September 10, 2014

B44 Catalan Bistro

A bit of regret surrounds eating at this restaurant. Its location makes it touristy and while situated in a small alleyway with cute European style outdoor seating, the food is just not worth the high price. But if for some reason you choose to dine here, a few dishes do deliver decent Catalan food.

We started off with three tapas to share. Starting with fire roasted piquillo peppers stuffed with local dungeness crab meat, then pincho moruno or grilled leg of lamb brochettes with cucumber salad and spicy red pepper sauce. Lastly and the best out of the selection were chipirones, baby squid stuffed with fennel sausage and cooked in its own ink. It's a weird dish but I'm kind of into interesting dishes so it worked for me.

We ordered the B44 paella to share and selected this particular one because it has a mix of both chicken and chorizo with seafood. The first and last time I had paella was in 2012 when I visited Madrid and ate the most incredible squid ink paella. It's obviously going to be tough to ever top that first paella experience but the paella B44 was good enough to satisfy that nostalgic craving.

paella B44: saffron rice, chorizo, chicken, shrimp, squid, mussels, clams, vegetables