Taberna Barcelona Tapas y Vino: A Little Corporate Social Responsibility

If you’ve ever worked for a big corporation¹, you’d know there are certain people who like to throw around jargon and buzzwords that make things sound really impressive but are really just a load of bull.  Here, I’d like to throw in one of these buzzwords: Corporate Social Responsibility.

I honesty did not want to write about Taberna Barcelona Tapas y Vino².  First of all, it’s not very good.  But more importantly, I left too much backlog that I really didn’t want to bother with this.  It’s like blogging about how crappy Jollispaghetti and Chow King are³.  But Corporate Social Responsibility dictates that we here at Food Porn Junkies tell you to about avoiding this place in Metrowalk.

First, the appetizer.  Free bread with salsa.  Yech!  There are a thousand ways to fuck up tomatoes, and I’m sure they used up more than a few of these for their salsa.

The Callos ala Madrileno or beef tripe stewed in tomato and paprika sauce was actually OK.  There wasn’t much tripe to really call it a tripe dish, but it was OK at best.  Should’ve called it a bean dish.  It doesn’t taste anything special, but at this point, I’ll take it.

The Paella Valenciana was incredibly expensive and it wasn’t that good.  IMHO, the ingredients aren’t good enough to charge 800 bucks.  Take Terry’s, which is has some REALLY expensive shit, for example.  They have a much better paella with much better ingredients at a lower cost (740 bucks).

The rice was steaming hot and there were burnt bits, at the very least.  Although there were bits that actually had me worried if I had chipped a tooth.

But the biggest sham of all was the Costillos de Cordero or grilled lamb ribs.  My first thought was really “400 bucks for lamb?!  That’s a pretty good price.”  I was so wrong.  It’s basically 3 sticks of lamb ribs served with gravy and mashed potatoes.  The potatoes were OK, but the lamb was really crappy.  The small serving aside, you really can’t cut into the meat.  It’s all veins and ligaments and I don’t think it even tasted like lamb.  All I will say is: at least it wasn’t false advertising.

The name “Tapas y Vino” suggests that we should’ve gone for tapas and wine, but that’s all done with.  We did choose 2 fairly classic Spanish dishes and, suffice to say, they fell a bit short.  There’s really not much to review about the place, hence the hesitation to write this.  But  again: Corporate Social Responsibility!  The next time I walk by this place, I’ll just keep walking.

Taberna Barcelona Tapas y Vino: A Little Corporate Social Responsibility 2012-04-20

f you’ve ever worked for a big corporation, you’d know there are certain people who like to throw around jargon and buzzwords that make things sound really impressive but are really just a load of bull.  Here, I’d like to throw in one of these buzzwords: Corporate Social Responsibility. I honesty did not want to …