Barça 18

This evening, Alvin and I went with my parents for dinner at Barça 18. It's this new (less than a week old) Catalan/tapas place run by BR Guest, taking the place of the departed Park Avalon restaurant in the Flatiron District. During restaurant openings for BR Guest, if you go during a designated period of time, you get a 20% discount on your entire meal. (I don't remember if it used to be 15%, but it was 20% tonight.) So, of course, we took advantage of it. I haven't been to a BR Guest opening since Blue Fin years ago, so I've missed the fun. But this was definitely fun.

We started with 4 tapas and a pitcher of red sangria. The sangria was wonderful. The patatas came drizzled with spicy and mild sauce, but this was my least favorite dish all night. It was good, but the spicy sauce was quite hot, and outside of the sauce, it was sort of ordinary roasted potatoes. I much prefer the patatas bravas at Cafe Iberico in Chicago.

We also got atun en escabeche, seared tuna (picture above) garnished with carrots and onions, and all soaked in aged sherry vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. (Thank you, online menus.) This was really good. The tuna had perfect flavoring and texture and the flavor of the whole thing was great. It was also pretty creative because it looked like a sardine can when it arrived on the table.

We also got almejas tiernas, baby clams and white beans in salsa verde. Those were pretty good, but not too substantial since they were baby clams. The flavor of the green sauce was good, but more white beans would have been better. (I am sure I must have mentioned white bean dip on this blog at some point.) The last one of the tapas was calamar, described as crispy calamari with spicy romesco sauce. The calamari was perfect - it was soft, fluffy, tender - and the sauce was a great complement. (Not that I don't also love it with marinara-type sauces.) Yum. I'm a huge fan of fried calamari.

We also shared two entrees: rodaballo ("rosemary & thyme scented halibut and asparagus cooked on slate with warm herb vinaigrette") which was amazing and the paella barça, which came with chicken, shrimp, mussels, clams and calamari. The paella was also very good. The calamari there was the perfect texture too. But the halibut was my favorite part of the entrees.

Dessert came, and we split 3 more. (Hey, when it's 20% off, you feel a little more liberal when you're ordering, I suppose!) I got a sorbet sampler, which came in passion fruit, green apple and berry. It was light and refreshing and the flavors were good. My mom's choice was the pan con chocolate, a flourless chocolate cake with chocolate ganache, toast and maldon sea salt. (No idea.) That one wasn't too heavy (I just had blackout cake on Friday, so I'm glad!) but it was very very chocolatey. I only had about 3 bites because I was concentrating on the sorbet. Alvin's choice was clafoutis, a brandied cherry tart with vanilla ice cream and candied walnuts. I think it was the prettiest dessert on the table.

So what's the verdict on Barça 18? I liked it a lot. The flavors of the dishes were good, and as far as pricing, for restaurants of its type, I think it was actually pretty affordable. Atmosphere is nice, and I like a good one, but it's lower on my priority list than taste and price when I'm paying for it myself. I think the 20% off dinner promotion ends tomorrow, but the lunch promotion will start up soon. Yummy dinner. :)