A Toast to Tapas

Last Monday I went to the event in SoNo called “A Toast to Preservation” and accidentally killed two birds with one stone.  A good thing to blog about and this week’s mini-review of a local restaurant.  Which first?  Ok…food

is a restaurant that aims to please.  The entire tapas/wine bar combination is one that makes so much sense that it begs to be copied into other cultures' restaurants.  Barcelona's bar is large, long, inviting and is extremely well-stocked.  Hendrick’s gin: check.  Many, many good, reasonably priced wines: check. 

So, the first part of the evening had David Westmoreland, Emil Albanese and Marybeth Becker tending bar with a portion of proceeds going to the Norwalk Preservation Trust.  Preservation to me means identifying worthwhile, meaningful historic buildings and then working to ensure they are maintained so that others can enjoy them, far into the future.  Imagine what life would be like if the bulldozers just came out every 25 years and swept everything away.  The 3 Amigos did a great job bartending, though I won’t be contracting for their services any time soon. 

So…fundraiser.  We had a few drinks and chatted.  Then on to dinner.  Tapas.  Ordering four or five or six small plates is cool.  If you don’t like one, it isn’t the end of the world, and maybe your dining partner will like it.  The food in my experience at Barcelona is always very fresh and hot, which is one of my critical success factors for a restaurant.  I had a chorizo and fig dish that was served perfectly hot but wasn’t what I was expecting.  I like figs and I wanted them to work together, but the chorizo overpowered the figs and turned me off. 

Grilled shrimp was a great second choice.  Simple, but elegantly executed.  I don’t believe there was anything left on that plate.  I will admit I am odd, but I like beets.  Any dish with beets, blue cheese and walnuts has won my heart from the word go.  Try it.  The earthy taste of the beets married to the sharp complexity of the cheese is wonderful.

Going beyond the Tapas at Barcelona is pretty easy.  We went with some grilled lamb chops, but I have had Churrasco as well as the Paella and never been left unhappy.  The chicken, I think it is half a chicken, actually, is sinful.  It comes with the skin prepared just the way the cardiac surgeon ordered. 

Barcelona is a great place to meet up with a lot of friends.  That is what we did.  I saw a lot of familiar faces at the NPT event.  One of their board members is my doppelganger of sorts … David R. McCarthy.  He isn’t me.  He makes me feel like Paul Simon … though which one, I am not sure.  NPT is an organization that I only learned about in the last couple of years.  I was initially a little suspicious, but I think they are pretty decent folks.  Head over to their website and sign up.  Stay in touch with the things that are happening in your neighborhood and beyond.  The projects they have worked on are well represented and it would seem like they are ready for a new challenge.