Restaurant: Habitual

Food type: Comfort food

City: Valencia, Spain

Habitual means usual or common and this restaurant is focusing on comfort food. Indeed but comfort food taken to another level: refined, beautiful plates. The restaurant is clean and has a pleasant atmosphere. Apparently the locals like having dinner there since it’s a bit more fancy than the usual tapas restaurants.
Located in the market building at the basement it has in front a nice water fountain that probably cools the area in the summer.

We went there late in the evening (around 10 PM – in Spain that’s probably considered early for dinner). The waitress was very good at selling the menu. My colleagues ordered entrecote and she argued that it’s going to take 20 minutes to be cooked and therefore we should order some appetizers. And she even chose for us … some local stuffed mozzarella which was actually quite good. I’ve never had that before and it was suprising.

For the main menu I ordered some special maquerelle on some bread. I’ve expected to get some vegetables or something fresh with the fish. I actually got something like toast with some tomato sauce and some fish on top. The portion was quite small for a main course and the fish was a bit too salty for my taste. This would have worked if they would have added something fresh like a small salad on the side. My colleagues were very happy with their dishes: they’ve got a lot of meat with potato mash. Also this dish could have profited from some vegetables or salad (my advice for the cook).

We were very inspired and ordered some dessert: chocolate with lemon. This was really outstanding: it looked great and it tasted even better. That was a winner! The dark chocolate cake was perfect, the lemon ice cream brought freshness and the chocolate mousse inspiring. Every bite was delicious and at the same time rich and fresh.

I would come again but study a bit more the menu before choosing the main dish. Probably they also have great fresh dishes with local ingredients.

Link: http://habitual.es/en/

Location:

Mercado de Colón
Carrer de Jorge Juan, 19
46004 València