La Boqueria Parktown North — Restaurant in Gauteng

firstly, let me mention that i appreciate good food. We made a booking for a special occassion at this restaurant. this was after checking the good reviews that had been consistently posted about this establishment.

arrival found us searching for street parking. this was a struggle, later we realised that there was a parking lot in the area that may have been a easier choice.not to mention more secure.

we are met at the entrance and guided warmly to our table. they also take our cake which we had brought to the kitchen for safe keeping and preparation. very nice. we are introduced to the menu,. this almost overwhelms the senses with names and terms from a foreign land. meant to impress, and confuse? being a small group with kids, we place an order for the kids. we are left waiting for the waiter to come back so that we can order starters. but when she returns, she brings the kids' food.. that did not take long. we order starters, and that takes long. the menu says 30 minutes, i would think it took a bit longer. at around 45 minutes in, we realised that this may be a waiting game, so we add the mains as well. cajun calamari, appropriately priced for a starter, but honestly, not amazing. well presented, and fair taste. taco prawn, is expensive for a fair sized starter portion, which tasted mediocre. cordera empanada, is kfc.. with no seasoning. quite pricey, despite the good looks. mussels, a bit pricey, pretty to look at, till you realise that it needs more sauce. ribs, whiskey glazed.. looks nice, fair portion, nice taste, but not worth a repeat order.. this was ammended on my instruction to be alcohol freee.. perhaps the original would taste better? baked fish.. fair price, well presented, buttoo salty for my liking lbqr tapa.. fair portion, pleasing to the eye, but the gastric juices stopped flowing as soon as the taste was recognised. churasco de picanha. bit pricey, but acceptable. feast for the eyes, but lacks a flavour to match. meat was cooked well though. lamb quesedilla, pricey for what it is, simple presentation, and good taste. there seems to be a disconnect between ordering department, and delivery department. the orders get delivered at the wrong time, when i specifically asked the hostess not to bring a certain item. they need a word of appreciation as they allowed us to bring our own cake, with no "corkage". however, they knew it was a special occassion, but did not do a complimentary desert, as many other may have done. this may be due to the fact that we brought our own cake? toilets are clean and regularly cleaned and maintained. the entire restaurant feels good and has a classy feel to it, except for the excessive noise levels. this is not music, but patrons talking themselves. i feel the hostess may have been overwhelmed, as i had to ask multipple waiters for the same thing. and the drinks request were actually wrong.

all in all, is it worth going back to? no, i do not think so. interestingly, i did not even see many people consuming alcohol there. it genuinely looks like people came for the food, and company. am i just...

By now you should have somehow heard of this rather new Hispanic restaurant in Parktown North called La Boqueria. If not, let us tell you our story.

First impressions As you walk in you are immediately greeted by a mural on the wall of a lady bullfighter smoking a cigarette. Her presence together with all the greenery makes this place feel vibrant and fresh. It gives you a silent promise that what you are about to experience will be something exotic and exciting.

Drinks, Starters and Tapas The restaurant's name drew inspiration from a big public market in Barcelona. Trying to order was like a going to this market, with such a diverse list of options that were categorized in an unusual manner (especially the wine list), made the process of ordering quite confusing and time-consuming. For drinks we settled on something we knew we would like, as you can't go wrong with a G&T, am I right or am I right?

A combination of starters and tapas always works great for a lunch option. We opted in for the Cheese Plate, Wood-fired Goats Cheese, San Juan Mussels and Clams and the Croquettas. We absolutely loved the first two dishes and the Goats Cheese won hands-down, but the last two sadly fell flat on our taste buds. The Mussels and Clams were in a delicious jalapeño sauce, but the actual mussels and clams were a bit chewy. As for the Croquettas, nice and crispy but very salty in our opinion.

Big-hearted mains We had friends join us and they couldn't resist ordering the Son of a Butcher Man. Now, this must be the biggest piece of meat we have ever seen on a plate, Good Golly! It is a dry aged primal cut on the bone with salsa on top. The best part is you get a little fork to eat out the roasted bone marrow. This dish brought out the nom-nom sounds from everyone at the table.

Lacking Service and overpriced drinks Now we are unsure if the service were lacking because of the Easter Weekend, but we had to constantly try to flag down our waiter to get us more drinks or to take away our plates, as the table was quite small and quickly became cluttered with empty tapas plates and glasses. It got so bad that we started putting all our dirty plates and empty glasses on the table next to us.

On the topic of value, two round of drinks worked out more than our food in total and we felt this was a bit steep for us. We are all about good cocktails, but R120 for a Long Island Iced Tea is quite extravagant.

Did it uphold the silent promise? They definitely get points for being exotic and exciting but with okay food, overpriced drinks and lacklustre service, we were a bit disappointed.

TTT’s rating out of 5: Food - 3.5 | Service - 2.5 | Atmosphere – 5 | Value – 3.5

La Boqueria gets a 'Good on Ye' from Two...

If you should visit this promising eatery, you may sail through the highly varied 'Hispanic-influence' menu without a care in the world or you may wish you had taken your specs and delayed until a day when your olfactory senses were on top form.

The trouble is, on a busy night, certain ingredients may be in short supply. Rather than disappointing the patron, who is salivating in anticipation after reading the engaging and descriptive copy for each item, the restaurant might use a simple "essence" of the scarce ingredient. And maybe they'll mix it "into the sauce". That way, they can still serve the delightful sounding fish with "artichoke and fennel", even though actual A and F were last seen in the kitchen more than half an hour previously.

At this point, those diners with good eye glasses and tip-top nasal passages may just be able to detect that that a few drops of the essence were indeed added, or at least waved over the well presented dish. These lucky few can then, with homeopathic fervor, convince fellow travelers who cannot detect any trace of said ingredients that they are indeed present.

Sigh. At least salt was not in short supply. The beef main ordered by a friend was so incredibly well salted that she insisted we all taste... After which it was returned to the kitchen. A new dish was promptly prepared, (bravo!) but just at that time, the bean and other accoutrements must have run low, as the second tasting was down to just bare basics.

When it came to dessert, the unbespectacled and scent-challenged members of our party met with additional intrigue. It's hard to know where to start on the mouthwatering sounding "Honey and whiskey crema with granadilla custard and almond praline". Praline dust would perhaps have been slightly more accurate (and at least kept up the standard of food writing). A little pulp of 'passiflora edulis' decorated the rim but the custard was as obvious as the Emperor's proverbials. And most of us had experienced some slight congestion in the preceding 6 months, so were unfortunately unable to detect any honey or malt-oriented tipple.

What a pity. Great ambience, attentive service, fresh ingredients. Spoiled by several inaccurate, incomplete or poorly prepared dishes. We spoke to the manager who seemed genuinely concerned and wanted to put things aright but then promptly disappeared for the rest of...