Inside High St. Gem, A Chowder Deceives

It looked straightforward as Ernesto García heated the pan, then poured in a base of heavy cream, coconut, and spices. He added clam juice — and was on his way to conjuring a seafood chowder that was anything but straightforward.

García was inside the small kitchen at Rubamba, the cozy High Street restaurant where he doubles as owner and chef.

The kitchen was quieter than you might expect, given that three cooks were working in it. There were the sounds of knives against cutting boards, the scrape of a turner across a griddle, the clack of a spoon against the side of a pan. A few words of communication among the cooks as they weaved past each other.

I had come to Rubamba with my family and a friend, and we had ordered a lot of food. Two arepas, one lobster, one pork. A small fleet of appetizers. And, at García’s suggestion, the chowder.

The complication behind his chowder lay in the timing of when to add its many ingredients, so that everything is cooked for as long as it needs to be, but no longer — especially when there are at least three other dishes to make.

As my family’s arepas were frying on the griddle …

García added fresh corn.

He brought the chowder to a boil.

Meanwhile he put the finishing touches on our appetizers — ceviche and coconut shrimp.

The business now known as Rubamba has gone through a few different incarnations. It began in 2009 as ¡Ay! Salsa, a takeout place selling arepas from its location on High Street and, eventually, from two food trucks, one on the corner of Congress Avenue and Cedar Street, the other on the corner of Elm Street and York Street. Then ¡Ay! Salsa closed, only to be replaced by the slightly higher-end Rubamba.

But there are constants, too. The food trucks are still out there. And García is still in the kitchen, as he has been from the beginning.

García started cooking the lobster for one of the arepas, lowered the heat on the chowder a little, and added shrimp and other seafood. García came to the United States in September 2003 knowing very little about cuisine. Stints in the kitchens of Roomba (which closed in 2007) and Union League Café (which is, of course, alive and well) changed that.

“You learn a lot working at places like that,” García said.

He sees the changes from ¡Ay! Salsa to Rubamba as a natural evolution. Though arepas are still Rubamba’s signature, the menu has expanded to tacos, Brazilian dishes, and the seafood chowder García suggested, often driven by customers’ responses to specials he has run. What began as a tiny takeout place is now a restaurant that seats 40 people. In a couple months García is opening a second Rubamba in Oaxaca, Mexico, where he’s originally from, and has plans to open an ¡Ay! Arepa in Stamford.

He let the shrimp and lobster cook for a couple more minutes, added fresh herbs, and then turned to me.

“It’s done,” he said.

He and his crew put the finishing touches on all the dishes — appetizers, arepas, chowder, and all.

The dishes didn’t last long on our table. When we were done, it was almost impossible to imagine eating another bite. But that didn’t stop the youngest of us from polishing off the tres leches cake.