What Is It with Paella?

Standing within inches of a man in a T-Shirt which had “Valencia Giant Paellas” emblazoned on the back was probably a good sign that there was going to be a mass feeding wherever that man was.

Even after watching that giant paella being cooked over that massive orange wood flame while chanting the key ingredients of an ‘authentic Valencian paella’ (beans, water, chicken, rabbit, sweet paprika, saffron, tomatoes, olive oil, Spanish paella rice, snails) with the rest of the gathering London crowd in summer 2008, it still amuses me how the paella can capture attention like few other dishes of its kind. By this I mean the other cultural equivalents – think Chinese fried rice and ‘eight jewelled rice’, Italian risotto, Indian pilafs, Persian spiced rice etc

Put a paella on your menu, and it is almost a safe bet that the only thing that can stop people from ordering it will be the time it takes to actually cook one (unless the paella is the sole main dish on the menu, it is cooked only on order. In some restaurants, you have to book your paella 24 hours in advance) and the number of people at the table - if you ever find a restaurant with a one-person serve of decent paella, let me know because it is as rare as hen's teeth.

Thus it was that when a paella appeared on the menu at Markov's Place (Drummond Street, Carlton), my two visiting Malaysian friends got pretty excited. This amidst all the tapas and mains on the relatively short menu (compared to Movida, that is). The waitress must have heard them because when I asked her what her recommendations were, it was the paella that got top billing in her book along with spiced pumpkin croquettas and a warm beetroot salad with goat cheese.

We settled in to wait for the seafood paella, sipping our pomegranate punch (we thought ordering a jug would have yielded more than three glasses) while talking among tea lights. I must say that this place was dimly lit even for someone like me who is used to dimly lit places. Definitely a place for couples and soft conversations, I thought to myself. Sarcasm-filled conversation about traffic cops and Malaysian graduates was certainly incongruous with such an environment...

The spiced pumpkin croquettas were a marvel. The pumpkin had been pureed to such a smooth paste that it melted in the mouth. Careful seasoning and crunchy outer layer sought only to enhance the winter-developed flavour intensity of this pumpkin. Eating this led to a ten-minute conversation about the many uses of pumpkin in cooking, and how it is one of the most undervalued vegetables in Malaysia. It is surprising how many people grew up not seeing a pumpkin in the kitchen simply because they did not realise how versatile it can be. The steamed pumpkin cake (think 'yum cha' radish cakes-like product, smoother texture, more pepper, meat optional) was one transformation of the pumpkin that I grew up with thanks to my grandmother, and I am eternally grateful for that.

Then the salad was served, but where was the paella? You can only eat so much salad, however good it is, before you need the main to come and balance the flavours. In this case, the salad definitely should have been served with the paella (or for that matter, any other dishes that have been ordered with it). Curious serving sequence, this. I stole glances at neighbouring tables, barely making out the outlines of king prawns wrapped in jamon and roast Glenroth chicken with chickpeas.

We were quite happy to leave the salad half-consumed until the paella came. Covered in Spring Bay mussels, I could make out peas and Spanish rice underneath the black glossy shells. As expected of a Vogue Entertaining and Travel Producer Award winner, the mussels were fresh and sweet, even better than a pot of freshly-caught Port Lincoln mussels cooked in white wine and leek (big call, I know). The paella, I must admit, was quite tasty though I did have trouble working out where the squid was (or what the real colour of the paella was - tealights are seriously not conducive to working out food colours). No trouble finding the chicken, prawns and scallops. Or peas. So many peas.

For the price we were paying, we were expecting this quality. This, I thought, was better than the seafood paella at Robert Burns Hotel (sorry, Smith Street stalwarts) and definitely better than that at Movida - another case of friends falling for the paella on the menu. I was fortunate enough that time to have another friend to order tapas with and separately from the paella sharing group - it IS a tapas bar, after all. The paella was...let us just hope that Movida III, geared toward communal dishes like the paella, will fare much better.

Still, even after this meal, I could not help but be reminded of my mother's words, after we had tasted our (free) portions of the Valencian Giant Paella in all the warmth and glory that a London summer afternoon can muster:

"This is basically Spanish fried rice, isn't it?"

LS: Food - unable to rate due to lingering feeling that we should have tried the tapas and other mains but that pumpkin croquetta is nothing but gold; Service - 31/2 stars; friendly but muddled perhaps in terms of food service sequence; Atmosphere - 3 stars; WAY too dark for me!