Spanish Night at Taberna de Bellas Artes, Saturday 26 May 2007

Well, I would think that most of the DC members who have missed the feasting in San Sebastian would be chomping for some Spanish food, and who am I to disagree with them?

So for this month's event, we will be heading for Taberna de Bellas Artes, Pfalzburger Straße 72a, 10719 Berlin, a place rated as Berlin's best tapas bar. You don't have to believe me, just Google it or have a look at this website: http://www.schlemmerinfo.de/eng/berlin/kategorien/europa/spanien/4544/index.html

My only problem is that I think that review is a little subjective and perhaps done by someone who has not been to San Sebastian as I have personally sampled the restaurant and I would only rate it as pretty damn tolerable (but then my standards are so high these days)! But I would definitely agree about leaving the car at home though.

Still, as so many people have wanted us to do a Spanish again, I think it's a good place for May's dinner event and this place can accommodate quite a few people so, as usual, if you are interested, please drop me an email at chris@berlindinnerclub.com latest by Friday, 11 May 2007, and the lucky 16 or so attendees will be confirmed by Monday, 14 May latest.

Please note that it is not an expensive dinner club night this time, and I guess 30 Euro would be more than sufficient for most people not intending to become sumo wrestlers. After dinner, my very simple plan is to head for the Weissmaus and get plastered, and unless someone has a better idea, then that is what I will be doing. :o)

Chris

How it went on the night...

Well, my major disappointment was that the Weissmaus was not open after dinner, so we had to repair to another bar for after-dinner drinks. Bugger.

Anyway, regarding the dinner, in the end, 24 of us turned up on the night (over a period of several hours), so it was the biggest Dinner Club event so far this year. As regards the food itself, well, perhaps my expectations were a little too high but I thought the food was pretty average, and that is just my subjective view. The tapas was tolerable, but since I was just in Barcelona last week, maybe I had expected a more authentic range of dishes. But I can't say it is a bad place for a cosy dinner so I won't. What I will say is that the service was a little haphazard and slow, though I don't fault the waitress as the place was packed to the gills with other diners, but the restaurant did know we were turning up in force and perhaps they could have organised an extra person to help out on the night. The paella took over an hour to arrive, for example. Not good news.

My tapas was the usual collection of standard bar dishes (eg. artichokes, tomato chicken, calamares, etc) and generally they were tasty enough to be considered good pub fare. For a restaurant claiming to do good Spanish food however, the range was distinctly unexciting and rather predictable. But perhaps that's what people want, so I'm not complaining. However, I won't recommend that you listen to the waitress' recommendation about how good the house red wine was, because, well, it wasn't. But overall, I don't think people walked away hungry or disappointed so it was a good night out for most of us.