We went at 6:15pm on a Friday and it was surprisingly crowded already. We started with a pitcher of mixed berry sangria ($38), which produced about 3 glasses per person. While it was definitely tasty and a good drink for the summer, I felt like it had zero alcohol in it. You'd think after 3 glasses, you'd at least be a bit buzzed or something, but it was like drinking fizzy fruit infused water. Swaroopa and I started with 4 different tapas. (1) Spanish omelet (2) heirloom tomato salad (3) ham croquettes and (4) potatoes bravas. The omelet came out within 5 minutes of us ordering which I was a bit suspect about. I think they just have a giant omelet in the back that they just slice up when people order it. It was good but not amazing...it could have used a bit more salt and it came apart pretty easily when you cut it. The tomato salad was fabulous and my favorite part of the meal. It came with cucumber and ricotta cheese and lots of beautiful looking tomatoes. Since Swaroopa doesn't eat meat, I had the croquettes to myself. They had a variety of croquettes (they had a wild mushroom version and another one that I can't remember) but I got the special one with ham in it. It was good but I felt like the first one I had was a bit hollow - not stuffed or creamy enough. The 2nd and 3rd one were a bit better and more stuffed with ingredients, but I think I've had better ones else where. The potatoes were seasoned well and there were lots of it, so it was pretty filling. But after these 4 dishes, we were still hungry, so we were going to order the salt-cod fritters, but apparently they do come with ham in it (although it doesn't say it on the menu...they really should list on there in case people who don't eat meat order it thinking it's meat-free), so we ordered our backup plan, the garlic shrimp. This came out pretty quickly too and was probably the most disappointing part of the meal. The shrimp were very small and soaking in some flavorless olive oil. There was barely any garlic in there and the oil tasted watered down. The table next to us had ordered the same thing and were shocked by it too and wanted to return it, but didn't.
We ordered a dessert of churros with chocolate, which was pretty good, but my theory of it's difficult to get fried food wrong still stands. I noticed that the table next to us had also ordered some grilled peppers with salt (what I had at Mercat and loved!) but these peppers seemed much smaller in size. I should also mention that the seats are waaay too close together. Our waiter barely had any room to maneuver in between tables to take orders. In fact, several couples did sit down next to us but then decided to leave when they discovered that they were practically sitting in our laps. I will say that the service was quite good and our waiter was super nice and friendly. The total bill was $91 but with the BBE coupon, it was $62. I'm glad I had the coupon b/c otherwise I would have thought it wasn't worth the price and for good tapas I would still prefer Mercat instead.
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