For the birthday dinner, the wife and I went to a small Tapas place in Newark – yes, that Newark. Corey Booker is trying to revitalize Newark with a brand new sporting arena, an invigorating university section, and surprisingly great food places in the Ironbound section – a far cry from the dark, foreboding city when I first started going to school there about 9 years ago.

Mompou, about a 5 min walk from Penn Station, is a stylish little Tapas lounge that our friend Xu turned us on to. The stylish interior decor, the hip crowd and the fancy plates of tapas make you almost think you’re in a chic Manhattan or Brooklyn eatery! The food is plentiful and not overpriced, the setting intimate, and the sangria delicious. We ordered three tapas – the highly recommended Chorizo, the adventurous Octopus, and the so-so Tortilla tapa. There was also a forgettable dessert at the end, but the rest of the food and the ambiance made up for the disappointing end. In all, a wonderful birthday dinner – thanks honey!

THE PLACE: MOMPOU TAPAS BAR AND LOUNGE, 77 FERRY STREET, NJ

DISHES ORDERED: 3 TAPAS, 1 DESSERT

AMBIANCE: Cozy atmosphere with a modern interior, live DJ in a corner, candle-flicked bar area and helpful wait staff.

OVERALL RATING: 3 / 5 oranges. Delicious food for the most part, with some unique items on the menu. Disappointing vegetarian fare and dessert though, but certainly worth future visits to try more of the tapas.

THE FOOD:

SPICY CHORIZO
This was the best dish of the night. Delicious, crispy, thick slices of sausage in a red wine reduction, served with a miserly 2 slices of delicious grilled Broa (Portuguese country bread, they say). The sausages were full of garlic and pork flavor, with the sauce having crept into the meat itself; they were fried enough to have a nice crisp casing, leading to a soft, tender bite of the meat. The bread was an excellent complement to lap up the sauce with, and we definitely wanted more than 2 slices!

PULPO AL MOMPOU
The adventurous portion of the night, for me only ofcourse, there is no way the wife was going anywhere near the sea creatures. Small Portuguese octopuses, cooked with their form intact (rather than chop them up and make them look like any other meat) and tossed with some bright and fresh salsa verde and chopped pequillo peppers. The octopus had a nice chewy bite to it, and the garlicy salsa paired well with the subtle flavor of the octopus. The peppers didn’t add much to the dish however; I would’ve like a little spiciness from the peppers as a counterpunch to the other delicate flavors in the dish. This dish, pictured above, was proof that there is more to seafood that fish, shrimp and the occasional fried calamari!

TORTILLA HERMINIA
This vegetarian dish, which sounded so good on paper with its description of a traditional spanish tortilla made with spinach, onions and Yukon Gold Potatoes, ended up disappointing the wifey who was looking for a good meatless dish. The tortilla was served in an almost omelet style, and there may well have been some eggs involved in the preparation – it was a thick dome with the potatoes and onion filling inside. It was topped with a generous portion of Blue cheese cream sauce, which pulled up the taste of the entire dish from being just a normal onion omelet version.

CREME CATALAN
The big disappointment of the night; I always have a creme brulee for my birthday, and our server told us this was the closest Spanish version they had. It turned out to be an average Vanilla custard with a thin chocolate base, with none of the flavors really creating any impact.