Babalú

Last night I had a meeting with my Alive After Five committee for Ad Fed. Ad Fed is the Advertising Federation of Minnesota, and the Alive After Five committee is sort of like the social committee. We plan a few events a year to provide a fun and relaxed atmosphere for advertising professionals to network and just kick back a little. Anyways, we got together last night to finalize the details of our annual wine tasting event, which will take place on February 2nd. The group decided to meet up at Babalú, the restaurant that has kindly offered to host the event for us, free of charge. Now, I think it’s great that the place is allowing us to use their space and promote our event, but it’s my blog so I get to say whatever I want. Babalú kinda sucked.

First, here’s the background on the place:
Babalú is located on Washington Avenue in the Warehouse District of downtown Minneapolis. The space itself is laid out with a dining area to the left separated by a large bar and lounge area to the right of the entrance. The Latin-Caribbean culture lends itself to the entire surrounding of the place – from the décor to the food to the wine selection. Deep reds combine with vibrant purple and yellow in the artwork to promote the cultural feel. The food reflects Mexican, Spanish and Caribbean tastes in a variety of offerings – tapas, appetizers, house entrees and desserts. The wine and specialty drink lists continue with this theme and contain various wines and rums from the regions listed. Live music is offered every night of the week, and an ample dance floor invites people to enjoy the sensuality of Latin music.

All of that sounds pretty good, right? Not so much.

We arrived at about 5:30, and the place was empty. That didn’t surprise me, because the live music didn’t start until well after 8:00 PM. We sat down, and were presented with a wine list. Because I don’t know a lot about Spanish wines, I was looking for a good recommendation. The waitress, although extremely nice and accommodating all evening, was little help with the wine selection. I chose a Sauv Blanc that was not terrible, but definitely not what I was looking for. After some official Ad Fed business, we ordered some food from the appetizer menu. There were only four of us, and only two of us were looking for a little morsel, so we ordered just the Empanadillas. Empanadillas are basically meat or cheese stuffed pastries, usually served with either a salsa for dipping or a salsa drizzled over the top of the pastries. And, empanadillas generally have a spice or kick to them. These empanadillas apparently missed that memo. They were bland and dry. The salsa that was served had a bit of a kick, but nothing one would expect from this sort of establishment. I was extremely disappointed. A bit later, we decided to order another appetizer to appease our displeasure, and our growling stomachs.

That was a big mistake.

For how bad the empanadillas were, the Ceviche de Mojarra was even worse. The waitress described the dish as white fish marinated with lemon and peppers. That sounded pretty good. And maybe a bit healthier than other dishes might have been. The dish came, and we had no idea what was even presented to us. On the plate lay fried plantain strips, fried tortilla strips, and a dish full of some sort of fish, lemon, avocado and pepper salsa. I was skeptical, but I wanted to at least give it a chance. I loaded some of the fish salsa onto a tortilla strip, and took a bite. And almost threw it all up. It tasted like what I always imagined pickled herring to taste like. It was awful. Others in the group tried it as well, and it was a major group consensus. We picked at the tortilla strips and the fried plantains, but left the fish salsa alone.

I really hesitated writing this review due to the fact that we are holding our event at this location. However, I will say that the décor of the restaurant and the overall atmosphere is fantastic for the event we’re holding. It will be the perfect place to entertain and network with other professionals. And, we aren’t serving food, so I don’t have to worry about that.

Overall, I was disappointed with the food and wine, but the ambiance was pleasant. I would not recommend this place, or return on my own. Too bad!

Next up: Camp Snoopy No More!