My friend and I had gone to the Spot Festival and after carefully choosing the Spanish Fly's Paella and eating it, we walked across the road and saw the El Bulli's Paella looked heaps better and fresher and I knew then and there I had to come back.
Made a booking for my one year anniversary in Australia dinner here for about 8 people, about a month in advanced. They said it was good timing because they booked up fast.
That week I had to increase the reservation to 10 and they said that it would be a set menu with 10.
We ended up having about 11 people but the table was clearly laid out for 8, so we had to squish a bit, but overall it was okay.
There were a few options for the set menu - $42, $51, $62 and $70. One of my friend had a fish allergy and decided against the set menu. The waitress let us know that they recommended the set menu for a big party but it wasn't mandatory. The food would come out a lot quicker. So 4 of us ended up getting the set menu. I wanted the paella so we chose the $51 menu. Two friends ordered the paella, which they said would take 40 minutes.
Unfortunately my friend with the food allergy couldn't order anything because the kitchen was small and everything was cooked so closely together. I felt horrible because all she could eat was bread.
We ordered some white and red sangria for the table and they were yummy! The bread came out with this very tasty garlic sauce. We knew nobody would be picking up afterwards with our garlic breath.
The tapas in the set menu came out fast - there were prawns, two types of potatoes, mussels, rice balls, chorizos, salad, tomato salad and spanish meatballs, all YUMMO and super filling. I think about 8 dishes had come out and by the looks of the menu we knew there was a mushroom dish and paella dish.
Our friends paella's finally arrived and they looked beautiful! It was presented with an array of seafood and looked spectacular. One friend said it was soo good and worth the wait, the other who had paella in Spain before thought it was okay. Its never gonna be as good as Spain, so what are you gonna do?
Our other two dishes never came out and when asked, they said they had us down for the $42 menu and that the "paella" was a paella ball. I was a bit disappointed because I specifically came for the paella but at the same time I was stuffed and couldn't fit much else in anyways.
The bill came and it wasn't too bad - about $500 for 10 people. My menu with the sangria ended up being $56 which wasn't bad considering all that I ate. The staff was nice and the vibe was cool. Only thing was it was boiling hot in the restaurant without air con. Still, I would definitely come back.
If you want to order the paella call ahead cause it takes a while! read more