11.15.07
Review of Pamplona, Sunday November 2007
37 E. 28th and Park/Madison, 212-213-2328 (closed now)
Great for: medium-size parties, romantic dinners, sharing 10 dishes between two people
I’ve had Ureña (the resto’s previous incarnation) on my list since it opened and kept meaning to go but Alex Ureña, the chef, recently changed it to Pamplona. I’m actually quite glad; molecular gastronomy sounds interesting, especially to a science geek like me, but I’ve yet to like anything that crazy. Tapas is more my speed. And wow, did Mr. Ureña do a great job. The Boyfriend and I tried 5 tapas, 3 entradas and 1 plata principal, 6 of which were amazing. We wanted to get the paella but after looking over the menu a couple times we decided to save that for next time.
We got the shrimp and chorizo skewers over goat cheese toast, meatballs with butternut squash, dates with bacon, mamitaco of tuna and bocadillo de jamon from the tapas column. The dates were almost as good as at Pipa, and everything else was unreservedly terrific. The goat cheese went really well with grilled shrimp and chorizo; I normally detest squash but couldn’t get enough of it here, plus we had to stop ourselves from licking the last drops of sauce out of the dish; the tuna was perfect cubes with yummy sauces; and bocadillo seem to be like panini, except thinner and better. They were all about 4 bites big.
From the entradas (slightly bigger) we got the snow crab, shrimp over manchego rice and the poached egg on asparagus salad. The crab was ground up with spicy sauce and looked kind of like spicy tuna at a sushi restaurant; it was good but a little sweet. We loved the other two. After all this we were still a bit hungry so we got the slow cooked cod entrée, which may have been a tad undercooked. The middle was a little chewier and more raw than we expected. The sauce and the rest of the dish were great though.
Considering this was a Sunday night around 9:30, the host and waiters were incredibly chipper. The host was very nice and our 2 waiters were just the right level of eager without being annoying. The only problem was they forgot our snow crab. We ordered just the 5 tapas and 2 entradas and added the snow crab as an afterthought, so it wasn’t entirely their fault. They handled it very professionally, not making a big deal out of it and just bringing it when it was ready. I wasn’t even sure it didn’t just take longer to make until I started writing this and thought about it.
The presentation of all the dishes was great. Not pretentious or fussy, just neatly and artistically arranged. We really liked the minimalist interior as well. It’s all dark colors, well coordinated, and understated in a very chic way. You could do a business dinner or a date here equally well. We saw a couple parties of about 5 or 6 people who seemed to be having a great time, as well as some couples who looked like they were on good dates. It’s not too expensive, the tapas is some of the best I’ve ever had and the service is great. We’ll definitely be back.
Rating: 8.5 / 10
Our cost: $100 (teetotaling)
Noise Level: probably not too loud even when it’s busy
Chance of walking in: Pretty high right now, but I expect that will change as people discover it. (Never mind – it’s closed. Very sad!)
