Tasca Tasca - Tapas Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Sonoma

I was initially very excited to try this cute little tapas place. Unfortunately I had a bad experience with the service.

My husband and I came in on a Sunday afternoon. We were seated and brought our choice of water. When the staff brought the water, she instructed us to open the menu, very tersely and repeated the same instruction multiple times. She continued and pointed to each section of the menu, reading the titles. We asked for a few minutes to select our wine and tapas. However, staff did not return for half an hour. We noticed a family and a couple come in after us. Both the family, who was seated next to us, and the couple sitting at the bar, were serviced much more attentively than us. Both staff who were on the floor walked right passed a multitude of times to attend to all the other guests around us. The family at our side who arrived after us had their order taken, received drinks, had their wine poured, and received their tapas before we ever had the chance to even order. The staff was literally standing with her back to me, interacting with the family, within feet. I was incredibly confused as to why it was imposible for her to communicate with us or at least acknowledge my husband and I. A simple "I'll be back to take our order" or some kind of eye contact or gesture would have sufficed. Any kind of acknowledgment at all would have been fine.

We ended up waiting 30 minutes of no acknowledgment before she returned. We asked for the check to pay for our water. She asked the reason for our leave and I simply responded that it was the wait time. In reality, it was the blatant fact that every other table was being attended to very well except mine. At the moment, I was incredibly upset and just wanted to leave.

I hate to think the worst but I strongly feel that my skin color had something to do with the substandard service we were given. My husband and I were the only people of color in the establishment. She apologized for the wait and did not charge us for the sparkling water.

Perhaps in another future, I would grant them a second opportunity to provide an honest review of the food.

But i would definitly encourage any other person of color who has or will plan to come here to share their experiences with this restaurant. It could be that I just had unfortunate luck...

Such a poor experience and a complete let down. We booked seeing that the food looked great and had a high star rating, however, the food was mediocre (chocolate tart was at least a few days old and very dry) and they failed in two aspects:

Table reservations We booked on Open Table and arrived on time only to be told there were no open tables for us and that we could sit at the bar instead. There were in fact open seats though, the entire middle section of the restaurant was open for larger parties and two two tops as well, but we were told we could not sit there due to COVID regulations (which was totally fine with us and we settled with the bar). During our meal we looked over and a couple was sat at one of the two open two tops. We asked why we couldn’t sit there and the manager said it was because when she is on duty it falls on her shoulders so they have more wiggle room (super strange).

Service While we were sitting at the bar, two other couples joined us and they were helped first, despite arriving afterwards. We had to ask for water refills twice and we were not told that you need to order all at once to get the price stated on the menu (e.g. 5 for $30). This was likely due to the bar tender being overwhelmed and thinking he told us when it was to one of his other tables. When asking about this at the end of the meal the manager mocked us and said great, great so you want me to remove $3.00. Additionally, we ordered the Mac and cheese which is on the cheese section of the menu and I am vegetarian so was unhappy when I saw it came with sausage. It was labeled under the menu, but instead of being empathetic and switching out one of the Mac and cheeses we ordered, our server told us he can add another one but that we would have to pay. Finally, they did not accept American Express or Apple Pay.

We had such a bad experience that we explained we would write this review and both our server and blonde manager laughed in our faces. This was honestly one of the worst customer service problems I have ever seen and Sonoma is usually filled with such service minded people so find...

Had a nice solo supper here sitting at the bar. A few things to note: Order what you want up front. If you go to order another single dish later, it will be at a higher price, which is neither disclosed on the menu or by the server (in my case, I was told specifically ‘you can always add on another if you want more.’) Everything I had, I’d eat again except for dessert. Here’s what I had pickled veg (cauliflower with thin slices of carrot and celery. Very crisp but great flavor. Loved it more than I expected) crab empanadas. Comes with two small cookie sized empanadas and some dipping shmear. These were quite good. I wished for two more. Breadcrumb outside, which was more croquette than empanada though there was pastry under? Who knows, it was good. But small. duck breast. Best thing I’ve eaten in months. Chilled, well smoked, nice glaze, made a little open faced sammie with the Dijon and bread it comes with. Would have ordered this in an entree size. Holy yum. linguica Mac and cheese. Not spicy, definitely tastes of linguica though only a few small pieces. Not super cheesy or heavy, which I appreciated. Would also eat this again, more than once. chocolate tart. Skip it. It’s a weak excuse for a tart shell with average chocolate ganache and a sprinkle of sea salt. Completely underwhelming. olive oil ice cream. Drizzled with olive oil and sea salt. I did enjoy this, but for the same cost I’d take any of the savory choices again instead.

Staff was attentive and friendly, ambiance was nice with Fado playing in the background. I loved that. Try a white port and tonic, if you’ve been to Portugal you know that’s legit. On a Tuesday night I made reservations but didn’t really need it. While busy, it wasn’t packed. I imagine...