BarCeluna

This review is way past due as I wrote it in ⁰⁵⁄₂₀₁₁ but just noticed that I never officially posted it!
We bought a gift certificate from TravelZoo in January and decided to go. Only thing is we didn’t notice it expired in April!!! The place is nice. Our server was AWSOME.
We had the Duck Sliders, yummy, the Lamb Tacos, double yummy. The shrimp cocktail was ok. The Skirt Steak was super delicious. My husband had a couple of IPA beers while I enjoyed some Lemontini’s, they were made perfectly. For dessert we had the Zeppos? Cinnamon sugar donuts were yummy.
We brought our kids. They shared the chicken strips and fries. They loved it. There were only two other kids there that night.
Ok so the bill comes and we tell our server that we have the expired gift certificate and he gladly gives us the face value of what we paid for it. Great Service, Great Food, Great Drinks, Great Atmosphere. We will be back.

Great food + pitchers of sangria = Great time
I took my girl friend here and we both loved the atmosphere and the food. The menu is a mix of comfort food with a fancy twist. My girl friend got the Muscles and Fries they were amazing!!!
I am sure we’ll eat here again on date night.

Really solid tapas and california type small plate food as well as great brick oven pizzas. They make a great authentic sangria, try the pitcher!
They now have the best happy hour in the East Bay, all small plates are 2 for 1, and they are already really reasonably priced. Pitchers of sangria are $ 15 and tons of other drink specials, I highly recommend it.

This might be my new favorite place. 86 whiskeys, good drinks, good food, and a cool staff. Just needs later hours and more press.
Go there. Now!

I arrived in Nor Cal to go backpacking in the Sierras. As i got off the plane my buddy, who lives in Alameda, asked if I was hungry. It was that time to eat and happy hour was in full swing so he suggested we go to one of his favorite places in his neighborhood, BarCeluna. Happy hour is the time to go try new things for cheap and BarCeluna is no exception. The apps are 2 for 1 and specials on beers and well drinks as well.
My friend ordered the skirt steak, mussels and mac n cheese with bacon I ordered the Bahn Mieh Sliders, cheery tomato salad and the fries. Add a house made Sangria and it was an amazing meal for only $ 30! Great décor, great bar and a great time.

I went here for my 21^st birthday dinner. Food is amazing, lovely atmosphere, friendly knowledgeable staff, yummm drinks.
All 12 people in my party LOVED IT (I had friends from age 18 – 40) This place is classy yet casual, good yummy humble food. The drinks are yummy too! I’ve had a lemon drop to a cosmo to the Captains Beard (watch out for that one).
This place is spot on for any occasion, and thats probably #1 reason why I keep coming back (besides the 5 dollar mac and cheese) I’ve taken my boyfriend, my mom, and they made my birthday dinner WONDERFUL.
It’s hard to be disappointed here.

BarCeluna accommodated my birthday party of 19 people with grace and style. They gave excellent service and delivered a well-​paced stream of orders to our tables, rather than holding all the orders to deliver at once which would have overwhelmed us and the kitchen. They sensibly and reasonably split the check up by table, making it easier for us to figure out what we each owed so we could pay them and leave an appreciative tip. It was easily the most pleasant experience I’ve had of dining with a large group in public.
I personally enjoyed the melon salad, duck sliders, mac and cheese, and a lamb taco that I swapped for some mac. I finished by splitting an order of the Italian donuts with a friend — they were crisp on the outside, creamy on the inside, and a perfect ending.
Several friends tried whiskey tasting flights, and were very interested to learn about the whiskey club the restaurant has started.
By the time the meal ended, many of my friends from the city were lamenting the fact that they would now feel compelled to make the trek over to Alameda because they’d enjoyed the meal so much.

Wow… What happened here?
They changed everything in their menu and or lack thereof. As been stated per my previous reviews… My mom likes this restaurant and we often go here to celebrate her birthday and this year was no exception.
However, this year… will probably be our last.
Reservations for 7 = check. Table was our usual in the back end.
Service: I didn’t catch his name but he was friendly, very accommodating to all our needs and then some extra. I must say… handling my family isn’t the easiest and he did a good job overall.
Food: uhm that’s where the 2 stars comes from.
We ordered the following:
— steamed mussels = the only thing my parents and grandmas ate since we ordered 3 of them.
— mac and cheese (2) = very cheesy and it was a bit too much = heart attack.
— grilled steak = eh ok.
— brie cheese plate = can they be more stingy with the brie? they gave us 3 ¼ triangular cuts and it barely feed the crowd. So disappointed.
— Vegetarian Pasta aka ROSEMARY galore = S.O. ordered this and upon first bite — he was freaking out. I smelled it and oh my gosh, they went ape sh*t with the amount in there thats not even edible. YUK.
— grilled ribeye = hard and lacked of taste.
— birthday dessert for mom that’s free = not edible at all.
Overall… good luck going here and better yet, I suggest calling them to see how many items they have in their menu b/​c really, it’s lacking a lot from the time they opened.
This review is purely for the food and food alone. Service was nice but I wished I could say the same for the food.

Food: We each ordered a tapas and shared them with each other. We first tried the mac n’ cheese and it is seriously the BEST mac n’ cheese ever (note: get it with bacon)…it is out of this world so good!!! I highly recommend it! We also tried the lamb tacos… they were ok, but a little on the spicy side and rather small for the amount we paid. I probably wouldn’t order those again. And lastly, we ordered a pizza with roasted garlic, sundried tomatoes, feta and onions… it was so amazing I went home and tried to recreate it! I think it was a special though, because it isn’t on the menu anymore!
Ambiance/​Décor: Great décor. It has a great ambiance. It’s a little more on the dressier and romantic side (dimly lit, candles, dark woods)…I really liked the ambiance. It’s not a noisy restaurant either, which is a plus.
Service: Great service, the waitress was helpful is answering our questions… no complaints.
Overall: It is great for a girls night, dinner out with friends or dinner out with your loved one! I would definitely come back here again!

Came here before hitten up the Warriors last game of the season, between 5−6pm, pretty empty.
Food:
–shrimp coctail: good
–muscles: good and good size
–lamb tacos: 3 of em, pretty good
–chicken/​muschroom pizza — ehh
Drinks:
–Old Cuban — goood
–Mai Thai — goood
–bomba — stroong
Spot is laid back, couple TVs near the bar, when it gets busy, you will have to wait for service, overall a-​ight.

Yet another frustrating evening at BarCeluna. Wonderful bar staff buit totally inept kitchen staff and snot-​ass manager. Ordered the basic Mac&Cheese and the equally basic shrimp app. They’re tried to step up a pretty lackluster menu and these were some OK dishes we’d tried a few weeks ago. After 30 minutes still no food (and again, bar staff awesome and also frustrated over inability to ger orders out). Being a Friday night after a long week, we just got tired of waiting — «manager» came by, said she was an «owner» (only wish she owned better manners) and said «we are busy» and offered no apology. Damn — why didn’t I think of that excuse during my work day???
And honestly the food ain’t even that great anyway so what a total waste of time (except for the bar staff). I rarely do Unilocal because I think they are WAY too subjective but please believe me — don’t bother for food — just have a cocktail and high tail it outta there! And if you run into the «manager» and/​or «owner» give her my regards… ahem…

I love coupons and deals and when I got an email from Travel Zoo for $ 60 worth of food and drinks for $ 25 I was all about it. My friend and I tried many times to go but they are closed on Mondays and closed early so when we finally made a reservation I was excited.
Since this is me, we were running late and when I called they were really nice about holding a spot for us. We were seated right away the place was nice with dim lighting good for a date. Our server was really chill gave us drink suggestions I had an Alameda Slammer it was good kinda sweet.
My friend had something really strong with bourbon not sure what it was.
The food was good. The lamb tacos were the star I would go back just for them. We also had a chicken pizza which was good and the Shrimp on crostini, I loved the sauce wish there was more of the bread. My friend also had the mac and cheese which was good but a little too rich.
Overall nice place near a few other bars which is good since they close pretty early (10pm on a Friday) I will be back and of course having lamb tacos!

I simply adore this place. The food is wonderful! If you like beef, I hightly recommend the Flank Steak. It is cooked to perfection, pink on the inside, juicy and almost melts in you mouth. It comes with a nice side of citric salad and for those of you who are cilantro lovers, it also come with a cilantro based sauce. The Sauteed shirmp were equally wonderful. The shrimps have a burbon sause that is very spicy, it might be slightly on the salty side, but I like salt.
The servers here are super nice, and their Sangria is a perfect pairing for their tapas.

Simply put: a good quality restaurant where the wait staff is their best ingredient, attentive but not over bearing with cheesy sales attitudes.
I went in thinking that this place was a tapas bars that served a buncha small plates and wine options ga’lore but I found out there’s so much more. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t serve papas bravas (not the classiest dish but it always brings back memories of Barcelona).
We ordered three hitachino beers, mussels, papas fritas, and a dry chicken pizza that I didn’t care for. Maybe I was just sitting at a small table but by the time the papas fritas got there, we were already out of room. Our server laughed with us about the importance of having enough room for my beer and then proceeded to pull the vacant table nearby to join ours.
The mussels, tasty but what’s up with the cilantro?
The papas fritas, even delicious when they get cold!
Chicken pizza, would have been better without the chicken and cherry tomatoes.
After cashing in with my LivingSocial deal ($ 40 for $ 20) the final bill after tax and tip was about $ 35, heavy on the tip.

A LivingSocial voucher brought us here. Hubster and I came on a not so crowded Wednesday evening, not knowing it was still happy hour! SCORE! Now we can save the voucher for another night out.
We ordered a bunch of tapas, of course. Because I love me some tapas! It gives you a chance to taste a ton of flavors which is perfect for my ever changing cravings and all in one sitting!
Ok so the food… it was pretty delicious.
We ordered:
*Muscles
*Mac & Cheese w/​bacon
*Lamb Tacos
*Skirt Steak
*Zeppole
My favorites were the muscles. It was a large portion that I didn’t think we’d finish. Nope, I cleaned that plate, it was THAT good! The crostinis it was served with was a perfect combo too. The Mac & Cheese was off the hook, so creamy and comforting. If you order this you must, MUST order it with the bacon! The lamb tacos were different and our least favorite. The donut holes to finish the meal were pretty bomb!
I’d love to come back for cocktails and also taste their sangria.
Salud!

This review is being based on our 2^nd time here, our first time was completely different and better that time around.
Last Thursday, Faves took me out to have dinner and upon our arrival we saw that this was the only place in Alameda supporting the «Dining out for Life» to fight AIDS. It was meant to be!
We ordered their house Sangria which was pretty much like Kool-​Aid but after a while, you’ll feel it. It was good but not strong enough to our liking. We had the cheese plate which contained aged Manchego, Shaft blue cheese and Fiore Sardo Tream Cream that was served with sliced apples, walnuts and toasted pita bread. Can’t go wrong with good cheese! Definetely nothing wrong with this cheese plate, I pretty much cleaned up the last few bites. mmmmm
We settled for the roasted tomato, mushroom, potato and arugula salad pizza. This was somewhat OK but being that I was buzzed from the Sangria, I ate more than I wanted to. The crust was too chewy for me and the roasted tomatoes killed the flavor of the other ingredients on the pizza. The potatoes and mushrooms lacked texture and taste which made the pizza very mediocre.
We weren’t happy as we were the first time we were here but glad we could be a part of a good cause. With that said, we passed on dessert even though the chocolate mousse did sound good very one of our 3 different waitresses. Which one was our waitress???

A few weeks ago, my friend recommended BarCeluna, and was stoked. It’s in Alameda, which is slowly becoming a fav place for me to hang and dine out, and the menu looked absolutely delish!
The interior looks classy but not stuffy, with the dark wood furniture and dim lights.
I loved the bar area with the illuminating lights.
With a few flat screen tvs, behind the bar, we were able to catch some of the Winter Olympics! Go Apollo!
Aside from a few patrons at the bar, my friend and I were the only ones dining, but that didn’t bother us at all. After perusing the menu, we decided to order a bunch of small plates/​tapas:
— Pistachio Crusted Goat Cheese Salad:
With Endive, Tomatoes, Apple & Red Grapes: I’ve never had the pistachio with goat cheese before, and I gotta say that it’s a perfect combination of flavors. Tasty!
— Roasted Garlic & Smoked Gouda Macaroni & Cheese:
Can you say heavenly and OH MYLANTA with me? This was absolutely delish and one of the best macs I’ve ever had! My friend, who is also a mac and cheese snob, concurs. The garlic and gouda weren’t overpowering and this cheesey goodness is a must order!
— Dungeness Crab Beignets with Roasted Garlic Aioli:
This wasn’t anything to jump up and down about. It was just ok and didn’t have much flavor to it. One of my least fav dishes.
— Empanadas with Zucchini, Mushrooms & Queso: ttp://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/FMx7k5wUnMuUbEuvpNYG­hQ?select=lB076Eu-7ZtQACyRR1G2VA
Like the beignets, I wasn’t wowed by this, but was worth a try.
— Local Chanterelle Mushroom Risotto:
Tasty and flavorful, and would order again. It’s not the best risotto I’ve ever had, but delish nonetheless.
— Smores Pizza Chocolate Sauce, Toasted Marshmallows, and Graham Cracker Crumbles on a Thin Pizza Crust:

OMG! This was digaliciously sinful and from the first bite, I was in heaven. The chocolate and gooey marshmallow combined with the graham cracker… Can I get an OH MYLANTA? The crust was thin, making it easier to consume in my already expanding belly! This was finger licking good!
I was bummed that they didn’t have the Roasted Tomato Basil Soup &
Manchego Grilled Cheese Sandwich, which was listed on the website menu. Guess it was another case of the website not being up to date (having flashbacks of Annabelle’s crème brûlée). SIGH! Oh well, the Mac and Cheese and Smores Pizza made up for it.
Service was great, efficient, and friendly. Even though I heard from some reviews that the service was bad, slow, etc.,. Anywho, I guess I went on a good night, eh? Prices are decent, and will definitely return!
Bravo BarCeluna!

Ever since it re-​opened, I had been dying to try BarCeluna. A hip Southern European tapas restaurant located just off the main road in small town Alameda, around the block from the theater… My Unilocalie instincts were telling me this place had potential even though previous Unilocal Reviews were throwing up 2 – 3 stars left and right. Let me tell you my dear Unilocal friends… I think I’ve fallen in love. BarCeluna is a hit for me, a high 4 stars– very close to 5!
I’d describe the restaurant itself as very classy with a hint of modern artsy fartsyness. Inside it’s a huge two story dining area with dim lights and paintings– Outside, a patio with heaters. There is a large bar with several flat screen TVs, and in the kitchen a wood burning oven.
The small plate selections are kinda their thing here at BarCeluna– I liked the food here so much that I came back the very next week on Tuesday for their ‘Buy One, Get One Free’ small plate deal! In my two visits I’ve tried a wide variety of plates…
The Mac and Cheese is Delicious! One of the best Mac & Cheeses I’ve ever had, Garlic and Gouda baked– so yummy. The lasagna is also super delicious! A nice fat chunk of lasagna, tons of flavor with every bite. The flank steak is good, three pieces of a very, very flavorful steak over a small salad. The chicken tacos were ok for me, as well as the empanadas. However, I was impressed with the Margarita Pizza– BarCeluna appears to be one of the only restaurants who know how to make a Margarita pizza properly! As much as I loved all of those items, one item i would recommend not getting is the crab balls… tasted really weird and just weren’t a hit for me.
I can promise you, if you’re looking to find me in Alameda– your best bet will be to try BarCeluna on a Tuesday night from now on… I really liked this place and will continue to come back. 4 solid stars.

BarCeluna gives back to the Alameda community legal program. Yes, that is a good thing.
I came tonight with 10 other lawyers and friends to partake in the Alameda County Bar Association 15% VLSC program and BarCeluna was a great choice. The servers were fantastic. The food was delicious. We had several small plates: lamb tacos — delicious and the empanadas — love the tomato sauce. Heirloom tomatoes with seriously to-​die-​for dressing and a fuji apple brie pizza. Yes, you read that correctly — fuji apple & brie pizza, which was delicious and the brie was not overpowering at all. The pizza crust was napoletano style and pretty chewy.
The $ 7 sangria was good and my friend had a few interesting martinis — one which tasted like mulled wine. They have an outdoor area with heat lamps, which would’ve been perfect on such a mild night like tonight.

I’ve been wanting to check out this place for a while. Tappas, oven-​baked pizzas, imported beers, can you blame a girl? Finally, we went to BarCeluna on a Saturday night, and it was DEAD! I believe throughout the entire night there was about 4 tables dining, and we stayed until 9:30pm.
We ordered the olives, it was okay, they really overdid it with the orange rinds. Tasted more like citrus than salt-​brined. But D likes olives (however dressed they come), so he was content.
The pappas fritas were okay too, a bit greasy for my taste and heavily seasoned with rosemary and garlic, but I guess you can’t really mess up french fries, right?
He ordered the alfredo pasta (he loved it!), I ordered one of the pizzas (I didn’t love it!). My pepperoni pizza was undercooked and bleh. I hate undercooked, soggy dough pizza, it’s the absolute worst! I had a couple of slices and then asked for a «to-​go box.»
The evening was lovely, we dined outside by candlelight, chatted about future trips to Costa Rica and such, and people watched. I only wish the food was better. BarCeluna, did not take me back to Spain.