 |
| You may see "scampi" on many North Jersey menus, but the real things, above, are rare. |
In the 32 years our waitress has worked at Barcelona's Restaurant, she has served enough canned vegetables to fill an entire supermarket -- maybe two.
Fish and other seafood are frozen, and the small salad that comes with entrees has iceberg lettuce and a couple of slices of tasteless tomato straight from the fridge.
She brings oil and vinegar, and a basket of spongy bread, as afterthoughts. What am I doing here?
A famously frugal friend said he read a favorable appraisal of the place in The Record, and wanted to try it.
Under $10
I looked at the extensive, a la carte menu online, saw that most entrees are well under $10, and figured there was no way we would get in on a Saturday night.
But there were plenty of empty tables in the dated interior of this 78-year-old Garfield restaurant, which allegedly serves Italian-American food. It's not clear if the waitress was born before the restaurant opened or the other way around.
The reviewer said the restaurant serves big portions of "traditional southern Italian cooking" at startlingly low prices, adding the food was "nicely done," but after I had dinner there Friday night, those statements don't ring true.
Then, I remembered the reviewer was a man of gargantuan proportions who never met a morsel of food he didn't like.
No lies
The food served at Barcelona's is a cruel joke on southern Italian cooking -- which prizes fresh seafood and vegetables -- and doesn't even come close to the Italian-American dishes served at so many other places in North Jersey.
I asked the waitress about the filet of sole "with potato and string beans" for $8.75.
"It's frozen and deep fried," she said. "I'm not going to lie." She also turned thumbs down on the frozen scallops, and told me to have the "shrimp scampi" for $8.50.
The string beans are from a can, she said, and other veggies, available for $1 more, are canned peas with sliced carrots. Broccoli rabe, escarole sauteed with oil and garlic? Forgetaboutit.
I ordered the "scampi," which bear no resemblance to real scampi -- Dublin Bay prawns with narrow bodies and small pincer claws similar to lobster, like the ones I had in Venice last September.
My friend chose a rib steak and pasta for $8.50, and both of us asked for a cup of escarole-and-bean soup from the list of specials ($3.25).
I got eight small, soggy shrimp swimming in a puddle of sauce, and two plates of lifeless vegetables. The soup, which came in a small crock, was the best thing we had.
We turned down an offer of dessert.
This is cheap?
And it turned out not to be cheap. I gave my friend $19 for my lousy shrimp, extra veggies, soup and club soda, plus tip and tax. I can think of a lot of Italian-American restaurants where the same amount would have bought me a really decent meal.
The restaurant is in a drab, working-class residential neighborhood, and it's facade is not even real stone. Awaiting me inside was one of the worst meals I have ever had.
There's an American flag painted on the wall out front and many patriotic signs inside and out -- all suggesting the food is not that far above Army chow.
Barcelona's Restaurant, 38 Harrison Ave., Garfield;
973-778-4930. Cash only, street parking.
Web site: Certainly not worth the detour
Youare wrong about Jeff Page. Not a large man by any means. At least not now. How do you not know that? Is your information based on 2005?
ReplyDeleteMaybe he still thinks like one.
ReplyDeleteIf not, what's the explanation for the favorable review of such a mediocre restaurant?
Wow, canned string beans. That might be a first.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's downhill from there.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear Jeff Page has lost some weight. He must be reading this blog and using some of Victor's healthy tips. But I wouldn't say Jeff never met a meal he didn't like. It's my guess that when he reviewed Barcelona, the chef had just opened a can of string beans, and when Victor dined there the can had been open for a few days. Everyone knows canned string beans taste better when they're fresh out of the can. As for the eight shrimp that were swimming in the puddle of sauce, were they doing the backstroke or the dogpaddle, and more important, were they synchronized. Synchronized swimming shrimp are said to be more palatable than the uncoordinated variety, but what would I know. Me, if I want to dine for under ten bucks I'll order from the dollar menu at McDonalds or have a Whopper Junior at Burger King. I wonder why the Record of Woodchuck Manor never reviews those establishments.
ReplyDeleteProbably because the reviewers ate at McDonald's and Burger King numerous times while growing up, and now judge all food by those lofty establishments.
ReplyDeleteThey don't want to give away where they earned their culinary credentials.
Jeff Page completely lost credibility by saying Barcelona's serves "traditional southern Italian cooking."
As for whether he's lost weight, I sort of doubt it because he continues to order dessert at everyone of his so-called budget restaurants.
The reviews became mere filler when then-Food Editor Bill Pitcher, probably at the direction of that witch, Barbara Jaeger, held the line at a $50 reimbursement for food, forcing Jeff to cut the number of people he took to dinner from a total of four to two.
Thus, the reviews were rendered meaningless because readers don't need any help finding restaurants where two people can eat for $50, including tip and tax.
Those restaurants are a dime a dozen.