How much: Tapas between £4 and £7 each. We spent £25 a head with one glass of wine each.
Fuck. It's Friday night, and I'm in a faux Spanglish restaurant, surrounded by other chain 'fun' (hello Zizzis, Nandos Ha Ha and Wagammama) in a new build shopping centre. I could be in Swindon, or Croydon, or Basildon or any other wrist slittingly dull commuter belt town in the South East of England.
But it's not. And I'm not. I'm in Victoria, self styled restaurant desert of London. Whether the rents are too high for all but chain joints or whether, like sedated battery farmed animals, the locals ignore the delights just over their doorstep and simply take what they're given.
I'm not, despite the Vole's beliefs, anti-chain restaurant (or Victoria for that matter) but I am anti mediocre food served sloppily for the sole intent of making money. And that's the deal here.
It's 'authentic' in La Tasca... In a pints of lager, sanitised flavours and faux memorabilia from the old country kind of way. Terracotta features heavily, I'm sure I saw a sombrero. Your 70's parents may have been impressed, but even the Vue Cinema going families that this chain is squarely aimed at know better these days don't they? They feature Manchego cheese in the meat section of the menu, a real lack of care about product demonstrated from the top down. A sales card on the table exhorts us to come and celebrate Spain day with them (3 weeks late to tie in with an end of the month promo they run for the local worker drones), I'd rather join Dali.
Bland, almost floury olives arrived with a soft tasteless baguette and stayed on the table throughout the meal, dessert and coffee, forlornly ignored by me and the servers.
Ham croquettes were school dinner-like. Cheesy lumps of mashed potato in a fried til crunchy carapace. The same aoli that slightly redeemed them was also found on the one relatively decent dish, small goujons of indeterminate white fish, moist and flaky in a fresh dry batter. Roast aubergine was greasily anonymous and (possibly in embarrasment) hid under a slick of cheap mozzarella. Patatas Bravas were similarly muted. My real standout came with King Prawns in chilli and garlic infused oil. Five sorry looking specimens arrived swimming in an 'authentic' terracotta serving dish. The oil was a full inch deep and judging by the lukewarm temperature, hadn't even been used to cook the cringeworthy crustacea. I wasn't sure whether to use the bread to mop it up, or save it for an engine change.
A lemon cheesecake and an apple merangue pie arrived (just after the coffee, really? Before dessert? Don't you look at what's on the table?). Both came with identical lattice plate decoration writ large and sugary in a Mr Whippy Raspberry Sauce pen. The Vole declared herself satisfied, I suspect she may just have been feeling contrary. I took my fast developing stomach upset home and dreamed of Dehesa and Meson Don Felipe.
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