Comments (0) BEST PLACE TO SHARE A MEAL WITH 80 OF YOUR CLOSEST PALS - 2009
La Española Meats
Sure, you can make your own paella — the Spanish dish that is as much a tribute to Spanish food on a single plate as it is a meal — or order it at any number of the tapas restaurants around town. But why, when you can head down to La Española Meats in Harbor City and have Juana Faraone make it for you. You and 79 of your friends, that is. Faraone, whose son-in-law Alex Motamedi manages the attached import shop and charcuterie factory, makes paella ($8.50, made only on Saturdays) in a pan the size of a dining-room table. The Valencia native cooks her saffron-shot Valencia rice with chicken and seafood, beans and peppers, and three kinds of house-made sausages. While you're sitting outside on the patio, with perhaps more expatriate Spaniards than any place outside of the kitchen at Jose Andres' Bazaar, Motamedi will bring you a plate of free tapas: three or four of his house-made chorizos, wedges of Idiazábal cheese, house-marinated olives, and warm baguettes. The parbaked bread is imported — along with all the wines and cheeses and Jerez vinegars and Marcona almonds and a good portion of your tablemates — from Spain. 25020 Doble Ave., Harbor City. (310) 539-0455. Call ahead.
—Amy Scattergood
