Since we were down in San Diego, where there is a prominent Mexican population and restaurant scene, I originally wanted to try a Mexican restaurant. However, some of my companions said that Mexican cuisine smells, so they didn’t want to try it. So to please everyone, I had to pick something else.
I thought Spanish cuisine would be similar enough (although they are VASTLY different), just to satiate my craving for it. So in the end we picked Cafe Sevilla.
Ooh interesting story. Like most Downtowns, their is teeming with one-way streets. O and I dropped off the other three and went looking for parking ourselves. We were EXTREMELY lucky and found a metered parking spot….but it was parallel parking on the LEFT SIDE OF THE STREET!!!
Parallel parking is hard enough, but with a strange car, in a strange town, even harder. But we managed. We were about to do one final maneuver when a guy walked by and asked if we needed help. I was skeptical at first because I wasn’t too keen on letting as stranger drive our rented car…what if he drove off with it! But O already agreed so we let him. Thankfully everything was fine.
Boy was this restaurant dark. Please excuse the terrible photoshopping but I had to brighten the pictures to be able to see anything, so please bare with me.
This place requires you to leave your credit card number though to make a reservation, and if you’re a no show they’ll charge $20 to the card. Needless to say we timed ourselves pretty well at San Diego Wild Animal Park.
They also don’t seat you until your whole party is present and ready to be seated.
Our server though, was extremely helpful and nice. She gave us lots of suggestions and she sounded Spanish, so to me she must offer authentic advice!
I suggested that we order a pitcher of Sangria to share, and what a good idea it was! The Sangria was wonderful!!! It was potent though. As I was driver I only drank half a glass. I’m responsible y’all!
As usual we all picked something. The Ceviche ($9) was fresh and tasty. The avocado cost $2 extra though. There were copious pieces of fish, shrimp and scallop. It was just so refreshing.
The Seafood Crepe was just alright ($7). It wasn’t that it taste bad, it was actually really good, but personally I didn’t really want to order it because it just doesn’t really seem interesting or unique to me, but W really really wanted it.
This next one was my choice. It’s the Seafood Empanada ($7). I wanted this because of my visits to Empanada Hut. This is one of the flaky pastry empanadas and although it was good, it’s really not super interesting or unique. The filling was creamy though. The cranberry sauce was an interesting touch.
The Filet Mignon Chilindron ($13) was a hit with everyone. Perhaps due to the fact it’s made with filet mignon, the pieces were very tender and flavorful. The sauce was good too, with a tinge of spiciness. Only hoped we had bread to sop up the residual sauce.
The Brocheta Mar y Tierra ($18) was awesome, but small. It had shrimp, beef and lamb grilled “to perfection”. I only had the lamb because only O and I eat it, and it was DELICIOUS. The lamb had a honey and mint marinade and I only wished the whole brocheta was lamb. It was juicy and tender and succulent…*sigh*
Can you believe this paella was meant for one person? They serve their paellas as tapa-size, for 1 or for 2. We chose the Traditional Paella Valenciana ($27). It had an assortment of seafood and roasted chicken. You can see that there’s quite a bit of seafood in it. It was a bit salty but it was good. It’s actually my first time having paella so I’m not sure what the standard is.
We were really satisfied with this restaurant. Over all I think we paid $24 per person and it was hell of a lot better than our dinner at Currant.
It’s an intimate restaurant (how can a bunch of people sharing from small tapa plates not be?) but it’s also loud.
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