Olé! (La Tasca (Portsmouth))

Member Name: bollinger28

Product:	La Tasca (Portsmouth)
Date:	16/05/09 (276 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice selection of tapas and other Spanish dishes. Reasonably priced. Lovely views.

Disadvantages: Décor and lighting makes the venue is a little bit gloomy. Expensive to park.

I had wanted to go to La Tasca for an absolute age, but time and opportunity never seemed to match up. Last month, were looking for a venue to celebrate my partner's birthday and we ended up having a browse on www.moneysavingexpert.com to see if there were any good restaurant discount vouchers doing the rounds. We were tempted by a two-main-courses-for-the-price-of-one at Prezzo, but we quickly lured away by the even better offer of 50% discount off all food at La Tasca. A quick look on La Tasca's website (www.latasca.co.uk), and we located our nearest outlet as being at Gun Wharf Quays in Portsmouth - about a 30 minute drive from us. The discount voucher duly printed off and stapled to my arm, we set off to try La Tasca for ourselves.

Just to put you in the picture, La Tasca is a chain of restaurants offering Spanish style cuisine. They offer a full range of tapas and other traditional Spanish dishes. Tapas are the name given to a wide selection of Spanish appetizers. They can be served either hot or cold. The serving of tapas is designed to encourage conversation - the theory being that tapas diners are less focused on the food as they would be on eating an entire meal. In Spain, dinner can be served as late as 9.00pm to midnight, and with such a large time gap between lunch, finishing work and having dinner, they need something to "fill the gap". It's a popular custom to eat tapas and have a drink in local bars before dinner. Nice custom hey!?

In addition to a huge range of tapas, La Tasca offers a nice selection of paellas, salads, desserts and coffee. So you can pop in for a quick snack and a drink, or sit down for a full meal - it's really up to you.


~*~ RESTAURANTE ~*~

The Portsmouth La Tasca is located at Gun Wharf Quays, a vast leisure complex which houses loads of the high street names at discount prices (The Marks and Spencer Outlet is well worth a visit if you're after a bargain). There is also a huge multiplex cinema, loads of well known restaurants and bars as well as the renowned Spinnaker Tower (which can be seen for miles all around).

La Tasca has a very nice spot near the Spinnaker Tower waterfront, and I would imagine it's a lovely summer spot to watch the ships and boats sail by. As we went on a cold April evening, we didn't linger much outside, but I can see how appealing the outside spaces would be in the summer. La Tasca is a two storey building with a paved terrace area to the front it, and above that a balcony overlooking the waterfront. Both areas have plenty of tables and chairs, so definitely one to bookmark for tapas and sangria in the sunshine later this year (hopefully).

Inside, the restaurant is done out in a sort of rustic Spanish manner. Lots of dark wood panelling and wrought iron fittings. The dark wood and wrought iron could look a little austere were the décor not broken up by a series of brightly coloured wall paintings and a mass of multi-coloured cushions all around the room. However, I must admit that I found the place a little dark inside. The multi-coloured cushions do help dispel some of the gloominess, but it's still not a very light and bright venue. I would imagine that the venue is much brighter when the weather is more clement, as the doors to the venue obviously fold right back, creating a more continental looking setting.

In the middle of the restaurant is an extremely steep spiral staircase, which takes you up to the upper dining level (and access to the balcony overlooking the waterfront). The toilets (very clean and spacious) are up on the first floor too. There is disabled toilet on the ground floor for the infirm, elderly or anyone who cannot face the spiral staircase. You can dine either upstairs or downstairs (we ate downstairs). I would imagine that the upper floor only opens when they arePictures of La Tasca, Portsmouth

La Tasca, Portsmouthparticularly busy, as no one appeared to be eating up there on the evening we were there. The welcome we received from the staff was superb, and nothing was too much trouble. We arrived just after 7.00pm, and enjoyed a quick drink at the bar. Whilst enjoying our drinks, we were offered our choice of table in the restaurant (we hadn't booked), and chose one to the corner of the room with a good view of the bar and entrance doors.


~*~ MENÚ ~*~

La Tasca serves a range of over 30 Tapas dishes consisting of meat, fish, seafood or vegetarian options. You choose as many or as few as you like. Prices range from a simple dish of marinated black and green olives at £2.55 up to king prawns in garlic at £5.75. However, most tapas dishes hover around the £3.95 mark.

If you fancy something a little more substantial, then La Tasca offer a range of paellas (a very traditional Spanish rice based dish) made with either meat, seafood or a vegetarian option. These are cooked to order and you should always allow a minimum of 20 minutes if not longer for freshly cooked paella to appear. If you order paella anywhere and they bring it out immediately, you just know it's not going to be a freshly cooked one. Indeed, a lot of Spanish restaurants ask you order their paella 24 hours in advance, just so that they can ensure they order in the freshest of ingredients. Anyhow, I digress, this is UK and La Tasca, and they don't ask for 24 hours notice on this dish. They do recommend you have a few tapas while you wait for them to cook your paella though. Paellas are ideal for sharing so all paellas are price at £19.95 per dish.

If you don't want tapas or paella, then there really isn't a lot of point dining there. Apart from a selection of salads and a few starter dishes, there is not a lot else on offer. Worth bearing in mind if you are a steak-and-all- the-trimmings diner. However, vegetarians and those on a gluten free diet are well catered for with appropriate symbols on the menu. They also highlight those dishes not containing garlic if you're not a lover of it. This is not something I'd ever need, as I love the stuff - the more the better!

Along with the food, the drinks have a distinctive Spanish theme as well. The lager on offer is San Miguel or Corona. A pint of draught San Miguel will set you back a fairly reasonable £3.15, which pleased himself immensely. He's so fed up of paying through the nose for a small bottle of indifferent beer. The wines are Spanish too, with sparkling Cava on offer as well. They also sell one of my favourites - Sangría (by the glass or pitcher), which is always a most refreshing, but deceptively alcoholic beverage. Sadly I was driving on the evening we dined there so I had to make do with mineral water, and didn't manage to partake of their excellent looking Sangría. As it was my partner's birthday, I decided he could be let off the driving and he partook of chinning down copious quantities of San Miguel.


~*~ ENTREMESES ~*~

We had a quick glance at the starters on offer, but decided to forgo them on this occasion in favour of a rather substantial main course. The staff tried to tempt us with a dish of mixed olives, but we settled on having some portions of garlic bread instead (Pan de Ajo). This was more than sufficient to take the edge off our appetite, but not spoil things for the feast of tapas we planned next.

However, there are plenty of starters to choose from should you wish with Queso Manchego Frito (deep fried Manchego cheese with dips), Selección de Embutidos (cured Spanish meats) and Sopa Andaluza de Judías (tomato and bean soup) all sounding very tempting.


~*~ PLATO PRINCIPAL ~*~

There were four of us in our party so we decided to go for the set tapas menu. My partner and I chose the Chef's Selection of Tapas at £26.95 for two. Our dining companions plumped for the Selection of Fish Tapas at £23.95 for two. We decided to have a big share out and asked the waiting staff to plonk the dishes down anywhere they could find on the table as we'd all be digging in to each and every dish. By the time they'd finished bringing out all the dishes, there wasn't much space left on the table! We were rather grateful that La Tasca only gives you a small side plate to eat off rather than a full size one, as they wouldn't have been any room for additional crockery...

The Chef's Selection consists of eight different dishes - all of which are delivered at the same time. I was half hoping it would be served like a Greek Meze, in that they bring a couple of dishes at a time and give you a little bit of break before the next one. The tapas selection consisted of Alitas de Pollo (marinated chicken wings = 7/10), Cordero en Salsa (lamb casserole = 10/10), Albóndigas a la Jardinera (beef meatballs served in tomato sauce = 9/10), Berenjenas Gratinadas (fresh aubergine topped with cheese and tomato = 10/10), Ensalada de Espinacas y Aguacate (salad with spinach, avocado, cucumber and onion = 7/10), Gambas Gabardina (deep fried king prawns = 5/10), Paella Valenciana (chicken and seafood paella = 5/10) and finally Patatas Bravas (fried potato with tomato sauce = 8/10).

We particularly enjoyed the lamb dish - which was full of flavour and the meat literally melted in the mouth. The meatballs were very tasty too - with just a hint of something spicy (possibly paprika, maybe chilli) in the tomato sauce. The fresh aubergine with cheese topping was truly delicious. The salad was nice, but a bit too heavy on the raw onion and less generous with the avocado. The king prawns were extremely average and tasted of nothing special. They were alleged to have been cooked in San Miguel batter, but they tasted just like Mama had been to Iceland. But most disappointing of all was the paella - which certainly tasted nothing like the paellas I've enjoyed in both mainland Spain or any of the Spanish islands. It was rather dry and tasteless and I've had better from Findus. Paella should be a moist and succulent dish - and this was almost crispy around the edges. I guess it had been sitting around in the kitchen too long, or just been reheated once too often. All I can say is I hope that those paying £19.95 for one of their cooked to order paellas get a better tasting and fresher looking dish than we did.

Not forgetting the Fish Tapas, which arrived moments after the Chef's Selection. The fish tapas consists of seven dishes, being Calamares Andaluza (deep fried squid rings = 10/10), Pescado Blanco Frito (deep fried white fish), Gambas Pil Pil (king prawns in garlic/chilli olive oil = 5/10), Ensalada de Espinacas y Aguacate (salad with spinach, avocado, cucumber and onion = 7/10), Tortilla Española (Spanish potato and onion omelette = 7/10), Paella de Verduras (Vegetarian paella = 5/10) and finally Patatas Bravas (fried potato with tomato sauce = 8/10).

Calamares is one of my favourite dishes if done well. These were simply delicious. Thin rings of squid quickly deep fried in the thinnest of batter coatings and served with a garlicky tasting mayonnaise. I can't honestly remember seeing or tasting the deep fried white fish, so I can't give them a mark out of ten. Maybe one of my dining companions wolfed the whole lot down, or perhaps they simply didn't get to our table. The tortilla was tasty and very filling. However, the Pil Pil prawns were very disappointing and nowhere near as good as the prawns in garlic I've enjoyed abroad. For a start they were swimming in some fairly non-fragrant oil, so they weren't infused with any flavour except grease. And once again, the paella was disappointing. This one was a vegetarian version, but it was just as dry and flavourless as the Valencian version served with the chef's tapas selection.

Paella and prawns aside, we all thoroughly enjoyed our tapas. If you don't want to have a set tapas menu, you can mix and match your own choices from the menu - there are about 30 or different dishes ranging from simple bread with olive oil at £1.95 up to £4/ £ 5 for prawn, steak or fish dishes. We all felt extremely replete after our feast of tapas and were glad of a wee break before we perused the dessert card.


~*~ POSTRES ~*~

The desserts choice is fairly limited and once again has a very Spanish theme to it. We were all tempted by the Churros con Frusta y Salsa de Chocolate (doughnut twists served with pieces of fruit for dipping in warm chocolate sauce), but we really didn't have room for yet another feast. Instead, two of us chose Helado con Chocolate y Alemendras (vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and almond pieces). It was tasty enough, but nothing special if you get my drift. My partner chose a portion of Tarta de Queso con Chocolate (a white and dark chocolate cheesecake), and that looked like a much more exciting option for next time. He pronounced it delicious, but quite forgot to offer me a taste. Desserts are priced at around the £4.00 mark.


~*~ SERVICIO ~*~

We'd been warned of rather erratic service at this branch of La Tasca, so we were prepared for indifferent and slow service. However, all the serving staff were very welcoming and efficient. We were greeted and seated in a most pleasant manner, and our order taken in a good and timely fashion by a very nice young lady. The waiter that brought our tapas was less outgoing, and we had a job hearing what some of the dishes were as he mumbled a bit. That aside, plates were removed swiftly when we'd finished and the table wiped down to remove our debris.

The bill came to a very reasonable £42.50 (as they applied the 50% discount to the food without a murmur). Having had two lots of large tapas platters, three desserts, a coffee, a brandy and four lagers - I think this was an extremely reasonable night out.


~*~ RECOMENDACIÓN ~*~

Food at La Tasca is plentiful and tasty. It's not gourmet cooking, nor is it haute cuisine. I very much doubt if a lot of the dishes are particularly authentic, and perhaps many a Spaniard would run away in horror at the slight on their cuisine. However, that doesn't really matter here, as it's still nice food. It's friendly food - the dishes are made for sharing. Groups of friends or families of all ages are welcome here. Eat and drink as much or as little as you like, and no one will think twice about it. The restaurant had a friendly and outgoing ambiance, and we received the warmest of welcomes. We had a very nice meal and we will be returning again soon, hopefully in the summer when we can sit outside and watch the world sail by. ...and next time I'll make sure I get a glass (or two) of Sangría down my neck.

Recommended...for a fun night out with a group of friends or your family.


~*~ OTROS DETALLES ~*~

La Tasca is owned and operated by The Bay Restaurant Group and has over 70 different venues throughout the UK. The Bay Restaurant Group Ltd (http://www.laurelpubco.com/) also runs Ha Ha Bar and Grill chain as well as Slug and Lettuce outlets.

The only drawback is for the Portsmouth venue is that you have to pay for parking and it's not cheap. There's a huge underground multi-levelled car park at Gun Wharf, but it's rather expensive; just over two plus hours parking will set you back nearly £4.00. That's probably not expensive compared to London parking prices, but it's rather rich compared to most of the south.

I'd say that you don't really need to make a reservation, as the restaurant is huge. However, you may need to wait for a table at peak times (Friday or Saturday nights). We walked straight in off the street at 7.00pm on a Monday night, and were shown straight to a table, but the restaurant was filling up rather quickly by 8.30pm.

La Tasca Portsmouth
Unit 10
Gun Wharf Quays
Portsmouth
Hampshire
PO1 3TA

Opening hours: Monday to Sunday - 12.00pm until late
Tel: 02392-864-444
Email: latasca.portsmouth@bayrestaurantgroup.com
Website: http://www.latasca.co.uk/portsmouth/ or just http://www.latasca.co.uk/

The restaurant is open seven days a week and takes all the major credit cards. The venue offers baby changing facilities and a disabled toilet located on the ground floor.

Summary: Good Spanish cusine in the heart of Gun Wharf Quays, Portsmouth