Barrafina

Dinner tonight was at Barrafina, a tapas bar in Soho.  Spanish food isn't too hard to find in London but decent tapas is not cheap.  For inexpensive Spanish fare, La Tasca is a chain which has several outlets in central London but having eaten here once was enough to never return again.  If you think La Tasca serves good Spanish food, you really need a slap to the face.  Food drenched in oil, paella with hardly any ingredients, shite service - no thanks La Tasca.

Barrafina is not very big (maximum capacity - 23) and all seating is located at the bar.  Obviously, the best way to operate would be on a no reservations basis and we queued for about 40 minutes. 

Smee enjoying the house red.  

We settled on our stools and perused the place-mat menu and had the following dishes:

Jamon croquetas.  I generally just like croquettes.  Little parcels of squishy goodness.  Smee wasn't too excited about them.  Chipirones - mini lightly battered, fried squiddies.  Cute, a little bland, but the texture was nice! 

Cold meat platter.  I like the guitar shaped board.  That was pretty cool.  I love jamon, chorizo, cured meats in general.  

Gambas (prawns).  These were huge and the photo doesn't really demonstrate their size, which much like a small lobster.  They have a fresh seafood display available which is cooked to order.  We had the mussels.

Grilled Quail with Al-i-Oli.  I guess that's Spanish for aioli.  That was frigging yum - all those mini bones.  Maybe it's just because I'm a fried chicken lover? To finish off we had the classic tortilla.  A lot thicker than I expected, but I kinda get the impression this is normal??!  A little disappointing, but I mean, it's egg and potato.  You can't really make it very exciting.  

Overall, Barrafina is definitely worth the wait.  Smee and I finished eating at 10pm and to have people still queuing on a Wednesday night sure says a lot about a restaurant!