The party was at the Phaidon Store in Soho. Basically a store for all of the publisher’s books. It was nice and bright in there and a good place for a party.

I arrived a little early, so the staff was still setting up. They have a pretty nice selection of books including the book from Ferran Adria of El Bulli.

First up, the Spanish Reds that were offered.

I tasted most of them and they were quite a nice accompaniment to the tapas. I neglected to take pictures of the sherry and white wine offerings. I guess there may be some readers who like whites over reds, sorry.

Cheers.

and here come the tapas…

Luckily they had little cards that explained what each of the items were since the servers only briefly mentioned that the item was.

First up was the Tortilla Espanolo, a potato and egg omelet. Served cold. Tasty, but pretty heavy on the starch. I am not really sure what the topping was. Mayo?

Next was the Chorizo con chocolate. This was a nice slice of chroizo on top of a small dab of Nutella-like chocolate on a crostini. I think the saltiness of the chorizo completely canceled out the sweetness of the chocolate resulting a mellow bite.

Next was the Paquetitos de Jamon, fava bean stuffed serrano ham bundles. Where was the Chianti?(Sorry, couldn’t resist.) This was a nice slice of ham, but the fava beans were completely lost on the inside.

The bar was also setup with tiny glasses filled with gazpacho. I am not a huge fan of cold soups, but this was tasty. I liked the additional touch of a few drops of olive oil on top.

One of the largest tapas was the Brandada and spring ramp pintxo, salt cod and ramps on crostini. The hipsters at the party must have been elated with this one. RAMPS! One of the more flavorful items. The consistency and taste of the salt cod was almost canned tuna-like. Not necessarily a bad thing.

The final item was Salpicon Ponte Vedra, chilled shrimp, onion, and avocado on a skewer. This was quite a refreshing bite. The presentation was nice in the large tapas bowl(no idea what the name would be).

After everyone sampled the different bites, the chef Alex Raij came out to talk for a few minutes. I’ll admit that I thought the chef was a man, so I was a little surprised when she stepped up to the microphone. She spoke about her love of tapas, her restaurants, and answered some questions from the audience.

It was a good sized party and everyone seemed to have a good time. It was a little intimidating being there as a blogger, especially with my tiny Kodak camera as compared to some of the monstrosities I saw being used by some of the more well-seasoned bloggers.

On the way out, we were given a small gift bag. Unfortunately it didn’t contain a copy of the actual book. It had a copy of the menu, a small travel guide for Seville, and a flyer for all of Phaidon’s food-related books. It was a nice evening and thanks to Phaidon & Alex for putting it together. I will have to add her restaurants to my list of places to check out.

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AB’s birthday passed recently (errr… a while back; I keep pushing this post off), so we gathered to celebrate.  Unfortunately, I was a bit late for dinner, so as soon as I sat down, I was handed a glass of strawberry sangria (which was surprisingly REALLY good!), and didn’t stop drinking for two hours, so the pictures are incredibly blurry.  As I had no hand in the ordering process, I also don’t know the names of everything.  Oops!

Slices of filet or steak of some sort.  Super tender – at one point, AB actually cut a piece in half by pressing the side of her fork down into a piece, I shit you not – and very flavorful, I liked this dish enough. 

Crispy potatoes with garlic aioli… oh hell yea!  The potatoes were super crispy on the outside, with a nice mash on the inside.  I really loved these and almost couldn’t stop eating them.  Uhhh, they help soak up alcohol?

Jamon Serrano, super blurry.  There isn’t much to say because I love jamon Serrano… and this was no exception.  Ok, well, there is one thing to say, I didn’t like how it was sliced without the fat on the side – this is a big point of annoyance to me when the fat is shaved off pre-serving, I want the fat, dammit – and it was served as is.  No bread to go with it or something; it’s just slices of ham.  I think a lot of places do this, but it always annoys me when they do.  Come on. 

Shrimp sauteed in garlic butter.  I didn’t find it offensive – since I’m not a huge shrimp fan – but nor did I find they would change my mind about shrimp.  They did, however, change my mind about the dish, since this is a very famous and popular tapas dish found at nearly every tapas place I’ve ever visited, and it’s rarely been good.  This was good enough that I decided perhaps I can start ordering it again… and hopefully I’ll hit some of the better versions out there instead of the crap I’ve been receiving. 

Mussels.  I also don’t like mussels that much.  These were okay.  I may have been a lil too inebriated, now that I think about it, because I don’t really remember specific feelings from most of the food… oops. 

Squid!  I liked these.  I remember that. 

My first plate.  I enjoyed what I ate. 

At the last minute, another dish made its appearance; a tortilla or potato & egg omelet.  Yeah, you can probably tell how much I’ve drank by this point in the night… a LOT.  It was as good as a potato & egg omelet can be.  Alright. 

The waiters came by, sang to AB, and delivered our desserts.  I’d ordered the tres leches, which was a bit too moist for me, and HB definitely was not a fan, decreeing it too sweet and… not to her liking.  It was alright otherwise though… a sweet ending, anyway. 

I must add here that the birthday girl and I were the only two drinking and we both shared 2 (small) pitchers of the sangria.  No one else was drinking! so I had to make up the slack for her which I did so gladly

Yvo says: Definitely some dishes here that were great hits, and others that were mediocre.  I would go back to try more small plates; I see this as a great place to just sit, chat, eat, and enjoy a lovely night with friends.  Girls’ night out, or even a date… but that pink-hued strawberry sangria really makes me think of girls’ night out, ya know? 
recommended

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I immediately commented, “pulled pork! or ooh, pernil!!!” and someone seconded my pernil notion.  She decided pernil sounded great, so I invited myself over by offering to make some stuff to bring over.  HAHAHA cuz that’s how I roll.  (In my defense, I hadn’t seen her in over a year… she just came back after moving to China for a year… give me some slack here people!) 

The pernil in all its glory.  God I can only tell you her apartment smelled amazing.

Beans made with slab bacon and other delicious goodies! (for spooning over our rice)

The salad I made… and you can sort of see the empanadas as well, heh. 

Slicing into that sucker, omg…!

The chimichurri/parsley sauce I made.

My plate – salad I dressed with poppyseed dressing that she had, a little bit of rice & beans, and slices of that wonderful pernil.  I don’t have the recipe - not even a really good approximation for you – but she said it was really easy, so I want to encourage all of you to try making it, because lord only knows that I was nervous about making one, which is why I wound up never doing so and only going the pulled pork route!  I am TOTALLY going to make this sometime soon though, it was absolutely delicious and wonderful, and perfumed the house with such an amazing smell… yum!!!  And BF totally loved it, which is always a good reason to make something – so he will eat and be merry   The meat was succulent, flavorful, soft and yielding (I really didn’t NEED a knife, but I could use one)… just amazing.  And this was her first time making pernil!  Or even roasting such a large slab of meat (I believe that’s what she said).  Oh my gosh! so good! 

(And the parsley sauce wasn’t bad either.  Haha.  It added a different flavor to the meat but didn’t overwhelm it.) 

Mmm, thanks for having us over again! 

Happy eating!!!

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Recently, I was on my way to a special dinner party (post to come), and I wanted to pick up something to bring.  So I hit up this place nearby, which I’ve been meaning to check out anyway…  cuz lord knows I loved the empanadas in Argentina! 

Do you see those prices?  Less than $2 for each one, the most expensive one I can see is $1.75!  And I would think they are very filling.  I ordered quickly but it took a few minutes – maybe a little upwards of 5? – for everything to come, so I think they prepare them fresh as you order them.  I didn’t specify corn or wheat, so I received all corn.

Ready to be served at the dinner party hostess’s place.  From top clockwise: beef, chicken, and broccoli & cheese! 

Bisection of the beef one.  I thought it was alright.  The beef was beyond shredded nor ground; it was kind of a seasoned paste of beef.  BF didn’t like it and consequently refused to try any other kind unfortunately.  I would definitely not get this one again unless I craved that specific type of texture and flavor… which I can’t imagine doing. 

Cross section of the chicken empanada.  I know our hostess really enjoyed this one; I thought it wasn’t bad, but again, the chicken was neither shredded nor ground, but somehow made into almost a paste of some sorts.  I liked the peas in there, though – a nice contrast to the texture. 

Broccoli & cheese!  This was definitely, of the three that night, my hands-down favorite.  Smacking lightly of broccoli, with a strong taste of oily cheese – mozzarella perhaps? – with a crisp crust (actually, all of them had a very crispy corny shell), I really enjoyed this quite a bit. 

Yvo says: Overall, at just under $9 for the 6 empanadas above, it shouldn’t be hard for me to go back and try more kinds!  I would really like to try the wheat shell to see the difference, and I’d love to try some of the dessert kinds, figs, caramel, guava… yum!  Inexpensive and very tasty indeed! 
recommended

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I recently took a day trip down to DC (the purpose of which will be explained later for those that don’t follow my Twitter or aren’t my Facebook friend), but before doing so, solicited recommendations on Facebook for where to have lunch.  One place’s name popped up repeatedly such that I finally decided that meant I should go there…

Jaleo, a tapas place that was pretty close to my bus stop (or it looked like it on Google Maps anyway!). 

As soon as I sat down, the waiter came over with a dish that contained a sprig of rosemary along with a whole clove of garlic – complete with skin intact.  He then poured a very fruity olive oil over the top – which was nice, but honestly, the flavor of both the rosemary (a very strong herb!) and the garlic was completely lost… at least if it’d been bruised a bit, smashed a teensy bit? then it might have actually flavored the oil.  Just as well – I’m not a fan of rosemary, so I suppose I could have taken care of these issues myself had I chosen to. 

Amusingly, the waiter was almost friendly initially, until something switched in his face – I literally saw something switch itself in his expression, though I’m not sure what triggered it – from that point on, he was cold, borderline rude, just not friendly or nice.  His service was passable – I was ignored a little bit but nothing that was so blatant I would say “Hey, what the f*?” but it wasn’t good.  I really did not like his service (nor did he seem to enjoy my being his customer, either; he consistently sent other people to deliver my dishes, despite the restaurant not being very busy); he didn’t tell me the specials (and I only knew there were specials because a few minutes later, I heard him describing them to another table nearby), and – though it’s true, I was wearing a slightly more low-cut shirt than I normally do – he totally looked straight down my shirt, which I found uncalled for and rude (at least maybe you could wait until I’m not looking directly at you and can SEE you do this…).  And there was an incident during which he huffed at me – which I expect during that situation, but – well, you’ll see. 

The thing is, I was in DC specifically to have a good time, relax, enjoy some quality food, so I had no interest in raising a fuss or getting upset over this moron.  I ignored his blank stare when, after he told me most people order 2-4 (small) dishes for lunch, I ordered five without flinching.  (Which should have been a good thing for him – hello, bigger check means a bigger tip, right?) 

My first dish arrived fairly quickly – a lovely beet salad that appeared in two different places on the menu.  I pointed to the one I’d wanted – the cheaper one, assuming it was smaller, knowing I was ordering 4 more dishes.  In any case, I really loved this dish – very fresh flavors and a lot of fun textures.  Crispy rounds of chorizo, sweet and juicy beets with orange segments, tangy blue cheese crumbles, crunchy bits of lettuce.  I REALLY liked this salad and was pleased with what I thought was a fantastic start to what I hoped would be an amazing meal. 

The next dish to come out was the pulpo or octopus.  The description had mentioned that it was boiled, but I hadn’t expected to… Well, I’ve had raw octopus and grilled octopus, and I’m pretty sure I’ve had it in some other forms as well.  This – dusted with spices and mixed with potatoes – why wouldn’t it be good?  Well, somehow, when Jaleo says ‘boiled octopus’ what they mean is ‘boiled to a mush’.  I hate wasting.  I ordered these things fully intending to stuff myself silly before walking around DC to ease what I imagined would be an aching belly.  I ate a piece of pulpo and thought “Maybe that was a bad piece.”  I ate another one.  And another one.  No, they were all disgustingly mushy.  Remember me, the girl who really dislikes calling food vile, revolting, disgusting, gross?  Well, this dish was, to me, unequivocally revolting.  Absolutely disgusting.  I don’t think it’s just me – it isn’t like I only like crunchy food, there are mushy foods I enjoy, things that are meant to be mushy! – it just was cooked wrong, or maybe the octopus went bad.  All I know is… I couldn’t eat it if I tried. 

In fact, that’s what the dish looked like when I pushed it away.  (The potatoes were fine, a touch hard even!, but I didn’t want to fill up on them since they weren’t phenomenal.) 

Next up were the bacalao fritters – fried balls containing salt cod within, served with a honey aioli.  I like bacalao (salt cod) enough, though the fritters were a little soft for me – would have preferred them crispier – but uh, that honey aioli?  My notes on this meal explicitly explain my feelings: “I could bathe in it and die happy.”  Wow.  I mean, I like aioli in general, but the addition of honey just brought this to a whole new level.  I mean, my goodness! 

I wound up dipping the bread in it and gobbling up all of it.  I cleaned that dish.  Mmm, so good, need to make my own!  I left a fritter and a half because as they are fried, they got a lil heavy for me… plus the honey in the honey aioli does a good job of countering the saltiness of the bacalao, but I preferred the bread which just let the honey aioli shine freely   Hahaha. 

Ironically? Coincidentally?  Jenn of Not Exactly Bento had been one of the people to tell me to go to Jaleo.  Considering her extreme geographic distance from me (no, not California, but Louisiana), and how our lives are about as opposite (and yet… similar at time!) as possible, well, let’s just say her suggestion had weighed heavily with me.  It would be nice to take her suggestion!  She’d said she enjoyed it greatly when she went a few years back, but didn’t mention any dishes in particular.  After I’d made up my mind to go to Jaleo, however, she happened to post this… causing me to almost reach out virtually and hit her upside the head, “Why didn’t you tell me to get that dish?  You’re lucky I haven’t gone yet so now I KNOW to get it, or I’d have been PISSED!” 

In any case, I did indeed order the chorizo with potato puree… of course, if you clicked on the above link, they look nothing alike, so I was pretty surprised.  HOWEVER… looks don’t matter as much as taste to me, and oh my gosh, this was pretty mind bogglingly delicious.  I would like to make this myself!  Except house-made chorizo isn’t in my future… I’m not dabbling in charcuterie, sorry!  But damn, the crisp fried chorizo’s ’skin’/casing against the smooth puree of potato, a blank canvas that the chorizo, bursting with flavor, painted into completely new territory… ahhh, this is what food memories are made of!  This is what food dreams can come true!  Oh damn that was good.  I was extremely happy already. 

But if you’ve been counting, that’s only 4 dishes.  Yup, to round it all off, I added a vegetable dish: grilled asparagus with romesco sauce, which was described as a pepper/tomato/onion sauce.  Okay, sounds good… and it was.  Good.  Tasty.  A little on the oily side, but it was properly cooked and tasty.  Mind boggling or new?  Nope.  But that’s not a bad thing. 

At this point, I smilingly asked to see a dessert menu just to look.  I probably could have pounded back a dessert (I was actually thinking of getting ice cream for my walk afterwards, anyway), but the waiter frowned at me as he silently gave me the menu.  Nothing.  Come on, wouldn’t you just smile at this girl sitting there, smiling, who just ate FIVE dishes alone, who clearly was still thinking about eating dessert?  I’m not obese, and even if I were, the waiter’s job isn’t to cast judgement!  I wasn’t going to let him spoil my mood.  I did, however, let his mood decide for me about dessert – at least one dish looked semi-interesting but not “I HAVE to have it,” so I opted out.  Still no smile, no “I thought you might be too full,” which waiters and waitresses have said to me before with a smile and it’s not offensive!  It’s just making conversation.  But oh well, he lost out on some extra tip.

Then he brought me the check…

Bear in mind, I was alone.  I was sitting at a two-top (table for two), back to the window.  The waiter chose to put the check on the table as far away from me as possible.  Uhhh?  No smile, either.  I just didn’t understand.  I actually had to lean over all the way, then stand up a little to reach the check.  (Was this an excuse to look down my shirt some more?  No, because he’d already walked away, and seriously – though this isn’t really a comment for a food blog – there isn’t anything to look at, honest!)  I was forcing myself not to get annoyed because, despite some major MEHHH parts of my meal (the octopus! augh!), I was having a good time and intended to continue my good mood for the rest of the trip. 

As a matter of habit, I always check the bill before I pay.  Sure enough, there was an error.  A minor error of only $2.50, but it’s a matter of principle.  I took out my credit card and waited for him to return. 

And waited.

And waited.

It was past 2 at this point, and the restaurant had emptied significantly (though it’d never filled up to begin with).  There were maybe 2-3 other tables in my immediate vicinity that had anyone at them, including a table that had just been seated.  The waiter was nowhere to be seen.  Finally, after more than 5 minutes of waiting (but less than 10), he reappeared and tried to take the book with the tab and my credit card in it from me. 

“Oh,” I said, flustered for a second as he pulled the book from my hand, but before he walked away, “actually, I had a question…”
“Yes?” he said, impatiently.
My patience was wearing thin already, and I didn’t need incentive.  I wasn’t wrong.  I knew I was right.
“The price of the beet salad is wrong.”
He looked put out.  “Are you sure?  There are two beet salads on the menu,” he exhaled loudly.
“Yes,” I said firmly.  “I pointed at the less expensive one because I wanted a smaller portion.”  I looked him straight in the eyes, daring him to say something back.  He was staring at me, not quite glaring, but staring.  He seemed to be calculating something. 
After a moment, “Fine,” he said.  “I’ll fix it.”  He huffed loudly and walked away.

I was sufficently annoyed at this point that I have to sincerely weigh the pros and cons of recommending this place.  Poor service can be a one-off, but it can also destroy your entire meal, despite wonderful food.  It is a serious matter – if you are going to pay to go out and eat, you do not want to pay to be treated like shit.  Especially in the current economy!  Especially at a restaurant that you wouldn’t consider inexpensive!  Especially at a place like this! 

While it’s true, he did fix the bill without further comment, (and no, he didn’t reissue a check, he just charged my credit card minus $2.50, but at that point, I was just like, I want to get out of here, I don’t need the headache of demanding to see a new itemized bill) I just felt the whole incident was unnecessary.  Uncalled for.  I know I pointed to the cheaper dish, because I knew I was going to order four more dishes and I wanted a small-ish salad to start.  Because I’ve waited on people before, I still tipped him a normal amount (16% or so – I almost doubled the tax blindly, but turns out, DC tax is 10% and that would have given him 20%… which he did NOT deserve!)… but I was incredibly disgusted with his behavior. 

Yvo says: To be honest, I had some really good dishes at this place, as you can see above with my enthusiastic descriptions.  I also had a really bad flop, and a mediocre dish or two.  There were many other items on the menu that piqued my interest.  However, as you can also see above, I really didn’t like my waiter.  Are all the waiters there like him?  I have no idea, and I doubt it, because other people seemed happy to be there, and the restaurant has been open for quite a while – restaurants don’t succeed if they have that terrible service.  (Except maybe in certain cities that seem into the abuse.)  So, if you’re the gambling type, your odds are pretty good to not have the same shitty waiter I had… and the food seems like certain dishes are worth it!  My entire meal (everything you see above; I didn’t order alcohol or a beverage) came to $50 including a normal tip. 
food mostly recommended… I hope that waiter gets an attitude adjustment

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