New York City's Malaga Restaurant: Good Spanish Food, Good Spanish People

Long before tapas was cool, Malaga restaurant, which you can easily find by its Freudian red awning jutting out on Manhattan's East 73rd street between First and York Avenues, was dishing out the tasty bar topping, with more variety than Paris Hilton has excuses for not having a favorite bible verse when Larry King asked her. Malaga, family owned since 1973, has the worn feeling that only comes from years of loving use, like that fielders glove you had when you were twelve, dirt in every lined crease from a hundred hard grounders scooped, countless saddle soap scrubbings and oilings. Worn? Sure. But that ball just fit right in that pocket every time, like it was born there. That's Malaga. It fits me.

I step down into the dining area. (Yeah, you know how I love to step down.) at Malaga, and I see the white drop ceiling with water stains, the bull fighting posters and Spanish kitsch from the owners long gone trips to Spain. I smell the garlic. I'm home. A little secret, many years ago, I used to work at Sotheby's, just east of Malaga, writing catalogue copy. I'd sneak out many times on those summer-fall afternoons to sit at the wood bar; showing shines of age even in the early 80s. I'd order an Old Fashioned, and the bartender would bring me deep friend plantains on the house, and I'd watch Spanish TV, which I don't understand. I'd imagine I'm the guy in that Hemingway story, "A Clean and Well Lighted Place"...but in a good way. Yes, it's that kind of place.

Now when I go to Malaga, I adjourn to the second dining room in the back, the one with the three wall mural of fishing boats moored at dusk. I plant myself (always facing that mural) at the white table linens on top of more Freudian red linen. I have to have a pitcher of Malaga's sangria. I'm a red man, fitting with the Freudian theme. It's modestly priced and comes through in a pinch every time; be warned it goes down so smooth, so it can be lethal.

Malaga is known for its seafood paella, and it's plenty good. You could go for the Paella Valenciana with Lobster. Me, if I'm going, it's full bore, Paella Valenciana old school: seafood, chicken and sausage. Look, I own Pfizer, so I have to keep the Lipitor intake up. For starters, I order the crab meat stuffed mushrooms, soft crab meat, seared on top, swimming in a garlic butter sauce. And they're plenty generous with the bread at Malaga to sop up said artery clogging delight sauce. If I'm a lighter mood, I go for the Spanish omelet. At over 14 bucks, you may think, whose eggs are these? Jessica Simpson's, but trust me. It has a great mix of onions, potatoes and chorizo, Spanish sausage. For the meat eater, like Pam Anderson, a choice of veal, filet mignon, rib eye, it's all prepared in a way you thought went they way of funny in network sitcoms.

Again, I have people tell me when I go on about the places that I like, "What's the down side?" Okay, the booths in the main dining area, the ones in the middle, they're not attached, and they can, how shall I say? Move. But just think of them as big chairs. And some times you may get a waiter whose English is a bit off and your request for Jim Beam may be heard as J&B. But do me a favor. If you're in the age range where you can remember Rowan and Martin's "Laugh In" as cutting edge cool, wait for a middle September afternoon and head for Malaga. Sit by the bar. Watch some Telemundo. You'll be glad you did.