This eatery, located out in the western reaches of the City, promises to be Toronto’s only authentic spanish restaurant. We were quite excited when we went for a Friday night dinner for four as it has always received great reviews. I, however, was litte disappointed. While the menu promises paella, its main focus is on tapas: small shared dishes which you compile into a meal. I love the idea — but for comfort, quality and value, I prefer Mezzetta on St. Clair (at Christie).

A meal full of tapas works wonderfully when there is good selection, the dishes stand out from each other and they aren’t to expensive. This menu is lenghty, and in fact perhaps so much so that it is confusing. It is well divided into meat, seafood and vegetarian — as well as a selection of meals (ie paella). We ended up doing two rounds of tapas, as the servings were a little smaller than expected. We had a wide selection of dishes, although I couldn’t tell the difference between the caribou and the venison, perhaps it was just the sauce. Over all, the dishes were well done, but not particularly inspired. The meal made it to the table, but the service was not very attentive. All in all, it seemed like they had seen better days.

The wine list is lengthy, although the vintage brought to our table wasn’t that indicated therein. So if you are picky, be careful. They also promise 40 varieties of single malt scotch. Now, 2 of us quite like our malt and wanted to know what they had. The waitress couldn’t tell us and went to find the owner who asked “what do you want?” I wanted to know what he had, and he said “it depends on what you want.” After much discussion, he finally pointed us to the selection behind the bar, as well as a cabinet by the door. The bar malts were the usual, although the cabinet had a beautiful 18 year old Balvenie, and 21 year old MacCallan and a range of the Glen Farclas. If these weren’t satisfactory, there was the promise that there more in the cellar, although we never found out what they were. I suppose this was because we simply couldn’t name what we wanted.