Last year I’d been invited to the pre-opening culinary evening of new Spanish restaurant in Dubai. Spanish waiters were greeting guests with aromatic red Sangria at the entrance and that promised a good evening ahead. The restaurant’s ambience was very welcoming and relaxed. I was very excited and anxious to try out Spanish dishes!
We had tried few tapas (appetizers), cold tomato-cucumber soup-Gaspacho, Spanish pudding and another famous dessert – churros. And of course, an icon of Spanish national cuisine – Paella! The young Chef was preparing saffron seafood paella just in front of my table! Can you believe, they have bringing the rice for paella straight from Spain! And not only rice, among others stuff is sherry vinegar, sausages, wine… Thus, I’d tasted the real taste of Spain being outside the country! Besides the dinner, there was a drawing, and my husband was extremely lucky that day and won the main prize – the voucher for a dinner. So, we had a chance to dine there one more time.
One of the distinctive features of the restaurant is a large open kitchen and bar, counter seating and tables are laid around it. We sat near the kitchen, where the chef was preparing food in front of us. While waiting paella, we were served complimentary crusty bread on a wooden board. The waiter explained that we should rub bread with garlic, tomato and season to taste. A good and aromatic starter!
The main dish – paella was flavorful, but overly salty. I almost wanted to scream ‘stop!’ at chef, when I’d seen how much salt she added in a huge paella pan.
Enjoyable dish was churros with Nutella dip. They remind me Russian khvorost.
To sum up, I’d like to say, that the food tasted really good (but too salty), the decoration is impressionable and fresh for Dubai, and staff is friendly, but.. The paella’s potion is a bit small for such pricy tag! Compare to other Dubai restaurants, where almost everywhere the potion is big enough to share. So, this Spanish restaurant could be visited once to try paella or churros, and don’t’ forget to ask about ‘paella of the day’, it’s two times cheaper.
I’m little bit late to Fiesta Friday this week, but I’m very chirpy to be part of it, and hope there is some food left.. 😀 Enjoy the weekend, bloggers!
milkandbun 
Love paella, too bad they over salted, it is such a great dish.
I love it too; yes, it was a pity..
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I’m glad you made it over to Fiesta Friday with your Spanish restaurant tale. Too bad the paella was so salty – no excuse for that. Otherwise, it looks like a fun menu. I hope they had Spanish music too to go with the food.
Thanks for stopping by, Hilda! Have a nice week!
Looks like a lovely restaurant and it seems they were still getting the kinks out, hopefully they have improved.
And hope, they will make portions much bigger! 🙂
very cool! Seems they’re getting it right! (except for the salt, haha)
The decoration and ambiance is really nice. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
Oh how annoying to see her adding all that salt and not to be able to stop her! It’s so easy to add extra seasoning if you need it, but you can’t ever take it out again …
I’m glad you were able to have churros, though, to make up for the disappointing paella – churros are THE BEST!!! Yummy 🙂
We’re having a tapas evening here tonight and I can’t wait: lots of yummy Spanish food 😉 But it won’t look as classy as your restaurant did!
Oh, sounds like you gonna have an amazing evening! 🙂
I love Spanish food, it is so close to ours! Eventually I will visit Dubai so I am bookmarking this!
Thank you! 🙂
Shame that the paella wasn’t up to scratch but it looks like a lovely, atmospheric place to visit!
Great post, I always love visiting!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Dubai…exotic, fascinating but so foreign to me…wait, it is faraway place. I love the restaurant decor. Foods looks great. I enjoyed the post very much.
Thank you! 🙂