Comur Grilled Sardines with Red Sweet Peppers & Chickpea Patties with Carrots and Onions

A gift from a boss these tins were both new to me, and one, essentially a falafel dish, is a vegetarian side dish. Both are enjoyable experiences, but once the gift box they came in is tapped out, I can’t see ordering up either again.

For starters, there are the extremely weird economics of Comur, which runs The Fantastic World of the Portuguese Sardine shops in Times Square and elsewhere around the planet. The sardines here are tagged at $19.60 a tin; the falafel is $16 even. Those are prices that professional economists describe as cuckoo-bananas, although I do apologize for wheeling out technical jargon.

I do, though, love me some grilled sardines, and these were a gift after all, so I was psyched to see what Comur would bring to me table. As I think you can see, these little fish—pimentos, too—have definitely sat on the grill. Perhaps even a bit too long?? The charcoal notes are quite forward, but much less pleasingly so than, for instance, the Güeyu Mar loins-n-tails. The woodfire is perhaps less well-sorted. Comur’s olive oil doesn’t hold a candle to Güeyu Mar’s, which may be the best in any tin of seafood. And the smaller size of the pilchards may be a problem, since these seem perhaps to have been dried out/toughened by their fiery experience. The fish were good enough, the grilling was distinctive, the peppers were nice, but none of this added up to $20. Or really up to ten bucks, if I’m being honest.

The chickpea patties and veggies caught me a bit off guard. They arrive bathed in oil, mostly sunflower. I had to squeeze the contents like a can of tuna. And the dish is not pleasant to eat straight from the tin; cold, oily falafel isn’t a treat. Heat this up, I implore you. Luckily, it ain’t fish, so no one around you will shout if you give these patties a blast in the microwave. The flavors here were perfectly nice. If it was a four or five dollar can—and why can’t it be for chickpeas?—I’d probably enjoy it once in a while.