The Soca Kitchen — Restaurant in Ottawa

I do not recommend this place to anybody who wants actual Spanish food there so kitchen is a nice place to look at. It’s the ambiance is nice you walk in it’s great it’s clean it’s fresh but the blind tapas tasting I would never recommend it to me it was a lazy choice on the chefs too, serve mostly vegetable dishes and charge $28per person. We paid $28 per person and most of the dishes were all vegetables. It was a kale salad with heavy cream and Parmesan cheese beets also caramelized onions and crispy caramelized walnuts. It was tasty but it was a lot of cream , there were two eggs in a dish with the bottom baked again in cream It was tasty, but it wasn’t enough for four people the second fries seasoning also with cream on top then it was literally one battered fish and a half sliced into served on the smallest pieces of tortilla bread or and they called it fish taco like literally I could’ve bought everything on that table for $28 as opposed to spending $140 to me. It was lazy it was cheap. I was it was my birthday. I was hungry. I was looking forward to a full meal and everything on the table. I literally could’ve bought at the grocery store for $28 or I could’ve just went to a chip truck down and down the street and get fries and and fish , it was like fish and chips pretty much with kale and beets. It was actually very disappointing. I thought it was a waste of money. I think the whole blind tapas tasting is a scam. I don’t recommend anyone go there if you’re like lactose intolerant like me like so t bother there I couldn’t even make it home because I was trying to avoid the cream, but it was almost impossible. The drinks were super expensive, which they require you to buy to be eligible to do the tapas tasting. It was $17 for a small glass. I just feel like this place is a scam. I was there with my mom and my daughters my youngest one being six years old so we excluded her from the tasting because she’s a picky eater and I knew she wasn’t gonna have anything that came from the blind tap tasting. They never even asked. What can we get for her or if they can offer her something else or like my daughter basically just ate bread The server never came back and asked how we were feeling or how we were doing after you serve us, they was only one server in the restaurant at dinner time it was fairly the service sucked, and when I did express my opinion to the server, he was like oh I’m highly offended and was kind of rude And kind of disregarded my feelings at the end of the day we are paying customers and our opinions to and the customers always right so I really would never go back...

This is actually one of my favorite restaurants before and I had bean here for dinner as well as brunch. B⁹ut I had a less than stellar experience when I took Mom there for Mother's Day.

I snagged a last minute reservations at 6am for 9am after not finding any spot at this and a couple of other restaurants I checked into at last minutem for Mother Day since I have been a bit busy. Last year, the whole family did Mother's day on Saturday with Mom at Gezellig.

I wanted to do brunch here with Mom for a bit so was happy I snagged a cancellation I thought, or they decided to open earlier.

When we arrived they told me the reservation was for only 90 minutes and I said I know from the last minute reservation for 4 but I could not get other family member to join us at that early time at short notice. I been there for brunch many times and they had Mother's day listed for their special bunch deals on Facebook with $5 for mimosas.

Imagine my surprise when the bill came. I was charged $9.50 for the mimosa, and I think $22-24 for main courses. Mom did not eat as much of the meal as I hoped when I ordered 2 good breakfast dishes and she choose one but found it a little spicier than she liked and I set her up with half of my briased pork and other stuff.

They said the specials were not available for Mother's day and that they called reservations yesterday due to that so I think that resulted in some cancellations. Hmm, I was a last minute reservation, so I had not been called the day before so would have appreciated a heads up. If I had been briefed when we arrived, I would had no issue paying different states prices but the server just assumed I should have known Mother's day does not offer deals despite that being listed as a valid date on Facebook and I could not possible received a call day before informing me of the changed in pricing.

I was going to let it go but felt a little upset with the cavalier attitude of the server so went and showed them the Facebook event with Mother's day listed. They end up taking some money off I think for the mimosa but really handled poorly.

3 tables were not occupied at all in the time we were there from 9:15 to 10:35 am so I guess some people cancelled or no show. Only 1 server and I think someone at the bar and setting up tables near the end of the time we were there.

I think next time with Mom, I would choose a different restaurant with consistent flawless service or nice family run atmosphere, both with...

We ordered from here a few times in the past month, The first time, we ordered a bunch of their tacos(beef, pork, and cauliflower), a pan guerilla, and their churros. Everything was awesome! Great food, and lots of it. We were so impressed that we decided to order from them again, but we thought we would change it up. This time we ordered the family paella, and some patatas bravas. The patatas bravas were very good. Similar to what you would find in Spain. The paella however was quite disappointing. To begin, the description mentioned it coming with olives, bread (pan tomaca) and manchego cheese (they've since changed the description on their Uber Eats site; it remains the same on the restaurant website). We received neither. Also, the entire dish was very dry, like it had been sitting under a heat lamp for a while. It was also nothing like the picture on the website. It had about half of the prawns pictured, as well as about half of everything else that makes a paella good (mussels, pork, chicken). It did have lots of dried out rice though, so at least it was filling. The paella cost $89, and the price was quite exorbitant for the quality and quantity of the dish. It was worth about $49 at the most (as it did feed 3 of us). Uber Eats sent a request for a review, and I generously gave Soca Kitchen 4 stars with a comment that it was not worth the price. That was a fair comment. About a day later, Soca Kitchen responded to my review with a "Thumbs Down" emoji. I guess sometimes the truth hurts. I do not like to leave poor reviews for restaurants, as I have been in the industry myself for many years, and understand the difficulties involved in putting out consistently good meals. I also understand it may be more difficult now during the pandemic. I feel that it is irresponsible and childish to respond to a customer's fair review with a "Thumb Down" emoji. I would have gladly explained the reasoning behind my assessment if they would have reached out politely. I will not be ordering from this restaurant again unfortunately. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else experienced the same disappointing...