THE BILL
Dinner for two, £59.65, excluding drinks THE couple at the table next to us just ordered ten tapas," said my sister, Louisa, when we visited the newly opened George Street branch of the popular Cafe Andaluz chain. "I
sn't that an awful lot?" I asked, as we settled into rustic-looking wooden chairs, with a wall of Mediterranean terracotta pots looming overhead. "No, no, ten is just right," junior answered authoritatively (despite the fact that the helpful Spanish waitress had suggested we order only three each). Well, I guess that's always the problem with tapas – sometimes you're served big portions, at other times they're minuscule. But, I should have known, my little sister's eyes were always way too big for her stomach.
Anyway, we went ahead and ordered the ten my sibling had already chosen, as she'd spent all day at work salivating over the online menu and, predictably, our table ended up groaning under the weight of surplus dishes. As tapas is traditionally served with lashings of booze, at least our selection would act as a sop to a lovely, nutty-tasting bottle of Rueda Castillo de Nava Verdejo (£19.95), which we'd selected from a rather pricey wine list.
As we sipped, chatted and munched, it became easy to define the best of our dinky choices; they were the tapas that left us with a quixotic optimism for what was to come. We were practically duelling over pan-fried chanterelles on a still crispy bread crouton (£4.65) – although anything drizzled with addictive, pheremone-like truffle oil is always a winner in my book.
Another dish that zipped straight down our gullets was the completely inauthentic carpaccio of beef with wasabi and pickled ginger (£4.95). Perhaps a wagyu cow fell on to Senor Zorro's sword, and that's how a Japanese-style dish ended up on an Andalusian menu. However this clash of cultures might have occurred, the delicate slivers of pink meat were meltingly tender.
A couple of our other choices were picked at in a carnivorous haze – chorizo and black pudding sauteed in spicy tomato (£4.65), paprika-spiced pork skewers with mint crème fraîche (£4.65) and spicy beef on rocket with Manchego cheese and chorizo dressing (£4.75). The first dish was heavy, the second rather oily (but oddly moreish) and the latter very dull, with a surplus of leaves.
"I think I prefer the food in Tapas Tree," Louisa grouched, referring to her favourite Spanish restaurant.
However, our jury is still out on the generous helping of grilled goat's cheese with Seville orange and chilli marmalade (£4.65). The portion of tasty queso, as oozingly cheesy as Enrique Iglesias, was huge. Unfortunately, the expected bite in the sickly sweet jam was undetectable. How did we have room for any more you might ask? Well, the Soutar senoritas are eating champions. So we didn't stall when it came to the final four fishy contenders of seared king scallops with basil creamed leeks and crispy serrano ham (£5.95), a seafoody paella Valenciana (£4.65), grilled fillet of seabass with cherry tomatoes and basil oil (£5.95), as well as king prawns, mussels and calamari marinated in lemon, dill and garlic oil (£5.65).
These were probably the least successful tapas of the evening, as the scallops were rather suffocated by a creamy sauce and the separate dishes of rubbery seafood and sea bass were very bland and samey, with barely a squeeze of citrus to pep them up. The paella, which is Cafe Andaluz's "speciality" wasn't much to write home about either.
Overall, I'd concur that half of our tapas choices were tasty and the remainder pretty much so-so. As Doris Day once sang, "Que sera, sera".
Still, I was willing to take one more gamble by choosing a delicious-sounding chocolino (£4.95) for pud. This arrived served in a coffee cup and was accompanied by a couple of little langue de chat-style biscuits. It looked tasty but, unfortunately, this milky, baby-ish mousse with an excess of squirty cream on the top got a big thumbs down. Luckily, my sibling fared better with her simple choice of a froth-topped cappuccino (£2.15).
Still, despite the hit-or-miss food, I'd probably come here for a few of the better dishes to prepare me for a night on the tiles. Judging by the rest of the glossy, dressed-up crowd, most of their lively customers are doing exactly the same. There's a decent atmosphere for a chain restaurant, and the interior designers have obviously worked hard at giving the space an authentic (by a squeak) Spanish vibe.
However, just beware, because this is one of those restaurants where they ask if you want bread and olives, then ruthlessly charge you for them (£1.75 and £2.45 respectively). This is a pet peeve of mine. As well as being annoying to find on our bill, these extra goodies didn't help our straining waistlines. "I feel too full," said my green-looking chica, as we tripped out on to George Street, "but I still think we should have sampled their patatas bravas."
The full article contains 876 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
