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Now it's not just the servings that are big at Mallorca Friday, January 22, 1999 By Woodene Merriman, Post-Gazette Dining Critic
After just 71/2 years, South Side's popular Mallorca is expanding.
A new Garden Room is under construction on the side of the 85-seat restaurant, behind the patio. It will seat 68 more people, and have glass doors opening onto the patio. Weather permitting, the $400,000 renovation should be completed in March.
Most important, says owner Antonio Pereira, he'll have a new, bigger kitchen, with additional space to enable him to introduce new dishes. Already he envisions bringing in a chef from one of the regions of Spain each year, starting with a young man from the Basque region.
Fish and seafood are a big part of the menu at Mallorca. Even now, without the new kitchen, seven or eight fresh fish and seafood dishes are among the specials each night.
The new Garden Room will be all no-smoking, Pereira says. Much-needed new restrooms are under construction. Dinners now are served in the bar as well as the dining room. But when the new room opens, only tapas will be served in the bar.
Additional parking places may be added, but that's still indefinite.
Mallorca fans should stand up and cheer at the news. The restaurant now is terribly crowded. It's impossible to wend your way through the tables from the side by the windows, where we're sitting, to get to the basement restrooms. We've even got our salt and pepper shakers, the sugar packet container and water glasses sitting on the windowsill. Mallorca is known for big servings, and when it all starts coming, there's not enough space on these little round tables for two.
Part of Mallorca's appeal is that it's different, as well as good. In a city that is overrun with Italian restaurants, customers quickly respond to a place that offers something else. Witness the quick success of the French bistro, Le Perroquet, in Shadyside, and the continuing popularity of the two Monterey Bay fish houses.
Well, not too different. Goat is a special on the menu again tonight, and again His Honor says an emphatic "No." That's fine with me. I had goat once at a fancy-schmancy restaurant in Aruba, and that's enough for one lifetime.
The folks at the next table have just been served a flaming sausage appetizer. Looks intriguing. We'll have that chorizo a la plancha, too. Ours arrives without flames. We're disappointed.
"I don't know what happened," the tuxedoed waiter says. Oh, well, it's a good, sturdy, spicy sausage made of 100 percent pork tenderloin.
Another popular appetizer at Mallorca is the lightly breaded fried squid.
It's only 7 p.m. on a Tuesday, and already they've run out. Langostinos - four big ones - in oil with paprika and a lemon half are excellent, though a little difficult to dig out of their shells.
Paella, the saffron-flavored Spanish rice dish, was a disappointment here when we ordered it about a month ago. The yellow-orange, flavorless rice seemed to be the same rice served as a side dish with entrees, but with chicken, Spanish sausage, mussels and clams in their shells, shrimp and half a lobster on top.
The fresh fish entrees, we've decided, are better choices. Poached turbot in green sauce, a special one night, came with shrimp, mussels and thin stalks of asparagus.
My favorite, though, is mariscada, with lots of mussels and clams in shells, shrimp, half a lobster and scallops in a Spanish brandy and wine sauce. It's a superb sauce, lightly spiced.
A fine veal dish, too, is the ternera Sicilliana, or thin, tender medallions of veal in a rich, creamy sauce that is reminiscent of an Alfredo sauce. It's served in a shallow metal casserole passed under the broiler so it's a little golden brown on top. Far too much sauce, but that's typical Mallorca style.
The table is loaded with a platter of plain mixed vegetables (not very hot when served), rice, and Spanish-style fried potatoes, which taste like not-very-good homemade potato chips. They're completely unnecessary, but it's a Spanish thing, Pereira says.
The waiter has already taken away the bread, specially made for the restaurant by Bakehouse, and the remnants of our house salads, which always have chunks of hearts of palm among the crisp greens, and tonight were topped with sprigs of peppery watercress. The house dressing, a lot like a creamy French, is made with port wine. It has a bit of a tang.
Of course we have to keep space on the table for the wine. Mallorca has a list of about 240 wines, with the emphasis on Spanish and Portuguese. We've enjoyed trying wines new to us, like a fresh, young dry white from Marques de Riscal, a modern winery in the Rioja area ($27) and a Rioja Clarete, a pleasant red wine by Cune ($22.95).
We've noticed that Mallorca appetizer prices are a little on the high side ($6.95-$8.50 for those on the menu, specials sometimes higher) but entrees are medium priced, or $11.95 to $22.95, including side dishes. Servings are so ample you could take what you can't eat home to eat for a week.
The biggest surprise of the evening is coming up: the best sorbet in the city. That's the waiter's description, and we concur. It's a creamy, not-too-sweet lemon sorbet served in a frozen whole lemon, standing on end, with a slice cut off the top so the sorbet spills out like jewels from a box. Many other flavors are available, but surely they couldn't be better than the lemon.
The sorbets are imported from Italy. With the expansion of the kitchen, Pereira has said he will be serving more truly Spanish, and some Portuguese, dishes. That includes a shift to Spanish sorbets. I hope they are just as good. Tiramisu may come off the menu, too; what's an Italian dessert doing in a Spanish restaurant anyway?
Pereira owned a New Jersey restaurant that had a three-star rating from the New York Times before he came to Pittsburgh. He also has what he calls a "very, very good" Mallorca in Cleveland with double the capacity of the South Side restaurant.
We'll be watching to see how and if the local Mallorca improves with the expansion.
Mallorca
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Hours:5-10:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday; 4 -11:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 4-10 p.m. Sunday. No lunch until new garden room opens.