Caliu

The husband and I were out trying to find somewhere to have dinner when… my phone dies! What’s a girl to do without Unilocal?We had to go old school… we had an idea of where the Rambla Poblenou was from earlier restaurant research (but what were the highly rated restaurants there again… can’t remember) and headed that way. This rambla has a ton of restaurants on it and we walked up and down the street looking at the menus, the amount of people in the restaurant, and how the restaurant smells. We decided on Caliu because its décor was extremely cute, they were busy, and the menu looked good. We were seated right away. We had a plan of what we wanted to order that kind of got quashed when we found that they make you order at least 2 servings of paella… now, I get this… but why not just set the price for the 2 person version? We decided to order the meat paella for 12 euro per person (not the paella meal for 16 – 17 euro per person). We also ordered ham croquettes and tomato bread. The tomato bread was served do it yourself style… toast, tomato halves, whole garlic… The waiter showed us how to put it together and it was good! The croquettes weren’t so good… much less flavorful than others we had in Barcelona. The paella was decent… the portion was huge, the rice was flavorful, but the meat was only so so with much of it having tendon or other chewy bits still attached. Additionally, the rice didn’t have the crust on the bottom that makes it more of a paella versus just a seasoned rice dish. It was ok, but not great. At the end of the meal, we were both stuffed, but they brought out some sort of soupy crème brûlée type dessert… uh oh… they must have put in that we wanted the paella meal and not just the paella. Well… we figured, that was fine, at least it would come with the tomato bread and the dessert. The dessert was… odd. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be soupy like it was or if it hadn’t set. The sugar on top was extremely thick and hard to eat. I didn’t love it. So then the bill came… they charged us for the paella meal AND the tomato bread on top of it (even though it was supposed to come with the meal). They also charged 2.50 euro for a tiny bottle of water. Yikes! The meal was very expensive considering how mediocre it was.
So what is the lesson? Don’t let your phone die when on vacation.