Rosamaria's Café

Mexican cuisine the way Montezuma would have liked it

Lunch Mon.-Fri. noon-3 p.m.
Dinner Mon. Thurs. 5-8 p.m.
Fri.-Sat. 5-9 p.m.
Cash only
BYOB
Not handicap accessible

by Jim Johnson

The Mexican cuisine at Rosamaria's Café is so authentic, that the Spanish found similar dishes when they landed in the New World 500 years ago. Taken by the exotic dishes, the explorers carried the ingredients back to Europe and onward to the Orient.

Rosamaria Fanning's day starts early. If you peer through the window of her storefront restaurant near Webster Square, you may spot her drying some of the 25 different kinds of chilies she uses each day in her cooking. Or you might see her grinding her own corn for tortillas. Or perhaps slicing cotija cheese from a 60-pound wheel for the evening's orders of salsa de queso.

Two years ago, Rosamaria was doing much the same in her small village in Oaxaca, Mexico. Her cooking played at least a minor role catching the attention of Worcester native Jim Fanning, a restaurateur who had been living in Mexico for most of his professional life. It's been almost eight years since she first cooked him dinner and -- not coincidentally -- almost eight years since they married. Now Rosamaria and Jim are changing the way people think about Mexican food.

At Rosamaria's, I found nary a burrito on the chalkboard menu, let alone processed cheese on aging nachos. Instead, I enjoyed appetizers like salsa de queso ($3.95), dense, salty, aged goat cheese simmered until soft in a sauce of guajillo pepper and roasted tomatoes. I wrapped a wedge of cheese in a fresh corn tortilla, spooned on some sauce, and experienced a local Oaxacan favorite.

In many Mexican towns, restaurants keep a kettle of hearty pozole soup ($3.95) on the stove. Rosamaria starts by cutting kernels from dried ears of corn, boiling them, and soaking them overnight in a solution of water and lime (as in calcium, not citrus). The next morning, she drains and strains the corn and puts the resulting hominy into a stock. The stock itself takes hours to prepare: boiling whole chickens, reducing the broth, and mixing in chilies and other spices. I enjoyed a steaming bowl of it, the hominy firm and plump, the broth rich, spicy, and fragrant. A separate platter with sliced lime, cilantro, onion, radish, and jalapeño pepper allowed me to flavor the soup to taste.

As I waited for my entrée, I sipped a cool glass of hochita ($1.95): a rice drink made with vanilla and cinnamon. (On return visits, I sampled other homemade fruit drinks, including lime, tamarind, and coconut.) Sounds of chopping, clanging, and sizzling came from the kitchen. The intimate setting transported me easily to some village a thousand miles away.

In a few moments, Jim returned with a chafing dish filled with shrimp ($8.95) served with rice and refried beans. The shrimp, cooked and served in the shell to keep in moisture and flavor, were delicious and perfectly complemented by a full-bodied sauce made from what he called the "Holy Trinity" of Oaxacan chilies: pasilla for color and texture, ancho for color and fragrance, and guajillo for heat and flavor.

"Most people think refried beans should actually be fried," he explained. "And frying is what gives Mexican food such a bad health rap. Refried is really just a bad translation for refrito, which means it's cooked a lot."

And these beans were perfect: thick and flavorful. The rice, mixed with peas and carrots, was as good as it gets.

Other entrées I'm likely to return for include pollo con mole (grilled chicken breast topped with mole, a sauce derived from cocoa beans), tampquena (sirloin of beef rolled with nopal cactus, roasted, and served with poblano chilies and fried plantains), cerdo con piplan (pork served with toasted pumpkins seeds and roasted red tomato sauce), and pescadaro veracruzana (filet of haddock simmered with olives, capers, roasted peppers, and tomato). For the less adventurous, there are fajitas (including a delicious version with portobello mushrooms instead of meat), enchiladas, and tacos with soft corn tortillas. Prices range from $5 to $9.

Be sure to save room for dessert. The rice pudding ($1.99) was divine, made with plump raisins, cinnamon (grated from the bark), egg whites, and raw brown sugar.

On two visits, service (a/k/a Jim) was cordial, informative, gracious, and paced perfectly.