La Tasca

Meh, I used to live in Spain so I know a thing or two about how Spanish food and their speciality food, tapas, should be served. This is not it. For starters, in Spain, each bar is renowned for a certain dish more often than not and you go around from bar to bar on a night out, eating a small dish here and another there, thus preventing you from getting blind drunk on an empty stomach and still have the wherewithal to carry out a conversation with your mates until you hit the clubs at two in the morning. Having all your tapas at once, like at La Tasca and other such ‘Spanish’ restaurants just ain’t right. Plus, it’s hideously expensive for what you actually get (another thing that doesn’t tend to happen any in Spain that isn’t blatantly a tourist trap). Avoid this place.

On one of my first trips to Bristol, before I learnt where the best places to eat and drink where, I paid a visit to La Tasca in the City Centre. I was just about to go to Colston Hall and marvelled at how great this location was. It was a boiling hot day and the mere thought of sangria tipped me over the edge. In we went!
That’s where everything started to go downhill. The customer’s sat there in silence looking mean, moody, hungry and thirsty. But, naively optimistic, we didn’t let this dampen our spirits and made an attempt to banter with the waiter. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. He was just as mean and moody as the customers. We ordered with the look to getting out there as quickly as possible. But as we waited over twenty minutes of our drinks and a further twenty for our food, we realised how late we were becoming.
The food was cold and tasteless, and the drinks were watered down and inauthentic. They handed us a ‘£5 off your next meal’ coupon which gave us the perfect opportunity to say «we won’t be coming back».

La tasca is nice because of the price and the consistency. They have a special offer on these days of £10 all the tapas you can eat from Sunday to Wednesday. The food was not too bad but the menu was limited. The calamares was good and so was the paella. The only poor dish was the mushroom one as they seemed a bit stale but the rest was tasty. They have a continual promotion of sangre de torro (spelling?) as their house red wine and it’s pretty good. The service was a bit bizarre but i think the guy was new and quite young. He was very brusque. The service last time wasn’t great either but they weren’t rude, just disinterested.

One of a numbers of buildings in the area that open and close on a regular basis. In it’s latest reincarnation it’s turned itself into a rather large La Tasca.
I love Spanish food and so I really want to like these places but on the two times I’ve been I’ve been hugely disappointed. It’s part of massive chain and I get the impression that the food isn’t exactly delivered fresh and to the exact requirements of the chef! It’s all a little bland and nothing like what you’re served in the tapas bars of Spain. The menu is quite cheap but I’d say that is reflected in the quality of food. Call me a snob but there is also something not quite right about having some young kid with a Bristolian accent telling you parrot fashion what is on the menu.
For a drink it’s fine, but if you want proper food then go to El Puerto.