La Canoa Serves Up So Many Different Dishes

La Canoa. Photo by Cari Taylor-Carlson.

La Canoa, located at 1520 W. Lincoln Ave. in Lincoln Village, has an established reputation for seafood. After two meals at the restaurant, I can vouch for the vast array of seafood choices and anything else you think you might find on a menu in a Mexican restaurant. At La Canoa, it is all about choices.

Everything friends and I sampled was top-of-the-line and came to the table quickly, thanks to efficient and friendly servers. As soon as we were seated, our server brought the usual chips, red and green salsa, one chipotle-flavored, one classic salsa verde, and a surprise container of ceviche. It was sunshine and a beach in a bowl, tilapia with lime, onion, and finely chopped tomatoes.

The weighty menu was humongous, more than a dozen illustrated pages crammed with photos of every possible combination of dishes. When I asked our server if she had a hard time keeping all the orders straight because the number of options was overwhelming to my companion and me, she replied, “I don’t have problems, but the cooks do.” When you study the menu, you will understand why.

We may have spent more time deciding what to order than we spent consuming our meals. You can have your protein, seafood or not, chopped, breaded, sauteed, fried, deep-fried, with butter, in soup or salad, on a sope, or, if you order seafood, raw or cooked. You could order frog legs, oysters, lobster, BBQ ribs, pork chops, octopus, clams, mussels, calamari, and Porter house steak. I believe you could dine at La Canoa every day for a year and never repeat a meal.

The first time I brought a friend who tends not to be an adventuresome eater, we stayed with the familiar and ordered Steak Tacos and Chicken Milanesa. Steak tacos are risky because you never know if the meat will be tough and chewy or juicy and tender. Tough and chewy was not the case with these steak tacos. The steak was cut into small and exceptionally tasty bites that suggested they had spent time on a grill. There was so much meat that if you eat it without the taco and added rice and beans, you could call it a meal.

For the Chicken Milanesa, the chef breaded and deep-fried a slab of breast from a super-sized chicken. There were spices in the marinade and like the steak, it was almost fork-tender.

For Enchiladas Mexicanas, you need to choose from steak, chicken, seafood mix, and shrimp. I ordered the dish with my eyes because the photo in the menu looked irresistible, four enchiladas covered with chopped onion and cilantro. It also came with guacamole and a large dollop of sour cream to tame the heat in the shrimp. The shrimp had been marinated and grilled; the enchiladas were delicious.

The Camarones con Mantequilla, or shrimp in butter, came with sautéed onions, potato salad, and rice. There was orange juice in the marinade which lent a sweetness to the buttery sauce. There were a dozen knife and fork-sized “jumbo” shrimp, about a pound, and they were the real deal, the expensive ones you can find at Whole Foods.

My companion’s non-alcoholic Margarita tasted like a margarita minus tequila if that is possible. It was also creamy, more like a dessert drink than a classic margarita.

If you have a group looking for a party, look no further than the Canoa Exotica. This seafood mix serves 8-10 and can be ordered with or without tequila. It is a bargain at $365.00 without the alcohol and if you add two bottles of tequila to your meal, the price goes up to $525.00, pre-tax and gratuity.

No one could explain why the restaurant is called La Canoa, the Canoe, but it surely has a beach vibe. An umbrella-like post sets a mood as do the joyful murals and hand painted chairs. In this colorful restaurant you could let yourself be carried away to an imaginary beach somewhere in Mexico where there is mariachi music, seafood, and underneath an umbrella, an icy margarita waiting for you.

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• Location: 1520 W. Lincoln Ave.
• Phone: 414-645-1140
• Hours: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mon-Thu, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fri-Sat, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sun
• Neighborhood: Lincoln Village
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lacanoawisconsin/
• UM Rating: 3.6 stars (average of Yelp, Trip Advisor and Zomato)