Review on Restaurante Camaleón - Amazing 3-course birthday lunch!

We went to Restaurante Camaleón for lunch for Adri's birthday and I have to say it has become one of my favourite restaurant in Valencia ever since and I can't stop talking about it! 

Adri said this place normally serve fusion and cool tapas like La Omma Gastrobar (see review)  but due to the covid situation, they serve menu del día (menu of the day) instead during lunch time and we could only book 1:30pm or 3pm. Now I know having a fixed 90 minutes time to eat is nothing so uncommon in Hong Kong but in Spain people eat and chat for hours at the table! Though given the tough business situation, we all try to work around the rules of the restaurant so that they can make enough to survive while we all get to enjoy eating out even with the capacity control.

The Menu del día is a 3-course lunch including starter, main-course, a dessert or a coffee for around 14 euros. It is slightly higher price than normal menu given it does not include drink but it is of really good value given the quality of the food and the overall experience especially in Valencia city centre!

To start off, we ordered the chicken & potato salad and the cured beef valencia tomato salad. 

The chicken and potato salad was served a sweet green chilli cream and red pepper paste, with chunks of roast chicken chunks and some fresh, crunchy radish slices. Usually I am a bit skeptical with this kind of fancy looking dish but actually the taste was pretty good too. 

In comparison, this cured beef and Valencian tomato salad was a little bit more surprising. Cecina's meat flavour is a lot stronger than normal Jamón Serrano (serrano ham) given it is cured beef and that it has less fat. It was perfectly paired with the sweet and crunchy Valencian tomato while the masala sauce and the fresh basil gave it a final spicy touch. 

They also gave us an extra dish on the house like an amuse bouche which was a pumpkin soup served with crunchy toasted croutons, cream cheese and chives. The soup was perfectly silky and the cheese made it even creamier and added a slight twist to the sweet pumpkin.

Now, the bread made with olive oil is not free and it was not cheap neither as compared to the menu (the bread costed like 3 euros) but it was so worth ordering because it was so moist and fluffy while it was impeccably crunchy on the exterior. It was served with the classic homemade ali-oli and tomato puree. The truth is tomatoes here in Spain are so good that with only tomato on bread with olive oil is already the best authentic Spanish starter you can get. Meanwhile I know a lot of people think the Ali-oli is a garlic flavour mayonnaise, but in fact it is only olive oil and garlic grind together with a pinch of salt. It is so good that it's hard to believe it is so healthy as well!

For main, we ordered the Arroz Meloso which is a typical juicy rice with different type of fresh seafood such as shrimps, squid, clams, baby crab etc. in a fish broth. It was packed with amazing flavour, so rich and luscious while the rice was nice done without being too soft and soggy. The portion was also huge and there was so much seafood! We had to pack away half of the rice and we had it for lunch the next day. It was still finger-licking good. It was so good.  

And obvious we picked the dessert over the coffee even though we really couldn't eat more (there is always space for dessert). When our chocolate cake and cheesecake I was thrilled. The thing is I get fascinated by these homemade-looking dessert. Both of them were gorgeously smooth and flavourful without giving you a sugar overdose. The chocolate cake was my favourite if I had to choose one because it was so silky and mellow, and the chocolate flavour was intense with a slight salty note to it. 

I always prefer these than the French ones where they make it so fancy with the layer of ganache and jelly or whatever it is that almost like you are eating a piece of art. Not that I don't appreciate this kind really delicately-looking tiny piece of cake from the French patisserie that I could probably finish in one-bite (though people insist to use knife and fork and I always suspect that they need to feel better given they are paying so much for what it really is), but I often think if a cake is good, it doesn't need all that fancy decoration. If you have a nice, delicious cake, the rest is just flaff really. ❤

One thing to add on it that Restaurante Camaléon is a Estrella Galicia cellar which means they serve fresh Estrella Galicia beer as well as their reserved brand 1906 on tap transported straight from the factory. 

So glad to spend birthday with this one 💘 with overflowing of food! It is also really fun to have both of our birthdays next to each other because then we can have a whole "cheat-week" feeling like birthday. 😙See how we spent our birthdays 1st time together.

I hope you like my sharing! See you next time. 

Lots of love,

Cherrie