Celebrating Life - Eventful Magazine

estaurants & reviews
Hit tHe Spot:
By Nicole Gallagher
and Mary Tietjen
Dining at Ramiro’s 954 in Mahopac
can be compared to going
to a school play and finding
Academy Award-winning actor
Robert De Niro playing the
lead. To say that it was not quite
what you expected is a huge
understatement. Not only does
the award-winning chef and coowner
Ramiro Jimenez create the
most wonderful combinations of
exquisite flavors with the freshest and most
succulent ingredients, he exudes a passion
for food that is palpable.
Ramiro’s 954’s menu consists of recipes
from Latin and Central America, Mexico
and the Caribbean, to which Jimenez adds
his own twist along with ingredients, including
local, organically grown produce; organ-
Ramiro’s 954
ic eggs; and farm-raised beef and chicken.
Each facet of this restaurant — from the
design of the open kitchen to the willingness
of the chef to answer any questions that you
might have about the food or its preparation
— tends to create a relationship with the
diner that can only be described as unique.
The sincerity on the part of the owners and
staff to welcome you and have you experience
both the food and the ambiance of the
restaurant is most appealing, as is the upstairs
dining room adorned with artwork
created by local artists. In addition to providing
unique cuisine, they also give back to
the community as best they can with various
donations to local organizations.
Cooking has been an integral part of
Jimenez’s life since his arrival in the U.S.
more than 20 years ago. He has held positions
in some of the most renowned and
largest Latin eateries in New York
and has been the recipient of many
prestigious awards. After years of
commuting to the city, and much
time away from his family, Jimenez
decided to follow his dream of having
his own establishment. Along
with partners Traci Medford-Rosow
and Joel Rosow, Jimenez and his wife
and restaurant manager, Jan, found
all the stars in alignment to create
Ramiro’s 954 (the address on Route
6) which opened in February of this
year.
Our very pleasurable dining
experience at Ramiro’s
consisted of an appetizer
of Ceviche Ecuatoriano,
poached shrimp served in a
roasted tomato sauce flavored
with onion, orange, jalapeno
pepper and cilantro. Served
in a martini glass, the thinly sliced shrimp
swam in the delicate tomato sauce with just
the right touch of citrus and garnished with
a wedge of advocado. Not stopping there,
we shared a plate of the Empanadas de Picadillo.
This is Jimenez’s own grandmother’s
recipe of ground beef turnovers with onion,
garlic, pepper, raisins, red wine and a sweet
chipotle cream sauce.
For the main entrées, the Bacalao y Paella,
a pan-fried cod fish served over saffron rice
cooked with shrimp, clams, chicken, chorizo
and peas garnished with roasted pepper
erabeche. The second choice, Costillas
en vino tinto, a red wine-braised boneless
beef short rib dish served with celery root
puree, yucca frita and a chimichurri sauce.
Our meal was brought to an end with a great
conversation with the chef about the origin
and preparations of the yucca root and the
finest sugar-free cheesecake we had ever had
the pleasure of tasting.
As the Latin music played on in the background
and the food sizzled in the open
kitchen, we savored the last drops of white
wine sangria and thought, where are we?
Acapulco? Madrid? San Juan? We felt as if
we took a vacation, and yet here we were in
Mahopac at 954 Route 6, seemingly a world
away from where we started the evening.
This was certainly one of the most pleasant
and reasonable dining experiences we
could hope to find in Putnam County. During
dinner we were already daydreaming of
the next visit. We highly suggest grabbing a
friend and hitting this spot. If time is your
enemy like it is usually ours, they have a
take-out and bar menu for sampling the cuisine.
Don’t wait too long to sample this food;
it is worth the slow-down to do so. Ramiro’s
954 has live music during the month of June.
Continued on next page
4 Eventful Magazine - June 2011