Once upon a time all you needed to do in a Spanish style tapas bar in the UK was serve up a few peeled prawns in oil, open a bottle of Rioja and put on a Gipsy Kings cd. Before anyone could say "Olé" you had that "true" Spanish atmosphere. Not any more, customers are more demanding these days and won't settle for any old tapas, as demonstrated by this photo I took in the UK last week.
3 comments:
This might be a shift towards quality and authenticity...a lot of people, in Belfast and Dublin, that I know, anyway, were getting fed up with 'Tapas Menus' that read like an Iceland shoping list - Potato wedges, spring rolls, chicken wings etc etc served with a choice of dips - BBQ, Garlic Mayo or Sweet Chilli and heavily over priced. Authentic or what?
There have also been countless newspaper features on Donostia / San Sebastián and it's food, Arzak etc
Bar Pintxo in Dublin:
Picture:
http://bp3.blogger.com/_Y5QkyHYuITM/R9RMoif321I/AAAAAAAAAbE/ML8rnXQ_Qbg/s1600-h/pintxo.jpg
Review down at January 23rd:
http://www.beerinator.com/beerfeeds2/The_Beer_Nut/#
"Once upon a time all you needed to do in a Spanish style tapas bar in the UK was serve up a few peeled prawns in oil, open a bottle of Rioja and put on a Gipsy Kings cd." - sounds great!! where is it?
I think it got closed down on the grounds that it was offering value for money. Basque pintxos come with a higher markup.
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