Casa d'Paco

Me & my friends were going up 95 and one of my friends grew up in Newark said this place is legit.

1st good sign was seeing how many people there were. Place looked packed, always a good sign, but we were seated relatively quickly and easily. Table was clean, had placemats, even had cutlery already. (I hate when I go to dinner and they give ya 3 cutlery sets when you showed up with 4 people - like yeah we lost a guy on the way to the table rip rip).

The 2nd good sign: EVERYONE there seemed to be having a great time. I love the positive energy.

We ordered a bunch of small plates, I believe they’re called “tapas” because the food is so good that when you’ve eaten the plate clean, your fork tapas some more on the ceramic dish to get the last bits.

One of my friends was hungry so he ordered an entree dish. Got a huge piece of chicken and shrimp with sides, all for under 25 bucks. Cannot beat that, besides the fact that it looked like it came out of a magazine.

We all shared a HUMUNGOUS thing of paella, it was legitimately insane, and I shall describe in due course: a. The thing comes out in a huge skillet thing, it was so much we all ate seconds and thirds and there was still a lot left.

b. The paella was STUFFED with SO. MUCH. Seafood. I hate getting ripped off by places that skimp and give you a gold fish bowl of seafood in a ton of rice — this place’s paella is like an Aquarium amount, in a house with 10 bathrooms, you can fish all day.

The drinks were good, I only had a sip of sangria to try because I’m a light weight. I believe the sangria was passion fruit man go - also my nickname in college.

Lastly, the dessert was a must, I had the cake and omg I definitely am going to try to recreate that recipe. We all tossed in about $30 bucks, with my friend who got an entree a little more. Insane value for the cost, I’ve spent twice that much tipping the Fromagér at The Modern in NYC. And that Belgian only gave me 3 pieces of cheese. I love wine and cheese though, what can I say it’s a baller time for me and I know I deserve it. All in all, the bill was less than 150, again, a quarter of a meal at The Modern, with authentic exquisite spanish cuisine.

The service was great, our server knew the menu ingredients off the top of his head (I know, I know... I’m assuming his gender, but he had a beard so I think we’re cool). So we left a generous tip snd I took some paella home. Ugh just this paella wow. Definitely will be back here again, oof it’s good I don’t live in newark or I’d be here everyday, living upstairs basically.