Fideua

Baba ghannoush with pomegranate seeds and fresh mint

We visited a new-ish restaurant at the Market Street mall in Lynnfield last night. It’s called La Gallina, and the menu is a mish-mash of Mediterranean food. They have tapas, they have pasta and pizza, they have souvlaki, they have falafel. Despite this bit of an identity crisis, though, the food we had was exceptionally good. Because it was a Monday night, the very large dining room was kind of empty, which was no issue for us, but I wonder how loud it is on a Friday or Saturday.

We started with a shared app of baba ghannoush and pita chips. I loved the presentation with the pomegranate seeds and mint. The dip itself was a little bland, so the garnshes helped the flavor, too. They also had a whipped feta and red pepper dip that we agreed to try the next time.

For my entree, I had fideua (called Spanish noodle paella with seafood on the meni). Fideua uses little vermicelli noodles called fideos instead of rice, but is otherwise pretty much just like paella in all other respects. The seafood consisted of mussels, calamari, shrimp, and white fish. The portion was very generous, and I couldn’t finish the whole thing, but I enjoyed it a lot. I like the combination of pasta and seafood in several different dishes, and the dish was a little saucier than paella generally is, which was good, too. My wife had spaghetti carbonara, which I did not get a photo of, but she enjoyed it, too. We each had a dish of gelato for dessert.