Great Find: Suba

Suba, a Spanish tapas restaurant on Ludlow in the Lower East Side, has great food. The restaurant has a bar on street level, then a room over a pool on the second level called the "grotto" and a third, more quiet level below that. On Saturday, City Guy and I treated ourselves to a tasty dinner there--one of the best deals in town, it turns out.

For $50 a head, you get seven course chef's tasting menu. The items on the menu are sort of a surprise, i.e., not listed on the menu, but you can ask your waiter to exclude certain items or request others that sound good. Our menu had everything, from octopus to sweet corn risotto with suckling pig to this tasty egg, potato and mushroom concoction:It tastes better than it sounds, and this picture doesn't do it justice. The chef does amazing things with potatoes and sauces too. It's flavorful, rich food, and they've got a good amount of space, so it might be a good place for a dinner party with friends. On Sundays at 8 pm, they have a flamenco show.

People on Chowhound seem to prefer the grotto for the pool, but to tell you the truth, I'm glad we sat in the more private lower level b/c the smell of chlorine from the pool water was pretty strong. I don't like smelling chlorine while tasting my food, but that's just me. I've got a super sensitive nose.

By the way, it's not the most quiet restaurant. We got there around 8 pm, and it wasn't so bad (see how empty the room looks in the pictures above), but around 9 or so, it was packed, and then it got harder to converse.