Cafe Ba Ba Reeba

Dining Area where we were sitting with giant mirror

For our third and final meal of Restaurant Week, we went to Cafe Ba Ba Reeba, a Spanish tapas restaurant in Lincoln Park.  It is located at 2024 N Halsted in Chicago.  Natalie had been there before but Nick had not.

The restaurant week menu offered a 4 course meal including 1 pintxo (bite sized tapas from Northern Spain), 2 regular sized tapas, Paella (Spanish rice dish) and dessert.

Pintxos

For our Pintxos we chose a chorizo wrapped date and cheese and a short rib stuffed piquillo pepper. We usually have had bacon wrapped dates so it was a new twist to have chorizo instead. We enjoyed the combo of the date and the cheese - sweet and salty. The short rib was good but would have been better with a little cheese as well.

Charcuterie Plate

Since we have eaten at a lot of tapas restaurants in the past we wanted to try some different tapas than we normally get at other places.  The first tapa we ate was a Charcuterie plate with Serrano ham, salchichon, chorizo and manchego cheese. Serrano is thinly sliced dry Spanish ham similar to the Italian proscuitto; salchicon and chorizo are sausages and manchego is a cheese from the La Mancha region of Spain.  Natalie likes Serrano ham better than proscuitto because it is a little less salty.  The manchego cheese was served atop a toast point with a tomato bruschetta like topping.  This will be the new way to do bruschetta in our household.

Salmon with celery root puree and kale chips

Our second tapa was a piece of cooked salmon with celery root puree and kale chips. The salmon was good not great.  The highlight was the celery root puree which had the consistency of mashed potatoes with a punch of flavor.  We were surprised at the kale chips; they had a crunch texture but a lot flakier than a potato chip.

Our third tapa was beef tenderloin topped with blue cheese and served with potato chips.  We got this dish because we had enjoyed a beef and blue cheese dish at Meson Sabika in Naperville.  We didn't enjoy this version as much as at Meson Sabika, but it still tasted good.

Beef & blue cheese

Our fourth tapa was spiced lamb kebabs with lemon, mint and tomato.  It obviously had a Middle Eastern flavor to it - a nod to the Moorish flavors of Southern Spain. The lamb was cooked well and not dried out but what made it really good was the sauce.  It wasn't spicy in terms of heat but it had a lot of interesting spices that highlighted the mint and the tomato.

Lamb Kebabs

Chicken & Pork Paella

Seafood Paella

For our third course we had Paella which is a Valencian rice dish with meat and vegetables. We chose 2 different paellas - one with chicken, pork, green beans and artichokes and the other with shrimp, scallops, mussels, green beans and hot peppers. We enjoyed the seafood one better because it had a more dynamic flavor profile.  We don't often order paella at tapas restaurants because it is more fun to try more of the smaller tapas.  It was nice to be able to have paella, in fact it was only the second time Nick has ever eaten paella, but in the future we will probably stick to the tapas.

For dessert we had a butterscotch custard cream and a caramel dulce de leche tres leches cake. Neither one was that large but they were a nice final sweet note to end the evening. The texture of the cake was smooth and didn't drown in the milk, but we were hoping for a bit more of the caramel taste.      The custard cream was served in a large shot glass; but even though it was small it didn't disappoint.

Butterscotch custard cream

Tres Leches Cake

Final thoughts on Cafe Ba Ba Reeba:
Food - good food but there are more convenient tapas restaurants located in the suburbs for us.  It took us quite a while to find parking in this neighborhood.  All of the side streets are resident permit parking at night and there is limited paid parking on the main streets.  We did finally completely luck out and found a spot that was both close and free. But this is an exception to the rule which is why we would rather stay closer to home for this type of food. We felt this restaurant didn't try as hard to give a really good value for Restaurant Week.  With the items we ordered we probably only saved a few dollars in comparison to the better bargain deals at Table 52 and Joe's Stone Crab for us for Restaurant week.  If we had been eating off the regular menu we probably wouldn't have gotten dessert and may have even left paying less money.
Service - the service was generally good, but they didn't explain the dishes as much as at other tapas restaurants we have been to.  Also our food wasn't as spaced out as we would have hoped for a multi-course meal.  One of the tapas came before the pintxos and then the paella came out before we were done with all of the tapas.

Dining Area where we sat

Atmosphere - this restaurant is very large and has several different rooms. We actually sat in what would be the outdoor area during the summer, but fortunately it is very well heated and just like any other room during the winter. There were a lot of groups, like at most tapas restaurants, so there was a very energetic vibe to the restaurant. The tables in our room were spaced very close together, however, so we felt crowded and it looked very difficult for the servers to maneuver.