"Overworked Deep Fat Fryer..."

A review of The Tapas Tree by Steven S written on Saturday 25th of August 2007

What a great looking place from the outside and a disappointing experience inside. If this were my first experience of Spanish food I may have been put off for life. We live in Edinburgh and have walked by this restaurant many times and thought it worth a try. First I will describe the type of food we were served. One dish described as whole open mushrooms filled with cheese sounded good, but turned up at our table to be tinned sliced mushrooms with a bit of cheese over the top then grilled...they were horrible. Another tapas dish (I forget the Spanish!) described as fried potatoes with a spicy sauce appeared to be the frozen, bought in type of potatoes you might find at the cash and carry, they were heavily deep fried, ridiculously over salted and had what can only be described as kebab chilli sauce poured over the top. Another dish was a type of bruschetta or at least that what I thought it would be similar too, it was described as freshly baked bread topped with chopped tomatoes, garlic etc and the topping was a strange, fake looking pink colour on bread from a home bread maker but it was a heavy hard bread like it had been made using cheap ingredients. We also had a special, chorizo cooked in white wine, that was quite good but then have you ever heard of a Spanish restaurant that can't cook chorizo. Another dish was chicken croquets, they were 3 over cooked balls that had been deep fat fried and did not taste of chicken, in fact they tasted of nothing but cost £6.10. The cold meat (3x4) and cheese (1x4) plate selection at £8.90 was good but then it required no cooking. The wine, we had a Tempranillo, was good and averagely priced at £16 a bottle. The owner, or at least he gave the impression he was the owner, appeared to speak harshly to the staff and that made for uncomfortable viewing. We arrived on a midweek day at 6.30pm the restaurant was not busy, after we ordered our meal another couple turned up just before our food arrived and left before theirs arrived, I wish I had that kind of foresight. In summary poor quality food, very salty and poor service. The restaurant has various posters advertising live music, traditional Spanish cooking etc appears to be well marketed by the owner but in my experience the best marketing comes from the mouths of satisfied customers. Perhaps we caught them at a bad time..

NOTE: Reviews are submitted by visitors of our site. The contents of this page are in no way representative of the entity being reviewed, The Tapas Tree, and are merely third party opinions. Edinburgh Online accepts no liability in respect of any material submitted by visitors and published by us and we are not responsible for its content and accuracy. For further details, see our Terms & Conditions.