ever get such treatment, it probably wouldn’t follow the pattern at Rincon Costeno in Elephant and Castle. Offal and seafood, alone and in combination, are easy enough to remember, but will be off putting to the many people out there with stunted neonatal tastes. That does leave more room for the rest of us to enjoy Rincon Costeno’s many-splendored menu.

Soups from Rincon Costeno

The ‘soups’ at Rincon Costeno shouldn’t be overlooked, and not just because they’re often hearty enough to be a light/midweight meal in of themselves.

Caldo de Manguera paired slices of black pudding flecked with rice, reminiscent of andouillette and Korean sundae, with squid-like rings of rumen tripe. The thin and lightly oily, yet moreish and earthy soup bound the hearty and tender twosome together to delicious effect.

Yaguarlocro was a similarly thin and umami soup. It wasn’t quite as barnstorming as the Caldo de Manguera though, if only because the rumen tripe had been finely chopped, losing much of their dimpled mouthfeel in the process. It was still heartily filling though, with plenty of potato and grainy black pudding to go around, as well as avocado on the side for more added richness.

Encebollado de Pescado had an almost bisque-like aroma. This already eminently slurpable soup was helped along by meaty chunks of tuna, sharp red onions and starchy yet light blocks of spud-like cassava. It could’ve done with far more of the latter, but that was my only complaint here.

Menudo con papas y mote was a soup of bold textures. Bobbing in the moreish liquid were firm, meaty strips of dimpled rumen tripe, hearty potatoes and firm, then yielding soft kernels of mote corn. There’s nothing meek or apologetic about this soup, and nor should there be.

Although made from peanuts the thick Papa Mixta soup was reminiscent of sweet potato, albeit with more nuttiness and less sweetness. While enjoyable enough, it wasn’t as winsome on its own terms as some of the other soups here. The velvety rumen and omasum tripe and tender potatoes more than picked up the slack though.

Offal and seafood dishes from Rincon Costeno

The honeycomb tripe in the Bandera, chopped into narrow strips, suffered from the same lack of mouthfeel as the rumen tripe in the Yaguarlocro. It came in a thin peanut sauce that had a one-note moreishness to it, but it was genteel and inoffensive enough. Meaty swordfish and shrimp, served on the side, had the benefit of a modestly tangy and sprightly brine. That seafood duo seemed like an afterthought, rather than an integral part of the dish, although the two parts were enjoyable enough on their own terms.

Dense and meaty hunks of swordfish came in a coconut-based sauce. The latter wasn’t anywhere as cloyingly dull as I had feared with a lightly creamy consistency and a crisp sweetness. The comforting, cosseting feel of this dish was helped along by lashings of soft, small-grained rice and caramelised plantain.

Fritto misto (or misto fritto as the menu words it) consisted of surprisingly high quality seafood. Plump prawns, firm squid and juicy white fish, cooked just-so, were joined by a cluster of briney mussels, clams and cockles. Only the predictably leaden scampi let the side down. The whole shebang came dusted in a crisp, airy and feathery light batter that, apart from the odd touch of grease, easily outclasses most other deep-fried efforts in this city.

Crisp, puffy and light chips, made from cassava rather than potato, were similarly exemplars of their kind. Deep-fried plaintains, dense but also stodgy, were not.

Deep-fried tilapia wasn’t as accomplished as the fritto misto. The thin curlices of the batter, seemingly lifted from some fried chicken, were crunchy and moreish, but also a touch too oily. The white fish itself was a touch dry in places and only reasonably light, but the fish flesh did shear away from the many bones easily enough.

I suspect the ‘roasted’ tripe had actually been pan-fried given the amount of grease, but these stomach strips were still firm and wrinkly enough to be eminently scoffworthy.

Meat dishes from Rincon Costeno

The goat stew was a more coherent and thus more satisfying dish than the Bandera. Tender, earthy goat meat came off the bone easily, the sweetness and sourness of the lightly fruity sauce sticking easily to every chunk and sinew.

Rincon Costeno’s version of pork hornado was a disappointing effort, the large expanse of bland whiteness made palatable only by some tender moistness and an intermittently salty and moreishly browned crust. The included carby sides helped pick up some of the slack. Subtly hominy-like mote corn was texturally intriguing, going from firm to puffy in a single mouthful. The notable thing about the wee discs of tortilla de papa wasn’t their gentle sweetness, but their light and fluffy texture, somewhere in between that of gnocchi and mashed potato. Which is suitably apt for a potato-based side dish.

Breaded chicken escalope was an unexpectedly joyous plateful. The breading was fine-crumbed, crispy and grease-free, while the flattened chook underneath was moist with a slight gamey quality to it. Of the two complimentary carbs, the soft and separated small grained rice was preferable to the thin, weedy and floppy fries. After such doughty dollops of carbs and deep-fried meat, the sharply refreshing salad of red onion and tomato was highly welcome.

If you’d prefer your pounded escalope to be of beef rather than chicken, then it’s just as good with salty rump as a fine budget bovine drop-in.

Miscellaneous dishes from Rincon Costeno

Cured lupini beans, which could be taken as either a starter or a side, had a vegetal fattiness that meshed well with the nutty crunch of toasted corn. Even so, the whole shebang was far too dry. The small heap of juicy tomatoes, red onions and coriander helped with this, but not for long given the wee helping.

I like the idea of the bolon de verde, but not Rincon Costeno’s version of it. This fried ball of green plantain stuffed with coarsely ground pork was hearty and starchy, but also dry with a repetitively monotonous taste bordering on bland.

The ‘homemade’ ice cream certainly seems to have been whipped up on-premises, rather than brought-in, presented as it is with a wooden lolly stick jutting out of a plastic water cup. Although the frozen coconut milk/water could’ve been less crunchy and grainy, it undoubtedly made for bracing palate-cleansing refreshment.

The Verdict

It’s unlikely that Rincon Costeno is aiming for mass market popularity, not with a menu chockablock full of seafood and offal. Instead, it seems happy to ply its trade with Ecuadorian expatriates. That’s why, I suspect, so much of their menu is so immensely satisfying. When you’re catering to the home crowd, thoughtlessly dumbed down caricatures just aren’t going to cut it. 

I’ve often wished that more restaurants would strive to expand diners’ horizons rather than pander to their often parochial, reactionary tastes. So it’s ironic that a restaurant that does just that for most Londoners, or at least those Londoners willing to step through their doors, is one that is actually playing it safe for its primary audience. Still, that doesn’t make Rincon Costeno’s offal and seafood dishes any less delightful. If anything, it only highlights how serendipitous eating out in London can be.

What to order: Almost anything with seafood and/or offal in it.

What to skip: Pork hornado; Pescado frito; Bolon de verde.

Name: Rincon Costeno

Address: Arch 146, Eagle Yard Arch, Hampton Street, London SE1 6SP

Phone: none listed

Web: http://www.rinconcosteno.co.uk

Opening Hours: seven days a week 11.00-20.00.

Reservations? Yeah, if you want.

Average cost for one person including soft drinks: £20-25 approx.

Rating: ★★★★★