A bit of Spain @ Barca in Glasgow

Isn't it great that we can buy on-line vouchers for restaurant deals to try out different dishes at different restaurants? Anyway, my husband and I have just been to Barca (http://www.barcatapas.co.uk) for dinner using on-line voucher.

For £19, we got small portion of bread, olive oil and some olives as apperitif , seafood paella to share for main course and a bottle of house white wine.  Not bad a deal. Of course, the small print on the voucher informed us that it would take 45 minutes for paella to be ready, naturally we perused the menu and ordered 3 tapas dishes off the menu.

We ordered Gambas a la Plancha (Whole tiger prawns in lemon and chill), Escabeche de Lubina (Seabass escabeche pickled veg & potato dill scone) and Croquetas de Pescado (Fish Croquettes with a lemon & roast garlic alioli).

Whole tiger prawns in lemon and chilli

As I love sucking juice out of tiger prawns' heads, I was looking forward to do that, alas, prawns were a bit dry, still, the chilli sauce was very lovely and spicy. I wish we had more bread to dip in the sauce to wipe the plate clean ...

Seabass escabeche with pickled veg & potato dill scone

Escabeche is, I am assuming, basically a fish dusted with flour lightly and then marinated in olive oil and lemon. This was rather nice but maybe a bit fishy to some people. I liked the pickled vegetables which were refreshing in taste. I am not sure about these two potato dill scones that came with this dish - they are rather dry and I am not sure if they add to anything, however, they were interesting.

Fish croquettes with a lemon and garlic alioli

I love croquettes so these were nice too. I wish they make these croquettes bigger. They could do two bigger croquettes with more alioli sauce instead of 4 small skinnier ones which resembles to fried mozzarella sticks you get at Italian restaurants for starter.

Did we order too much before paella????

However, we did enjoy all these. Problem of tapas is that you tend to order far too much, ended up spending a lot for starters.

The house wine was fine too - not too dry and not too sweet so I guess it's a safe choice for everyone.

Not too dry, not too sweet...

Oh, I almost forgot, yes we also had some small starter olives, olive oil with balsamic vinegar with some bread.  Bread was really nice.

We had all these as we thought we would be waiting for 45 minutes or more but after 30 minute or so, our seafood paella was ready!

Barca's Seafood Paella

This is a deep-pan (?) paella with some seafood - tiger prawns, king prawns and squid rings with vegetables. Personally I would like to have a bit more saffron and less paprika but saffron is very very expensive so I understand. We did enjoy this paella but unfortunately we could not finish all, and I did not have audacity to ask for a doggy bag and probably we would be either found upon or laughed at, ha ha ha.

We then ordered coffee - flat white for me and espresso for my husband. He also ordered Spanish liqueur called Cuarenta Y Tres or Licor 43 for digestivo!  This is made from citrus and fruit juices, flavoured with vanilla and herbs and spices. The name came from having 43 different ingredients in it (yes, we have checked on wikipedia, ha ha ha!)

Digestivo - Wow, this is really really goooood stuff!

I tried a wee sip from my husband's glass (and I liked the glass too...) and I would not mind having this at home with an ice cube in it after dinner as digestive. I said to my husband that we would buy this and bring it back next time when/if we go back to Spain. He said, we can buy it in UK.  Well, he is right, it appears that you can buy it at ASDA for £17.50 a bottle. I shall check it next time I am in the shop.

Total, including on-line voucher, came to around £43 or so and service charge included, so it was not a bad deal. We could have done without those starters but what is the point of not trying different dish to experience a little bit of Spain in Glasgow!!!   Staff were nice and attentive, service was good too, despite some of negative reviews I have read on Trip Advisers.  So, overall we did enjoy our dinner and the evening.

I am off to search for another on-line deal now. See what food we can try next!

That's all forks!