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This down-market date place on the Village’s most touristy stretch has been barnacled to Bleecker Street since 1976. But while the city’s other time-honored paella palaces present the genre’s clichés — stucco, sangria, and toreador-jacketed waiters — as camp-kitsch, this joint plays it straight. With that in mind, there are garish murals, dopey Spanish pop tracks, and a dining room overstaffed with rushing managers. (Your servers are clustered around the bar TV.) The menu is similarly born of chaos: Lobster escapes unscathed but the marquee paella is dull. The three-course prix fixe is probably your best deal. For cheerier Iberian chow, a far superior restaurant of the same name is nearby on Carmine Street. — Karen Tina Harrison

Sauteed chorizo, $8.50; albondigas, $8.50; lobster, $21.95-$33.95