Barb & I were very excited to go to a restaurant that came highly recommended, Columbia. This is a Spanish restaurant so we were excited to have some Paella. Now the BEST part of a Paella is the crispy rice, is it not? Getting the crunchy bits in a mouthful of rice and seafood, I mean really, what is better?!
Well here we go with our experience. The restaurant is huge with 3 levels and nicely decorated. Lot’s of wait staff and they were all very friendly.
We started with cocktails for a change. We always have wine, so why not have something a little different. I had a martini with tequila and Barb had tequila with grapefruit fever tree. I didn’t catch a pic of Barb’s but here is the martini. We also had a 1/2 loaf of bread and butter to start the meal. Bread was right out of the oven, better than the Keg!
Next we decided on the Blue Crab cakes and the table side salad called the “1905”. Below are the pics along with a little bit of trivia on the name iceberg lettuce.
Entrees were grilled Grouper, which I love, and the Paella which was ordered right away as it was going to take an hour. Of course it does, that is how you get the crispy bits!
I have to say, the grouper was a little dry. The paella did not have any crispy bits and in fact was more like risotto that paella. The chicken in the paella was dry, the seafood however was good. Not sure what they were doing for an hour…..
Overall, we were disappointed. We took home leftovers and will crisp up our own paella for tonight’s dinner. The bread and salad were the highlight frankly, with the crab cakes coming in third. I won’t talk about the rest again, as you get the point.
What is potentially next on the docket?? Pizza Time, yes you heard this right. In Canada I think we have Pizza Time and it is not great. Apparently here, the Pizza Time is #2 in the U.S.A for best pizza. It is cash only, and has pizza’s like lasagne and ravioli to name a couple. We went in and looked at the slices on display, they all looked incredible. We have 2 more days here, so we’ll see.