La Tasca Canary Wharf

Another Canary Wharf lunch. I am quickly running out of options here.

Food

Since this was supposed to be a cheap lunch, we started with Cranberry juice (£1.65). After waiting quite a long time, our selection of tapas arrived:

• Pan de Ajo (£) - Garlic bread - which was only delivered about 2 minutes before the rest, and was very disappointing. It was basically 2 pieces of white bread smeared with some butter, unevenly spread, and some sprinkle of garlic.
• Champiñones al Ajillo (£3.45) - Mushrooms lightly sautéed in garlic & olive oil - somehow managed to be mucked up. The mushrooms had not much flavour, which is probably a first.
• Patatas a la Pobre grande (£2.95) Potato, fried with onion and red and green peppers - not what we ordered, but with the same fried potato as a base. They were nice enough, but definitely did nto compare with the Tapa Tapa version.
• Brocheta de Pollo (£3.95) - Skewers of fresh chicken breast & red peppers, marinated with spices - this one was ok, the meat a bit tasteless.
• Paella de Pescado (£3.95) - Paella with squid, prawns and mussels, served with lemon - very boring, they probably skim on the material, and of course none of the paella pan goodness of a real gelato.
• Gambas Pil Pil (£4.45) - King prawns sautéed and sizzling in olive oil, fresh garlic & hot Spanish guindilla peppers - we only got like 4 prawns (which were quite small) and it was drowned in oil. The only thing going for it was that it was very hot.
• Chorizo Frito al Vino (£3.95) - The spicy Spanish sausage, sautéed in red wine - not too bad, but it was on the side of bland.

Wow, Canary Wharf eatery has sank to a new low.

Rating - 2

Atmosphere

It was a wet and miserable Monday lunch, and as a result, we were just about the only customers. The theme is your typical Spanish tapas bar that is outside of Spain, i.e. wooden furnishing, red and yellow tones. The good thing about this place is that it’s big, so t here’s loads of room for big group functions. Even though the whole restaurant was empty, they decided to squash us onto a small table, so that when our food arrived, we had to really juggle to get everything to fit.

Rating - 0

Service

Even though there was no one else at the restaurant, it was extremely difficult to find any service though. The staff seem to think that standing around and chatting should be their job, and we had to actually GET UP to get them to come and serve us. Then they inform us that the juice I wanted on the menu was not available, they had run out of squid so we couldn’t order anything with ti, and the potato dish we ordered was not the one that was delivered. After that though, someone came over every couple of seconds, and would interrupt our conversation and ask if everything was ok. I was so mad by about the 5th time I wanted to reply that THEY were the source of our troubles. Needless to say, when we wanted them at the end of our meal to get the bill, they were nowhere to be found.

Rating - 0

C-factor

The lunchtime menu they had on their website wasn’t available, so we had to order a la carte. It worked out to be £24.80 + service for the 3 of us after our 25% off discount. I ate much better at Tapa Tapa, and as you can probably tell, I will never come back.

Rating - 0

Brownie Points - 2

Info

Hertsmere Rd
West India Quay
London
E14 4AE
Phone +44 (0) 20 7531 9990
Website