Last Night's Dinner

Dear Gentle Reader,

Yesterday I got sacked. That's right, the CLC is officially down in the dumps! Fortunately, I have a naturally sunny disposition, so I'm trying not to let it bother me too much. Now, the fact that I am unemployed is a bit of double edged sword in terms of this blog. The up side is that I'll have a lot more time to eat delicious food and document my dining adventures with more thoughtfulness and zeal. The down side is that I won't have as much money to assist in the procurement of said delicious food. What a rat fuck! Don't panic though; we'll figure something out.

Anyway, last night I ended up eating at La Nacional (West 14th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues) with Nate, Heather, Vino, Klara and Big Eli. We just stumbled across this place after being shut out of a couple of Mexican restaurants in the immediate vicinity. Believe it or not, wanting to eat Mexican food on Cinco de Mayo is not an original idea, hence a completely fruitless venture. To be honest, I'm really glad it turned out that way. The food was delicious and super inexpensive, in fact, absurdly so. There were six of us, but everyone chipped in for me since I'm recently down and out, and it only came to $40 a head. So, I didn't take any notes because I was feeling a little blue, but I'm pretty sure this is what we ate:

Tapas
1) Tortilla - Egg and potato frittata type deliciousness. Excellent for making combo bites with.
2) Shrimp in a yummy garlicky sauce - Most of us ranked this as #1 tapas of the evening.
3) Mussels in a creamy sauce
4) Manchego and cured meats - Always a winner. Charcuterie RULES.
5) Fried Chorizo - Great combo bite with the tortilla.
6) Grilled Sardines - A total hit. Ditto on the combo bite action.
7) Toasted bread w/ goat cheese, roasted peppers and sardines (or anchovies? nobody's sure.)
8) Some other weird bread thing with olive oil and a tomato paste. I took a little bite and was like - eh, whatever.
9) Another cheese plate. All of the cheeses were quite nice, but I really can't tell you much about them.
10) Grilled octopus - Too salty, but everyone else seemed to think it was delicious. Wait, Heather didn't like it either.

PAELLA
Delicious. The rice was a perfect consistency. The mussels and clams were glorious. I was a camorones (shrimpy shrimp) hog. Even the chicken was great - nice and tender.

To Drink
Two pitchers of sangria (red)

Besos,

CLC