El Rincòn de Goya

I'm reviewing mostly smaller places right now, but I do have a long review coming up of a restaurant I had the privilege of going to. However that takes time to write, so here is one of three smaller food joints I have gone to.

A small tapas restaurant set downstairs, I found this place with a couple other people while we were just walking around. The exterior looked friendly enough and the inside looked small and intimate. Just the place I've been looking, for aesthetically at least.

The menu was huge, which either boded well or was an ominous sign (too many items could mean less attention to each dish.) Turns out it was somewhere in between. I ordered the fois gras with asparagus, bacalao with aioli, and to be a little adventurous I ordered the blood sausage with egg.  Everything came on a very nice piece of rustic toast, which made it convenient to eat.

The fois with asparagus came with a deep pink sauce on top. Needless to say I was a little skeptical of it, but I tried it and discovered it was not a reduction of bubblicious, but rather a raspberry sauce. Interesting. The sweetness of the sauce actually worked quite well with the fois, cutting through the richness of the liver. The asparagus was fine, but a little overcooked.

Next came the bacalao with aioli. If it was salt cod, I couldn't tell. It seemed like they had taken a frozen fish, cut some slices off of it and reheated it in a microwave. This was the least successful for me, made much worse by the guest appearance of some raisins. Yes, probably Sun-Maid. 

My favorite dish was definitely the blood sausage. Something about the irony of it (pun intended), the almost tinny quality that you get when eating anything that has cooked blood, is actually quite appealing. This blood sausage was earthy, rich, deep in flavor that was boosted by the presence of a nice wave of cumin whenever you swallowed a bite. The quail yolk provided a sauce to the dish and the red peppers added a sweetness that was bright and fresh.

Top clockwise: blood sausage w/red peppers and quail egg, bacalao w/aioli, raisins and pinenuts, fois w/asparagus and asparagus

Final Grade: B-, the meal cost €12,50 for those three dishes and a glass of beer, so it wasn't the cheapest. Nor was it the greatest, but it was definitely not the worst (that of course goes to Tapas 44, which I realize now I've plugged more than any other eatery on here).