La Nacional - Review

Intro
La Nacional - Highly Recommended
239 W 14th St, New York 10011
Btwn 7th & 8th Ave
Phone: 212-243-9308

I was craving some authentic paella after watching America's Test Kitchen, but I realized I didn't know where to go in the city. Sure, there's plenty of tapas restaurants (Tia Pol, Casa Mono, Bolo, etc.), but I had no idea where to go for authentic Paella. Luckily, chowhound is a wonderful resource to ask all the foodies where to go. I ended up finding La Nacionale and to my surprise the place was a hit. The food is great home cooking. No fancy presentations, no fancy sauces - just food that makes you happy with a great atomsphere. Overall, I give the restaurant an 86/100.

My Menu
1) Paella De La Casa - Highly Recommended
2) Campero - Highly Recommended
3) Champinones - Recommended
4) Gambas al ajillo - Recommended
5) Flan - Recommended

Dish Comments
1) Saturday's Paella of the day was seafood paella and it was spectacular. The flavor of the rice was so rich with seafood (squid, mussels, clams, shrimp, and chicken). The seafood was perfectly cooked and absorbed the flavors of all the other ingredients. The calamari was so ridiculously tender. After watching Paella made many of times on TV, I know the key to a great paella is socarrat or the crispy bottom, but I've never experienced this before. This Paella had the socarrat and it really makes a difference in texture. You know when a dish is great, when you want to recreate the dish...I'll let you know how it goes in another post.
2) Cured Chorizo, Manchego cheese, and Serrano Ham. Ridiculously good. Chorizo was so intensely flavorful. The serrano ham really is the prosciutto of Spain. I would say this is definitely some of the best that I've had - better than Mario Batali's Bar Jamon by leaps and bounds.
3) Sauteed mushrooms were great. Basically sauteed button mushrooms that are super rich in flavor. It's not like I haven't had this before, but it still made me very happy.
4) Shrimps in a rich, red garlic broth. Shrimps were OK, wish it could have been more tender but the garlic broth was so rich I didn't care. Combination of both were amazing.
5) I'm a huge flan of Flan, but I prefer the Cuban style which is usually more dense and flavorful. This was lighter like the creme caramel, which was nice. The strawberry sauce was the most ridiculous strawberry sauce I've ever had. Explosion of real strawberry flavors, which went well with the flan.

Overall Restaurant Experience (86/100)

• Food 8.5/10 - Food is great home cooking. Makes you feel very happy.
  
• Service 7.8/10 - Nice wait staff, but not very efficient. When we did order, food came out relatively quick. They didn't speak English so well, but that's a good sign when they primarily speak Spanish at a Spanish restaurant.
  
• Atmosphere 10/10 - Love the atmosphere here. It's like a Spanish social club, where old guys hang out to eat - in fact there were old Spanish guys just hanging out in front of the place. Restaurant is in a basement with wooden tables, wooden chairs - feels like you could be in Spain. This is a great place to go with friends that want to have some Spanish wine, share a lot of great food, and have a great time. It's also a good sign when the website is basically in Spanish and a lot of the patrons are speaking Spanish. It was busy, but since the place was big, we got in at 7:30 with no reservation and had no problem.
  
• Price 10/10 - Paella's are $16, some of the tapas are around $6-8. Great food for the price.
  

Closing Comments
After spending $100+ at Oceana with nice presentation, its good to see that there are restaurants in NYC at the opposite end of the spectrum. Solid home cooking at a decent price. Tia Pol which I love seems to have more intense flavors, but La Nacional's dishes just feels right even if it is not as powerful as Tia Pols. I would rate them even in terms of food, but overall I would rate La Nacional higher due to the atmosphere. I can't wait to go back with a lot of people to try everything on the menu.