Reviewing Whatever

Tio Pepe
168 West 4th Street (between 6th & 7th Ave.)
Greenwich Village, New York, NY 10014

You should know
I had a good excuse this time: my Internet went down yesterday.
Chris and I like tapas, and we’re not afraid to check CitySearch to find it. Technically, Tio Pepe isn’t strictly a tapas place, but they do have it on the menu, though it's set up more as an appetizer than a true tapas. We don’t remember if we got our dinners through the paella festival or the special entrée; the main difference appears to be the price, and neither of us can remember the exact price. But I’ll get to that momentarily.

So?
We started with the guacamole("Mashed Hass avocado with onion, cilantro, tomato and jalepeno prepared tableside, $9"). It was made in front of us with the vegetables in perfect proportion. And the portion was huge: we might actually have been better off splitting it with a third person. Then Chris got the Paella Valencia ("Seafood, chicken, chorizo, and saffron rice," $12.95/$17 depending whether you get paella festival or an entrée) and I got the Arroz con Pollo ("Traditional dish with saffron rice, chicken, and chorizo," $12.96/$16). Both were outstanding. Chris was impressed that every bite of food had at least one good-sized chunk of meat in it; I managed to get a huge lunch out of my leftovers with some left over after that.

To drink, Chris ordered a frozen margarita, and I had a strawberry daiquiri. While neither of us much liked the other’s drink, each of us was thrilled with his/my own. The only problem came when we decided we wanted to follow up with a glass of sangria, and instead the waiter brought refills of our original cocktails.

And the drinks were fairly strong… hence us not remembering to snag the receipt and itemize the entrees.

Rating
Go there
Except for the drink mishap (which wasn’t really that bad; remember, we very much enjoyed our cocktails), we were thrilled with the food and service. The drinks were a tad expensive, but the food was very affordable, so consider your budget and then go enjoy.

The rest of the Internet
New York magazine reviews the restaurant.
Kristin at The Pearl Onion does a write-up.