A little Spain in Pali Village

Restaurant-heavy Pali Village’s new eatery is working hard to check all the boxes. In a small space, the owners of this Spanish “restaurante tapas-vin” (restaurant of appetisers and wine, literally translated), have managed to create a distinct atmosphere. Roshni Bajaj Sanghvi writes.

Restaurant-heavy Pali Village’s new eatery is working hard to check all the boxes. In a small space, the owners of this Spanish “restaurante tapas-vin” (restaurant of appetisers and wine, literally translated), have managed to create a distinct atmosphere. There’s bustling cafe-style seating by the door, a sizzling open kitchen and a bar with slender metal-and-glass chandeliers suspended over it, a more relaxed and slightly raised dining area before you climb the sangria-unfriendly narrow wooden stairs to an upstairs from which you can watch the action below in relative quiet — just enough variety to keep you from getting bored. Check for ambience.

But you may not have time to take it all in at first because — and here comes the next check — the service is startlingly quick. Seconds after I’d sat down and ordered, the server was at my elbows with sangrias and tapas. It probably helped that the owner was around.

Diners will enjoy the quirky, easy-drinking wine cocktails, such as the sangria Poco Loco — white wine blended with fruit chunks. But they should probably decline the off-the-menu cucumber and sparkling wine cocktail: Instead of fresh juice, it had Monin syrup.

Among tapas, satiny pieces of artichoke tossed with olive oil and sherry balsamic were lovely, the tostadas de pisto not so much. The menu says the tostadas are made of stewed eggplant on toast with zucchini and tomato. They turned out to bruschetta-like nibbles with as much eggplant as vermouth in a Churchill martini. The lamb pincho, a single skewer of bite-sized clouds of meat, shone thanks to a well-spiced, slightly winey, brown marinade.

The entrées were compact, as they should be. My medium-sized stuffed, roasted aubergine wasn’t true to the menu’s description, but had a nice enough texture. The salmon steak was overwrought, the fish a tad overcooked and the artichoke cream more salty than summery.

Poco Loco has no dessert menu, but under a cloche at the bar are some chocolatey, creamy slices of pastry. However, there is nothing Spanish about tiramisu, cheesecake or Death by Chocolate. A few boxes remain to be checked.