Pintxos y Tapas, Por Favor: Dinner at Bar Raval

The "hangry dying diners" and I decided to change it up one night and have dinner at Bar Raval (505 College St). It is a cozy and beautifully-decorated bar that specializes in tapas and pintxos. While I can't remember from whom I first heard about it, I distinctly recall reading up on its owner, Grant van Gameren, in a copy of Toronto Life. It seemed like a cool place to go, and unbeknownst to many, Diana and I actually went there sometime last year to check it out. We were surprised to find that it wasn't a sit down restaurant and quickly conceded to La Carnita (501 College St) a few doors down. We had some of its always delicious tacos, but that meant we also missed out on a year's worth of great Spanish cuisine as I had discovered last week.

Diana and I walked in to meet Holly just after 6:15pm, and the three of us spent some time under the bar's heated, outdoor canopy while waiting for a spot inside. This gave us a chance to catch up and talk about Holly and Kevin's upcoming wedding, for which I have the honour of being a member of the bridal party. :)

Soon after discussing some of the wedding's exciting details, we were brought inside and were met with a most Gaudi-esque view. The wood paneling inside Bar Raval was nothing short of a marvel–it looked like the interior of Casa Batlló (Passeig de Gràcia, 43, 08007 Barcelona)! Whoever designed the bar really did a great job... But I was more keen to see if the food matched the quality of the interior design. ;-) We looked through the menu before and after we found our place around a wine-barrel-table, and we decided to get the following: the kitchen bread, the mushroom tower, the hot octopus, and the lamb sausage and white beans. Many of the dishes we chose then and thereafter were recommendations of the Bar Raval staff, all of whom were very helpful throughout the evening.

The kitchen bread arrived first and was a great start to the meal.

Then came the mushroom towers, a visually appealing dish: Four mushrooms were stacked above each other, topped with a shrimp, and secured on a slice of bread with a wooden skewer. Of the dishes we had ordered thus far, this is the one that I would most want to make at home. The juices from the mushrooms seeped into the bread and also made it as good as the mushrooms themselves. I give this one infinite stars for artistry and taste. Bravo!

By this point, Victoria had already joined us for dinner, and she added the Galician octopus, the morcilla and egg, and another chesse-anchovy-bread combination to our list.

The hot octopus, the penultimate dish from our initial list, was the third to arrive at our table, and it was really, really tasty. The only downside to it was that the octopus was slightly overwhelmed by the potatoes that were also served in the dish. To some extent I feel that it was even lost in them. With that said, it was still good... as was the seasoning it came with, which we enthusiastically mopped up with bread.

 

Octopus become octopus squared when we were served the Galician octopus (and the second cheese-anchovy-bread combination), which we gobbled up just as fast as we did everything else.

Last but not the least, we got to try our two meat dishes: the morcilla and egg on–surprise, surprise–bread and the lamb sausage and white beans. Similar to the other dishes, these were delicious; I dare say they had the strongest flavours of all of the dishes that evening.

I must mention that I was personally inundated by all of the bread that kept coming with each order. I know it's likely cuisine-related or order-related, but it seemed just a bit too much, and I was honestly "breaded out". At least the white beans were a change of pace.

We ended our dinner with a slice of heaven in the form of cheesecake shared amongst the four of us. Ah, so yummy.  

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Bar Raval was g-r-e-a-t. Bread comment notwithstanding, all of the dishes were truly delicious. Great food accompanied by amazing atmosphere and service always make for a great dinner. I will certainly go back there again.