La Tasca: Union Street, Aberdeen
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TAPAS is possibly the perfect food for a social evening.
Rather than one solitary sitting, several small dishes arrive at your table, eventually taking it over in a rather chaotic fashion.
All the while the chat and the drink is flowing nicely.
So for a festive treat, six of us headed for La Tasca on Union Street for a last get-together before heading home to families.
And even though Spanish food may drum up images of lazing on a sun-drenched beach sipping sangria, it proved the perfect antidote to the biting weather outside.
We opted for the Tapas for a Tenner menu, offering all you can eat from a specially selected menu for – you guessed it – £10 a head.
The choice was wide and varied, giving an ample selection of the best the restaurant had to offer, with paella, chorizo sausage and traditional Tortilla Espanola – Spanish omelette.
But before we had even started our meal there were some nice touches as olives and bread were brought to our table.
In true cocktail-barman style the olive oil and sherry vinegar dip for our bread was poured from a great height without spilling a drop with great panache by our waiter.
So, on to the food. The Paella Valenciana – mixed seafood and chicken, and its vegetarian equivalent, with excellent creamy rice, had a nice light flavour.
This was quickly followed by Patatas Bravas, deep-fried potatoes with a spicy tomato sauce and Algondas a la Jardinera – excellent meatballs in a vegetable and tomato sauce.
The Chorizo Frito al Vino – spicy sausage pan fried in red wine – waspacked with flavour and but for common decency I could have ordered portions of it all evening.
While the Spanish omelette was deliciously soft.
The nature of the food sees everybody urging you to try what they are eating and doing what restaurants are all about – enjoying your food.
Of course being an “all you can eat” deal, there was the opportunity for seconds and another helping of Costillas de Cerdo – pork-spare ribs in a tangy sauce where the meat just fell off the bone, and Calamares Andaluza – squid cooked in batter – which had all six of us grabbing for more.
The service was a tad slow, but friendly, and well-fed we braved the Aberdeen weather well armed with plenty Mediterranean ammunition to keep us warm.
