Because I am missing Barcelona way too much, tonight I decided to give a shot to this Restaurant in the mission. Ramblas, from the name of the so famous street in Barcelona, gives me hope for good food from Catalunya.

We arrived just before 8pm, with no reservations and we were seated right away. I liked the ambiance very friendly and the decor, a bit of a bistro bar atmosphere, this place would be perfect for a group.

We’re presented the menu and on the first page I read that the restaurant is certified Green business. This is something that I highly respect. Then, they have a little paragraph about how they only use local and seasonal products in their dishes. And I am looking at their menu and wonder if it changes a lot because of that?
I am a great supporter of restaurant who keeps things local and seasonal.

Our waiter comes to our table and that was the first “Faux pas”, he is wearing a beanie (hat), not that the place is cold or anything, to me that’s a no-no, no hats on unless it’s part of a ridiculous uniform! But he doesn’t seem to be the only one in the service staff to wear it. Anyway, he wanted to walk us through the menu, but that was pretty painful, he didn’t remember the specials and had to read it from a little note book. At this point I am thinking to myself: “Ok, he must be new here! I hope”.

We ordered 4 tapas and a bottle of wine. The wines are fairly inexpensive compared to San Francisco’s average, but they are not the best Spanish wines. We had the Campo Viejo, for $26 the bottle. That was not so good and something I probably would have found for 1 Euro in Spain.

The Spanish tortilla potato and onion omelet, with caramelized onions, wild mushrooms, capers, padron peppers, aioli and salsa verde comes. First, the tortilla is cold. It seems like a big cold cake that was made in advance. Where are the caramelized onions, wild mushrooms, capers, padron peppers? Not on the plate. There is nothing worst than to advertise a plate and not have it served as presented in the menu.

We’re not even over with our first tapas that everything arrives to the table, cold and hot entrées together, of course things are getting cold even though we tried to eat the hot stuff first.

We have the Queso frito “crispy pan fried manchego, salsa romesco and greens”. Well today it wasn’t greens but a red cabbage salad with a very lemony dressing, not to over-powering but definitely very acidic. You will notice that we will find this cabbage salad on another dish we ordered and I saw it everywhere on every table. A bit repetitive.

We also had the Sautéed Morcilla sausage, organic shelling beans, roasted butternut squash. What a disappointment when the plate came, I was expecting the Morcilla whole and nicely sautéed, the only thing I found really Spanish on the menu. The poor Morcilla had been blended with this bean and squash like stew, I found a couple bites of it but not enough to make me like this dish. Again I felt like cheated on the what the menu said. It didn’t taste bad, the flavor were good but the beans were definitely too pasty, maybe they were not soaked long enough?

At the same time was brought the Crispy calamari & grilled pulpo, fennel, saffron-lemon aioli. To me the pulpo was the best thing served at Ramblas. I wish I had ordered a full plate of those. They were perfectly cooked, I didn’t need the over cooked calamari on the side, and I am still looking for the fennel. But the pulpo is great! $12 Yikes!

Because we were served our dinner in about 15 minutes top and because we had to eat fast before it got too cold, we ended up 25 minutes after we walked in, done with dinner. The BF ordered another dish, the Bocadillo, organic braised pork shoulder, capers, red onion, pumpkin seed romesco. It was three bites of meat on bread with the exact same cabbage salad thing from the queso frito dish on top, no capers, red onions or pumpkin seed romesco.

I forgot to mention, if you want bread at Ramblas, they served great La brea bakery baguette like bread. It’s fantastic but it will cost you $1 per person, yes you’ve heard me, you will be paying for the bread!

Summary: A disappointing dinner that I will not call Spanish but more with spanish influence, this was full on Californian cuisine. The service was not good, the price a bit high for what Tapas are suppose to be. I understand that a chef has to follow the seasons but then he should change his menu accordingly and not present dishes with missing ingredients. Bill for 2: $77.25 I would not recommend Ramblas unless you just go in for the pulpo. I am now missing Cal Pep!