Socarrat has Delicious Socarrat

Socarrat is a paella restaurant that opened in Chelsea a few years ago that I've been wanting to try, since I love any dish featuring carbs as the star. After a weekend visiting family in Florida (hi Aunt P., your potato leek soup was the best! [sorry Mom]) I finally got the chance to give Socarrat a try, in their new-ish NoLiTa location, with the wonderful Katie C., foodie companion extraordinaire.





The fixture of the menu is of course the paella, which comes in a number of varieties, in 2-person per order portions. We went traditional, with seafood, chicken, and beef. While waiting for the paella (which takes about half an hour to prepare) we feasted on tapas, the highlight of which was grilled octopus sliced extremely thin with scrumptious garlic and olive oil. I would have been perfectly happy eating just the octopus. The grilled asparagus with goat cheese, and the fried artichokes, were both delicious but nothing especially exciting.

The paella was pretty fantastic. The seafood was all perfectly cooked (though the chicken and beef were ever so slightly overcooked) and it was all seasoned very well. The best part was the socarrat--the crispy rice formed at the bottom and sides of the pan as the paella roasts. The rice takes on this nutty, caramelized flavor that is scrumptious. I especially liked that part of the service involves the waiter coming and scraping all the socarrat off the pan, because they are much better at it than I was.

Although I liked the food, I was a little disappointed in the service. It wasn't bad; on the contrary they were very attentive, perhaps too attentive. It seemed like they were trying too hard to please and ended up just being a little annoying--ordering took a long time because the wine selection had to be handled first, and that was a multi-step process, and then picked tapas was a big ordeal too. Plus there was a lot of pressure to finish all the paella, which I thought was a little odd. Still, nothing so offensive that I would refuse to go back, especially since the food was so yummy.