***3.5 stars***
this…read moretapas bar was recommended by our hotel concierge as it was only a couple of blocks away.
upon walking in, i'd say that this place was more of a dive bar, dark, very casual, with most of the patrons sitting at the bar on bar stools, watching the current football game on the large screen tv above the bar.
my husband ordered a sangria, and i had my usual bottle of water. a large basket filled with sliced bread and a sealed bag of breadsticks was brought to our table along with our drinks.
we weren't too hungry since we'd had a huge lunch, so we ordered just a few small tapas to share:
+spinach with chickpeas - a shallow plate of pureed spinach and boiled whole chickpeas, with a small piece of toast. it was my first time having spinach & chickpeas and i ended up liking this dish as it was healthy, yet tasty!
+leek and eggplant - several strips of marinated leeks and grilled eggplant on a large piece of toast. the marinade for the leeks was really savory, really tasty, and the eggplant was tender and flavourful. good combination here!
+shrimp croquette (fried) with small side salad - in the states, we would just called this "fried goodness" as the shrimp was very much deep fried, topped with some herbs and seasoning. i think the salad was there to make us feel a little healthier, but the croquettes were very good.
while the food was good, service could have been improved upon as we never felt that we had the full attention of our waitress. there weren't that many patrons in the bar at the time, and most of them were busy watching the game, so we felt that she could have paid more attention to us, especially when we were ready for the check as we had a show to catch. fortunately, our flailing hands caught her attention and we were able to pay the bill and head out and make it on time to our show.
