Here goes a warning for all my foodie readers (and fellow bloggers, you know who you are!).

AVOID Spanish tapas restaurant Viña in Paddington st, W1 (near Marylebone High St, location here). I just came from lunch there, and it’s been awful. I saw the restaurant getting ready to launch a couple of months ago, and I decided to give it a try today.

Item by item:

• The bad: The tortilla was tasteless and came with tomato sauce (why!?), patatas bravas were moist and not krisp, chicken croquetas were extremely heavy.
• The more or less: Chorizo with red wine and the breaded squid were ok, but nothing out of the ordinary.
• The missing: The bread we ordered never made it to the table. The service was quite slow, in general.
• The ultimate sin: The “diverse” mar & montaña included both jamón, chesee, olives and boquerones (anchovies in vinegar). Guess what, everything came in the same big plate, and the boquerones were on top of everything, driping vinegar like there is no tomorrow. The outcome: The cheese, the olives and the jamón tasted all like vinegar. It was horrible! (The Jamón could have been prosciutto, but due to the vinegar… I couldn’t tell!)

Final outcome: Arriving at 1h30pm, two starving spaniards (yours truly and Ms. R) with a good appetite for Spanish food (and a first hand understanding of the limitations in cooking abroad) couldn’t finish a single tapa (all horrible), left in less than one hour, and directly complained to the manager that the food did not deserve to be called Spanish.

My note: Avoid restaurant Viña, that is not Spanish food, and spend your time somewhere else.

PS:  I know this was a little bit of a rant, but I needed to get it off my chest. Now, if only I could get it off my stomach…