My wife and I have been hooked on tapas since our trip to Spain in 97. But a good unpretentious tapas place in LA is hard to come by. We went to this place when it was first reviewed by LA Time and was giving flying colors. Now, maybe some one can clear this up for me. In Madrid and Andalucia, I never encountered tapas on top of the bread. I just returned from Barcelona, since the last time I was there, there were non of this open sandwich thing, But it seemed to be everywhere now. My feeling is maybe food prices start to climb once Spain is on par with the rest of the European Union, they started adding the bread to make the customers feel fuller? Supposedly this is the style that inspired the chef at Bar Pintxo. Anyway, on my visit, we arrived at the restaurant and was told we only had 40 min. to eat since they were hosting a private event. No problem for us, it's tapas, right? Seated at the bar. At that time, to appear authentic, they wrote the menu in Espa?ol. Sure, I speak some Castellano, and ordered them in Spanish. It was a joke. Our order of olive (acentuna or olivas, depending on which part of Spain you are in) became open face canned tuna sandwich. Or order of Jamon Ibirico plate was two skimpy strips of Jamon on bread. Frankly, I can do better and more authentic tapas at home. The waitress kept rushing us, eventhough we were eventually out of the place 10 min before their private event. The whole time we were sitting there, the three chefs behind the counter did not once greet us, or even looked us in the eyes!
Pros: Good place for pretentious people.
Cons: Again, gore me please, if this is good tapas.
more