Valencia Eats: Chinese at Bar Frenazo

So this is an interesting name for a restaurant: Bar Frenazo.  In Spanish, Frenazo means "slamming on the brakes."  In Chinese, the restaurant's name is 温州面馆, or Wenzhou Noodle House.

In any case, my Spanish friends all really enjoy eating Chinese food, and are quite gung ho about trying new things.  This area just to the west of Estación Nord is Valencia's little Chinatown, and we've been to this place a couple times.  At first, I was terribly let down by this place, due to horrible 干煸四季豆, stir-fried green beans.  They were really only barely cooked with garlic, instead of the usual condiments, and though severely undercooked, were still incredibly greasy.  How is this even possible?

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The 锅塌豆腐 (egg-coated tofu) on the right, on the other hand was excellent, using soft tofu and lightly coated in egg.  On this basis, I agreed to return (my friends really wanted to come back).

This visit turned out a lot better.  The waitress warned us that because the kitchen was busy, we'd have to wait a long time for the egg-coated tofu, so recommended the home-style tofu instead 家常豆腐.  It was tender, and the vegetables still crisp.  The sauce was just a tiny bit spicy, which was probably the maximum that Spanish people generally tolerate.

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Other dishes we ordered were fried noodles, sweet and sour eggplant, and salt and pepper shrimp.  The sweet and sour eggplant was excellent, with the eggplant being custardy yet still retaining that bright purple skin.  The sauce wasn't overly sweet or salty either.  The shrimp had a nice peppery flavor, but were a bit soggy and far too salty.  Most Chinese meals in Valencia have left me parched, and this meal wasn't an exception due mainly to this shrimp dish.  The fried noodles were passable, but it's the kind of thing that seems thrown together just with random ingredients.

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Ironically, after being warned about the long 20 minute wait for the tofu we originally wanted, we waited probably a good 45 minutes for the potstickers to come out.  They came with a well-balanced filling of chives and pork.  These were nicely done though (a bit salty still), so I wasn't terribly upset.

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Before, I would dread whenever my friends would want to eat Chinese.  They are far from the best Chinese I've ever had, and I can sometimes cook things myself that I would enjoy more than what they serve.  But I then realized, that if I had any one of these restaurants just a 15 minute walk from Potrero Hill in San Francisco, or Clifton in Cincinnati, I would be overjoyed.  In the end, there are quite decent Chinese restaurants in Valencia, and are just a 15 minute walk from home.

And cheap, too - with 2 bowls of rice to share among the 5 of us, and a big bottle of water, the total bill was €29!

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Bar Frenazo / 温州面馆

Carrer del Matemático Marzal, 22

46007

Valencia