Message-ID: <MczOH3a00XNI5A5Go5@cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 91 10:57:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael.Witbrock@cs.cmu.edu
To: Outbound News <outnews+netnews.pgh.food@andrew.cmu.edu>, 
    Harry.Bovik@cs.cmu.edu, Antoine Paul Brusseau <ab2y+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Mallorca - Review
In-Reply-To: <YczNTQe00VoRAFFOMp@andrew.cmu.edu>
References: <AcxRU1200WBMA3oV0l@andrew.cmu.edu>,
	<189693@unix.cis.pitt.edu>
	<ccz633200XNI11X1s=@cs.cmu.edu>,
	<YczNTQe00VoRAFFOMp@andrew.cmu.edu>

Well, throwing caution (and money) to the wind, we went to Mallorca last
night [the new 
Spanish Restaurant on the SouthSide, where the Brady Street Cafe used to
be].

We had:  Free:  Bread (unremarkable, but pleasantly warm and soft)
                         the standard ensalada con catsup [actually, I
kind of like the standard 
                         US Spanish restaurant side salad with ketchup
dressing, but its weird].

Paid for: Sopa de ajo (garlic soup). 
              This was pleasant, but not wonderful. It was insuficiently
garlicy for my taste and the egg albumum was not quite set in places.
Good, but markedly inferior to the robust sopa de ajo I've had in Mexico.

              Paella Valenciana - actually, pretty bad. Perhaps it was
because it was sort of late in the evening. The rice was dry, and
lacking in flavour (it was yellow, but didn't taste noticibly of
saffron). The mussels were overdone. The shrimp were dry and somewhat
flavourless. The lobster was foul - arid, bitter in parts, oozing green
slime. The dish improved markedly after we had removed the lobster and
stirred some of the juice from the bottom of the pan a bit, but still a
low grade paella at best. I think that the steward noticed our
displeasure, since he came over and INSISTED on knowing whether it was
OK,  - normally I will put up with the most awful food in order to avoid
making a fuss, but this time I felt pressed to reply  ("We'll actually,
since you insist, the lobster was really pretty bad").  He brought out
another, much, much better lobster. I'm not sure whether this should be
viewed positively or negatively, as a will to fix problems, or as a sign
that they had decent food out the back, and chose to give us the horrid
stuff. In any case, we were pretty fed up by this stage, and
dissappoined in the meal.  I doubt that we'll be going back in a hurry.

Atmosphere: Pleasant (same as before it became a spanish restaurant).
Agreeable staff. Table of VERY loud people (too much sangria)  who also
smoked next to us - needs non smoking section, or no smoking section.

Summary: disrecommended. 
                 I'll go to New York (or maybe Sydney) where I've had
much much better paella  the next time I hanker for it. (I've not been
to spain yet, so I can't compare it with that).