When my friend Holly mentioned that she wanted to go to Rayuela for her birthday, I thought I had already been there before but after scouring my blog I didn't see any mention of it so I'm glad that I finally get to put in a review of this place. It's a great place for a birthday or a night out (or randomly bumping into friends too) because it's got a lively and fun spirit to it.
While the service wasn't bad, there was a definitely communication barrier with our waiter. He was very nice but there were just so many mis-communication cues (I don't think the loudness in the restaurant helped either) that it was a bit frustrating. First, our waiter asked us if we wanted to start with some appetizers and what we heard was "do you want some guacamole something something something and ceviche?" Huh? We said it would be great to start with something and then the waiter said "Ok, great" and went away. We were like what just happened? Did we just order something? Then time goes by and nothing shows up and then our waiter comes to take our order as if nothing had happened. We noticed that the guacamole wasn't on the menu and asked about that and he mentioned that they had guacamole two ways: plain or with crab. We ordered the one with crab because it sounded very different and unique. Then we asked that if we wanted to share a bunch of plates, how many should we get? Instead of giving us a number, he started just rattling off all the dishes that he thought were good and then he left. We were so thoroughly confused and decided on our own to order 4 appetizer sized dishes and 1 main dish. Along with the guacamole, we ordered the scallop ceviche ($14), tuna rellena ($14), the gambas y chorizo ($13) and the churrasco rayuela ($31).
The guacamole came out first and we all immediately thought that we got the plain guacamole because we didn't see any crabmeat in it. But after a few bites of it, I did taste the crab in it and thought it was a nice difference but not sure if it was worth $18. But it was definitely tasted of fresh avocado, tomato, onion and cilantro and not pre-made which was nice. Next came the scallop ceviche and the tuna rellena. Before any of the dishes came out, I was most excited by the scallop ceviche because I love scallop and don't get to eat ceviche a lot. But this ceviche was a bit disappointing. It wasn't bad but it was served more like sliced sashimi with sliced tomatillo, radishes, onions, cilantro, tomatillo sauce & white truffle oil. We all were expecting chunks of scallop in a lime citrus base and this didn't really have much of that citrus essence that ceviche was known for. It was just a bit underwhelming. Next I moved on to tuna rellena which was crab and shrimp wrapped in sliced sashimi tuna, with cucumbers and avocado in sesame soy sauce. I loved the tuna sashimi outside but thought the crab and shrimp inside seemed a bit off. It was kind of all mashed up and mixed together in this mixture that just didn't seem like crab or shrimp. It wasn't bad but it just didn't have that clean flavor profile I usually like with seafood. Luckily that was accomplished with the shrimp dish. The gambas y chorizo dish was served with olive oil poached shrimp, creamy manchego rice and Verdejo white wine-chorizo sauce. I loved this dish a lot because the shrimp was perfectly poached and I was a big fan the foam-y chorizo flavor sauce. The rice was the right consistency and the manchego flavor wasn't overpowering at all. Delicious. But the table favorite of the night was the churrasco rayuela. We all raved and loved it and even recommended it to the table next to us. This dish was a grilled rib-eye steak with chimichurri, Brussels sprouts,shitake mushrooms, red onions and celery root puree. The streak was amazing, cooked so perfectly. We asked for it to be medium but it was closer to medium rare (my personal preference) but it was so juicy and tender and the vegetable mixture was wonderful too. I kind of wish that we didn't get the ceviche and just got another order of the steak but that would have been a bit too much meat for the night.
Lastly, we had to order dessert because we were celebrating a birthday. You can't have a birthday without dessert! So we got these chocolate donuts that had hot chocolate on the inside and sprinkled with sugar on the outside and served with a mint ice cream. It was great because there were 3 donuts and 3 of us, so it was a perfect way to end the night. I was tempted to give this place 4 forks but after comparing it to other 4 fork ratings, the confusion with the ordering, the ok ceviche and the fact that the sangria (while delicious) didn't seem that strong, I moved it to 3.5 forks. But it was a great place for a birthday and the steak was worthy of 5 forks itself, so don't think that I didn't like this place because I did. Total bill: $120 with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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