Basquería Tapas y Sangria — Restaurant in Tucson

I was so looking forward to this local experience. I had been manifesting a “Spanish” food restaurant like the once memorable “Casa Vicente”. Upon entering there was a beautiful panoramic open concept with glass doors & clean minimalistic decor. Metal art reminiscent of Picasso’s renderings adorn some walls. Our server was polite and welcoming. He took our order, and while we waited an older gentleman whom appeared to be the owner came into the dinning room and acknowledged each table. I noticed he made idle chat with everyone except our table. Our order finally came in, “their brunch special - steak & eggs”. I started at my plate and my first thought was where’s the rest of my meal ?(yes, that small) I decided to surrender to the experience and let the food speak for itself. However, the potatoes did not look bravas at all. I called our server and asked, “Aren’t patatas bravas supposed to come in a red sauce?” He said, “ Oh, those are it. Plain cubed frozen potatoes that had been deep fried. Uneventful in its totality. I asked him for any dipping sauces they might have - we needed something to bring moisture to the poor potatoes. Our server actually came to our table and apologized - lord and behold the red sauce that had been missing appeared in a plastic little sauce cup. Still the sauce was definitely not even close to the taste of genuine patatas bravas sauce. The steak had been staring and waiting for me …. oh, that poor steak, was completely inedible. The appalling taste still haunts me. The lingering taste of sharp beef was just too much to bear. Not even lathering it in chimichurri sauce could fix it. I gave up. I enjoyed the eggs, but honestly I could have just stayed home and make my own. My overall dissatisfaction came from the lack of trying. They didn’t even try. Total...

I believe in fairness. To be fair, I emailed the restaurant three times and sent message via its website. No response after about one month. We were a party of 4; ordered a board, ‘tapas,’ sangria, & dessert. If you like bland food, pseudo sangria, skinny churros that looked like skinny onion rings, and want to pay about $25 per person, this is your place. We took guests here for a bite; we left disappointed. All four of us have been to Spain & other countries with Spanish influenced cuisine, we didn’t get much sense of that here; especially disappointing was the so-called bacalao. Three of us grew up eating it and KNOW bacalao; this wasn’t close. And the tortilla española??? I cannot eat powered eggs; this tasted like undercooked powered eggs. What happened to the potatoes??? Speaking of potatoes, they were not quite bravas, more like ‘les falto sabor.’ I could go on & on… While we were there on Sunday, only one other couple appeared… clearly, the kitchen wasn’t rushed. Oh, the sangria? We got glasses with itty bitty pieces of fruit & the wine poured into them, nothing like not marinating the fruit. We left, went elsewhere for a real dessert & coffee.

Between not responding and the awful food, needless to say, we will not return.

Again, in fairness & giving them the benefit of the doubt, IF the email address is incorrect and/o the message link on the website is not correct, then that’s on the business. Do better.

If you feel compelled to blast me, please remember I tried FOUR times to let you know privately what our experience was like; at the end of the day, we felt embarrassed that we took our...

We dropped in Saturday night…a hot night. Entire restaurant is open (garage doors roll up, etc).

Red wine is kept room temperature, in this case that was above 90f. Negatively impacts flavor.

Pineapple cooler was surprising - not sweet, refreshing and good.

Glasses were all plastic.

The napkin my husband received was a bathroom towel. Seriously.

Patatas bravas was good…the mayonnaise sauce is off-putting to the many who don’t like mayonnaise.

The deviled egg was just bland and sad. Pretty, but not good.

Our meat and cheese plate was incorrect…the bartender was very quick to fix the order. Overall, we didn’t think the meats were high quality - flavor and texture were not great. Cheeses were ok, but they really needed more and better accoutrements to bring out flavor, because the meat didn’t do it. The gherkins, pepper jelly were ok but covered flavor instead of enhanced. The nuts were actually very good. The bread was good.

The table next to us ordered paella…seemed 1/4 of the table was left without paella and 1/4 received the wrong order….I think it was finally sorted but it came off as a comedy show.

Had a server try to serve us another table’s dish….

It’s difficult to quantify exactly what was wrong with the restaurant but I suspect it’s called “doing it on the cheap” accompanied by lack of attention to detail. Lack of coolers for wine, bathroom paper towels as napkins, decor a little minimal and lack of atmosphere, chairs and tables and counters look and feel wrong. Felt a little understaffed but understaffed seems to be the new norm.

We...