BrightestYoungThings: Taste Test: Zengo Launches Shanghai to Sao Paolo Menu

all words: Jeb Gavin
all photos: Kevin Hulse

February marks the quarterly change in Chinatown eatery Zengo’s menu. Every three months, one of owner and founder Richard Sandoval’s restaurants selects two cities, one in Latin America, one in Asia, and creates new menu items by combining techniques and ingredients from both indigenous cuisines. They are careful to point out, their menu is Latin-Asian, not Latin-Asian fusion. This past fall it was Lima and Tokyo. This time, the Denver Zengo offered up a mix of Shanghai and Sao Paulo, with special cocktails created by beverage manager Daniel Burger. This past Wednesday, we sampled their new test kitchen items.

The evening began with a spiked acai tea, made with green tea vodka, acai juice and liqueur, and a whole lychee. The combination of acai and lychee is wonderful, but the alcohol and green tea push the harsher notes of the acai to the forefront, and leave an odd aftertaste on the tongue.

Prior to appetizers, waiters offered up passable fried chicken empanadas, but more importantly, the only vegetarian sushi roll I have ever truly wanted to eat. Filled with asparagus, red pepper and avocado, and topped with sesame seeds and a lemon-sake aioli, the vegetariano remains on the menu as my favorite of Zengo’s sushi offerings.

The Shared Small Plates course was by far the strongest of the evening. Xiaolongbao soup dumplings made of crab, pork and linguica (a Portuguese sausage) could have used more broth within the dumpling itself, but the dipping sauce of jalapeño, ginger and black vinegar was so good, I ended up using it for all the appetizers. Crispy Shanghai spring rolls of chicken and shrimp were light and flavorful despite being fried, though the only sour note was the acai-ginger dipping sauce which I found unnecessary. Finally, coconut crusted salt cod balls made with potato and Serrano were served drizzled in cachaca-soy hot mustard and topped with sweet and sour sauce. I picked up very little coconut flavor or crunch, but it was not missed, as these were delicious and massive.

The cocktail pairing, a mixture of pomegranate, ginger syrup, cachaca and muddled kumquats was refreshing, and better balanced than the acai tea. Limes served in the drink masked the tartness of the kumquat, which may or may not be a plus, depending on your opinion of kumquats.

Dinner was a dry-aged New York strip steak served with an XO-style king crab leg, in a black bean and ginger sauce, all over broccolini, served aside an unadorned feijoada of black beans, linguica, shredded pork, tasajo beef and bacon. The steak was well cooked and seasoned, though the hot bean paste seemed absent from the plate, and the black bean ginger sauce did little to augment the flavor of the meat (while vastly improving the broccolini underneath.) The crab leg was served split in half, sauced with XO infused mayonnaise, and topped with breadcrumbs. The feijoada was the biggest problem in this course. There was very little heat, even less smoke, and considering the variety of pork, almost no pork flavor. Somehow, black beans were worked into every element of the course, but could not be tasted. The real star here was Daniel Burger’s peppercorn cucumber martini. Hendrick’s gin, junmai sake, muddled cucumber and Szechuan peppercorn syrup made one of the most refreshing martinis I have ever tasted. Hendrick’s always plays well with cucumber, but the additional sweetness of the sake, and the subtle, numbing bite of peppercorns made this something special.

Dessert was decent, but subtle: coconut tapioca topped with mango-kumquat gelee, lychee sorbet, sugared kumquat slices, shaved coquito nuts and a surprising but welcome use of micro shiso greens, served along side a batida of coconut water and milk, cachaca, and muddled lime.

I like their style of test kitchen, the challenge they set for themselves mixing Latin and Asian foods. I enjoyed Lima-Tokyo, enjoy Shanghai-Sao Paulo, and look forward to the next incarnation, which I was told will be Vietnamese and a yet to be named Central or South American country. The cocktails and small plates are a special treat here, and considering their happy hour special of five dollar cocktails and small plates, this remains a personal favorite.