Tapagria Spanish Tapas Restaurant — Restaurant in Markham

My parents held their anniversary dinner here recently and asked us to partake w/ them.

We were sat in a booth near the entrance so it was kinda chilly everytime someone opened the door haha.

Service was quite good from our waitress (I forgot her name)!

Lychee & tropical sangrias: My bro got a lychee sangria. I tried the tropical one. I think the lychee sangria was more unique. The tropical sangria was too familiar of a citrus juice kinda taste.

Truffled beef sliders: You get 3 in one order. The meat was juicy but I do wish they patties were larger in diameter. The buns were toasted but they were much larger than the patties so you end up w/ bites of bare bread. I think if they increased the size of the patties to get meat in every bite these would be fantastic.

Mushroom croquetas: For a veggie dish these were quite tasty! The outside was very crispy and the inside had an almost risotto texture inside. I thought it would taste very potatoey but the flavour of mushrooms permeated the inside all the way through. It tasted like cream of mushroom soup.

Beef empanadas: These were good but BEWARE you only get 2 per order. So at a $10 price point, I would say this dish is a rip off ($5 for ONE empanada??). Prolly would not order these again even though the beef inside was rich.

Broccolini + romesco: I actually quite liked this dish. Broccolini is somewhat of an acquired taste. It has the bitter aftertaste of an asparagus but the bulbs of broccoli. I think the seasoning was on point and the bitterness was offset by the acid of from the romesco sauce.

Half grilled octopus: UBER tender octopus tentacles. Presentation-wise there's no doubt this is a showstopper. The tentacles were a lil bit too charred for my mom's taste but I liked that blackened taste off the grill.

Roasted bone marrow: Cool to try once and snap photos but honestly not worth the $19 price tag. It's not even a full marrow. It's like one half of a bone. If I return I most likely won't order this again.

Miso cabbage + iberico: I was ok w/ this dish as I can eat spicy but it was probably the least liked dish by everyone. The miso was very strong and clashed w/ the strong flavour of the iberico. Add the spiciness into the mix and you just have a very strong tasting dish without much balance to cut back on the richness.

Paella de carne asada & paella de mariscos: We ordered 2 paellas. The one w/ all the meats and the one w/ all the seafood. I think we unanimously liked the seafood one more. I think cooking all the seafood w/ the rice let the seafood juices permeate through the rice so it was extra umami. The steak was slightly overcooked in the meat paella as well.

Churros: For dessert, we ordered churros. You get 4 in one order and it comes w/ what looked like dulce de leche. The churros themselves were perfection but the dulce de leche was too liquidy in consistency imo. It should've been much thicker. It was also lacking that "oomph" and was too mild in flavour.

Final thoughts: At almost $500 (for 5 ppl), I think it was definitely overpriced for the portions you get. Sangria, paella, croquettas, octopus and broccolini are must tries. Would only come back for a special occasion but not on a regular basis. It's way too expensive to dine here regularly. I understand tapas means "small plates" but I wish they would be a lil less stingy on some of the dish portions like the empanadas (give at least 4-6 for the...

I’m very unsatisfied with my experience at dinner. The senior management is untrustworthy and how they deal with customer complaints is very unprofessional. Even though this restaurant has a high price menu, it’s way below the bar of how an elegant restaurant should operate.

We went as a group of 6. One of the tapa dishes is very salty. It’s so salty that I have to drink three glass of water yet still have the salt taste. We called the manager and the manager brought the dish back to the kitchen in order to determine if the extra salty taste is from the chicken or the sauce. After the “diagnose”, they told us it’s the chicken. If they were to remake it, then it’ll be the same batch and the dish will be salty again.

We asked to take the dish out of the bill. They say they need to check with the next level above. The senior manager came, and she took away the dish leftover without asking (???!!!). I thought she would make a refund of the dish and that’s why she took the dish away. After she came back, she says they cannot take the dish off from the bill cause we almost finished the dish. But remember this is a tapa restaurant. Each dish has a small size and we have 6 ppl. After each person has a bit of the dish, it’s almost gone.

Instead, she says they can make us a new one, and make it less salty by taking away some ingredients from the sauce. Here’s the first untrustworthy sign - the first manager just told us that the extra salty taste is from the chicken and remaking it wouldn’t make a difference cause the chicken is from the same batch. Yet the second manager we talked to just overwrote the whole thing.

We were very disappointed at the chicken so we refused at the remake option. The manager once again says they cannot take the dish off the bill but can offer us a free dessert. We don’t want dessert so we asked if they can take the two glass of wine ($30) off from the bill instead. She says according to the restaurant policy, they cannot take anything-already-ordered from the bill. My friend then asked if she can take off the $6 bread from the bill, and she says yes.

Here’s the second untrustworthy part - even though they cannot take off the $30 wine off the bill according to the restaurant policy, they can take off the $6 bread off the bill as of the policy is only written for $6+ items.

They took the bread off the bill and sent us free churros in the end. I feel very disappointed at the experience in this restaurant for the following reasons: It’s so rude to take leftover dishes from the customer’s table without asking. It’s only acceptable if the dish is about to be refunded; otherwise it’s the same behaviour as taking other ppl’s stuff away without asking. I was shocked when that happened. The stories we heard from the two managers are very different. I believe the first manager was sincere when he told us even if they remake the chicken, it’ll still be salty. The second manager was only trying to resolve the case without caring about the dish’s quality. The restaurant policy sounds so made up. $30 wine is no no but $6 bread is yes yes.

As a restaurant, you either have a high price and sell the experience, or you have a low price and sell just the food. This restaurant has a high piece yet it...

an almost completely enjoyable meal here with the food being quite good and the service being a little off in our opinion. lovely wood and iron industrialish space decorated with eye catching art. greeted by a young man that immediately came off as surly and uninviting. seated quickly in an almost completely empty dining room. our server was friendly enough, bringing menus and water right away. but as the meal progressed it seemed that his presence became more perfunctory and less visible. not in our opinion quality service. as for the food, we really enjoyed all but one of the tapas items we ordered, with the paprika garlic shrimp being the standout. plump shrimp that i believe had been grilled on a flat top tossed with garlic and copious amounts of (spanish?) paprika. these were delicious if a bit spicy, possibly from some red pepper flakes. on the high end price wise for the hot tapas which kept us from ordering more. all other items we ordered were from the pintxos or tapas portions of the menu. they do have 3-4 main entrees such as steak along with multiple preparations of paella available. we chose not to order paella as it takes a bit of time to prepare but the ones we saw on other tables looked and smelled delicious. first order of pan con tomate with manchego cheese from the cold tapas had nice sweet tomato flavor but suffered from an overabundance of the topping which made the bread quite soggy instead of just a light rubbing of tomato and a slight grill on the bread to prevent this. we have ordered this elsewhere and enjoyed the different preparation. next was a pinxto of serrano ham and manchego cheese, both of which were tasty but again the lack of a bit of heat on the bread made it just okay due to the blandness of said bread. our other hot tapas was mushroom croquettes which we liked very much. full mushroom flavor with a dollop of a tasty sauce-with i could have asked about it's ingredients-that complimented them nicely. great dish. the shrimp and seafood salad tapas were pretty good with both suffering from the cold bread problem and seafood salad being on the bland side. shrimp we very nice. last item was the truffle spread and manchego tapas. this was a miss for us. a too large amount of the really, really earthy truffle spread which was so strong as to overpower the flavor of the cheese. also caused the bread to be soggy. be prepared if you order this. a smaller amount of the spread would actually make this better IMO. would try again if in the area with time to enjoy the paella, hoping for a different...