Tapas Time

After the fabulous time at Pura Vida, Cashew and I were excited to try more tapas. This time we headed to Iberian Pig in Decatur. The place has a great reputation, so we were very excited to see what it was all about. Well, the experience started off on a bad note when the hostess tried to seat us on a loft table in a room without any windows when we asked for a window table... We eventually sat outside. Thankfully, the rest of the staff was very friendly and polite. We even got a chance to chat with the owner for a few minutes!

But let me come back to the main point: the food. We had the Pork Cheek Tacos, Eggplant Fries, Arroz con Iberico, Pan con Tomate and Calamares. We chose those items after a long discussion with our waiter about his recommendations (the tacos) and what we wanted to try (almost everything else). We were also interested in the BBQ Octopus, but the waiter recommended against it because it supposed had a very briny taste. Now I wish we had tried it anyway. The pork cheek tacos that he suggested were good, but not amazing. I expected them to have a much fresher taste considering they had corn and lime juice. Instead, they felt kind of heavy.

One of the items on the menu we were most excited about were the eggplant fries. That seems like a really creative idea, right? On par with the avocado with chorizo chips at Pura Vida. I had very high expectations for those fries. They weren't met at all... The fries were just soggy and tasteless. There were maybe just a couple of bites when I could detect eggplant taste. Contributing to my disappointment, the fries came with aioli (i.e., mayo). When will restaurants get away from the aioli fad??? Tomato-based sauces are so much better! Even store-bought ketchup would have been better.

We ordered the rice (arroz) dish because it had the Iberian ham that the place is known for. Well, the dish was basically like a creamy Italian risotto. The ham was probably fried to get a bacon-like texture, but also lose its taste. Overall, there was nothing special in this dish.

The two dishes I kind of liked were the rustic bread and the stuffed whole calamari. Coincidentally, they both had some time of tomato sauce in them rather than creams... Get the hint, restaurants? The bread also had roasted garlic on top, so it had a very earthy flavor. It got soggy as the night went on (from the runny sauce), but I didn't mind it too much.

I saw a chef make stuffed whole calamari (well, with tentacles removed) on TV once, and I've wanted to try them since then. The ones at Iberian Pig were baked in a tomato sauce and covered with cheese. They had a slightly fishy taste, just how I like fish. So, I did like the dish, but it wasn't anything extraordinary or something I couldn't do at home.

Well, the food at Iberian Pig was by no means bad. It was all well-cooked and well-seasoned. But it wasn't anything special. I don't get what the hype is all about for this place when Pura Vida is so much better. Well, Iberian Pig is better than Pura Vida in one aspect: our check was much lower :P