Cafe Ba Ba Reeba -- Tasty tapas tidbits

Cafe Ba Ba Reeba
3200 Las Vegas Blvd S, Las Vegas, NV 89109
(702) 258-1211

Tapas. It's something my family loves and can eat lots of. Only problem is, outside of San Francisco, we've not had much luck finding seriously great tapas restaurants. In Vegas, we tried Firefly, but it was really dismal. We tried a lot of items but nothing stood out. Call us stupid, call us hopeful. Whatever it is, we were on a quest to find some halfway decent tapas. I had found a new place called RE Tapas, but they were closed. My husband searched via cell phone and found Cafe Ba Ba Reeba -- which, incidentally, was in the mall we were in at the time of search so off we went, fingers crossed.

When we entered, the woman asked us if we were wanting to dine in Ba Ba Reeba or Stripburger. HUH? The restaurant is separated into two sections: one section is for the tapas restaurant, while the other, a burger restaurant. So confusing. I wanted to sit by the window for better lighting and since most of the tapas restaurant was dark, I chose a table by the door to Stripburger.

The menu wasn't large so it was quite easy to maneuver. My husband was busy talking on his cell so I went ahead and ordered. My son wanted pizza and I wanted to just try a few things in case they weren't all that good. A bread basket was brought out with tasty crusty bread while we waited.

Padron peppers arrived along with the garlic shrimp. As soon as I tasted the shrimp I smiled. I'll have to say, these were even better than the ones at Zarzuela (my favorite tapas place of all time). The shrimps were plump and had that fresh snap to them. They weren't stingy on the garlic either, nor were they shy about using seasoning. This dish was fantastic -- we ended up ordering another.

Padron peppers were also nicely seasoned with sea salt and were grilled perfectly! The chorizo pizza had cherry tomato halves and the crust was thin and crispy -- delightful after so many bad pizzas we've had elsewhere. The only thing I thought was a tad weak was the seared sea scallops. Although the scallops were very fresh, the accompanying couscous and tapanade was under seasoned and didn't do much for the scallops.

My husband had some sangria and I took a sip. Very well balanced without being overly sweet. I thoroughly enjoyed our meal even though it was very pricey for what we got. Our total came to about $80 tip included. Still, it was thoroughly enjoyable and service wasn't bad either.