La TASCA (Closed)

Item: La TASCA
Rating: 2
Author: albiebabie

3.5

88 Reviews

Taste

Decor

Service

Hygiene

Value

827

Tsim Sha Tsui

$101-200

Spanish Western Restaurant

albiebabie

Level2

Read full review

I was very disappointed with this restaurant. I was in the mood for tapas and was expecting good things given the decent ratings and reviews on OpenRice. The place was less a restaurant and more a bar, which is fair enough as it is called La Tasca, which is Spanish for a bar that serves food.
I had a bad feeling as soon as we walked in as it was completely empty. It was quite early at 6.30pm so maybe it was only to be expected, but I had called two other Spanish restaurants in TST before this one for a table for two for the same time and they had said they were fully booked. Only one other table had come in by the time we left at 8pm. More warning bells rang when I looked at the menu and I should have gone with my instincts at this point and walked out. The menu was a plastic laminated sheet with blurry pictures of the dishes with a name and a price, the kind of menu you would expect to see in a cheap tourist trap eatery. One side had the tapas dishes along with pasta dishes for some reason. There was a fair number of tapas dishes, maybe 20 or so, but many of the dishes you would expect to see on a tapas menu were missing - no patatas bravas, albondigas or croquetas de jamon. Tortilla, or as it was presented on the menu, Spanish omelette was there. Several of the dishes were just bowls of olives or plates of various sliced meats. The other side had a list of about 6 mains, but with no pictures this time. Given the space, they could have provided a brief description of the dishes, but instead they used a extra large font and had descriptions such as “Lamb ragout with crushed potatoes”. The two sides of the menu looked liked menus from 2 different restaurants with no consistency in layout or style. We really should have walked out, but we were short on time and decided to give it chance and after ordering some drinks (a sangria and a lemonade), we went with the pork ribs and the garlic prawns from the tapas menu, and the lamb ragout from the mains.
While we were waiting for the dishes, we were given a bread basket with butter. The bread was a couple baguette slices and one bite told me they had been warmed up in a microwave. The first dish to come out was the pork ribs, which were 4 large spare ribs served on shredded lettuce and a side of tomato ketchup. Serving a dish with tomato ketchup is just lazy and mildly insulting. Surely, the kitchen could have come up with a more interesting sauce to accompany the ribs. Even if it is store-bought, something that I would not normally have in my own home would be nice. It turned out the ketchup was actually needed to physically eat the ribs, as they were very tough and dry. I suspect they had been cooked many hours beforehand and reheated in a microwave. However, the ribs themselves tasted fine, nothing particularly special but not Spanish in any way. We did not finish this dish.
The garlic prawns, peeled prawns cooked with slices of garlic and chili in olive oil, looked more like a tapas dish and was a pleasant surprise. The prawns were plump and juicy and the oil had a nice salty kick The garlic was soft with a warm sweet flavour, and could be eaten on its own. This dish was the only dish that evening that gave the impression that it was cooked fresh to order.
The lamb ragout was served with a side of of mashed potato. The ragout consisted of chunks of lamb in a oily tomato based sauce, no vegetables could be discerned in the sauce. The dish came garnished of a thick slice of cucumber topped with two halves of a cherry tomato. If you are going to put this little effort in the garnish, it’s better that you don’t bother at all. Actually, the lamb ragout tasted good with a rich tangy sauce, but yet again, I got the feeling that the dish had been pre-cooked and reheated in the microwave. One would expect a dish like this to be pre-cooked as slow cooking would be needed to tenderise the meat, but I don’t think that this was the case. More likely, the dish was cooked quickly hours, or possibly days, earlier and then simply reheated to order. The meat was tough and chewy instead of tender and juicy. In fairness, this dish was tasty enough and was finished off, all apart from the garnish. It could have been so much better had it been cooked and presented with more care.
The bill came to $488, which is more or less what you would expect for Western food in Hong Kong, but it was way too much to pay for this quality of food, Western or otherwise. To cap it all off, my dinner companion had stomach pains after the meal, so it left a lasting impression for all the wrong reasons.