20191206 La Taberna and The Howling Owl

"It's beginning to look alot like Christmas!!" - isn't that how the song goes? The Elephant has gotten into the spirit of things by putting up their Christmas Tree and they've put out their striped candy for the kiddie alocholics.

It was Chad's turn to choose tonight and he was really keen to take us to a new venue - a place where we've never eaten before. The excitement... the drama... the tension of it all... alas, it wasn't to be. We couldn't get a table. Ever the quick thinker, Chad pulled out Plan B for us. Why not see if La Taberna had a table? We booked for 8pm.

 Chad had gotten Richard an Alfred Hitchcock book and by the looks of the photo, Richard was already engrossed in its reading.

Today, was a warm night and we strolled across the road to the restaurant. On entering the building, the atmosphere seemed pleasant enough. A long building packed with people ready to enjoy the evening.

Now, there's a few things I want to say about my experience at La Taberna, but I'll wait until we've gone through everybody's meals first.

Chad was off the ranks with the first serving which arrived about 40 minutes after we ordered. He started off with pita bread cheese toasties, otherwise known as 'Quesadillas de Puerco & Chorizo tostadas - fancy name for toasties if you ask me. However, Chad thought they tasted lovely.

5 minutes later my first dish arrived, roast potatoes, otherwise known as Patatas Bravado - fried cubed potatoe with a sparring amount of sauce. They were tasty enough, but I had to fend off Stephen's wondering hands as he pinched a few.

My next dish was stuffed capsicum, aka, Pimento Rilleno. I was very disappointed. The capsicums weren't cooked and I couldn't eat them. The rice was plain white rice with cubes of frozen carrot and peas. It was a joke! In total, for my 2 dishes it cost me $35 and I was still hungry afterwards. I wasn't happy at all with my meal.

 Stephen was served 5 minutes later (after I had nearly finished my meal). He had ordered, Pollo Tacos. It looked a very lonely, sad taco on a plate. Stephen took approximately .045 seconds to eat it. He said the taco was practically cold.

Con had the Asada Tacos. What can I say...? Con was hungry by this stage and would have eaten the hind leg off a horse. Con also ordered Polvo (Octopus). Where is the photo you may ask? Well it arrived one hour and 15 minutes after we ordered and told them he didn't want it anymore - good on Con! 

For Chad's other dish he had ordered Almandogas Pork and Veal Meatballs. I must say it looked nice enough. Chad confirmed later that it tasted very nice.

You can imagine by now that poor Richard was getting hungry. They finally brought out a serving of chips with mexican ingredients (Loco fries) which Stephen and Richard shared. Another complaint! The chips were luke warm.

 Stephen's other dish was Franco Panado (Fried Chicken). He was very disappointed that it was just lumps of chicken - no salad, only a small dipping sauce. He invited everyone to tuck in after he decided he couldn't eat it all.

 Finally, after Con had turned back his Octopus dish, the waiter brought out Richard's Rosa's Paella (with meat and seafood). It looked more like curry and rice with lots of sauce. Richard said he'd tasted better.

Apart from Chad, who really enjoyed the experience, the rest of us were not impressed at all. When I went to pay the bill, they initially tried to charge us for Con's Octopus dish, but I politely asked them to remove it from the bill which they did without any questioning.

I didn't get the scores for this place until a week later because I was so disappointed with the food that I couldn't be bothered to comment at the time.

Scores out of 10 for this restaurant:

Chad - 5
Con - minus 1
Richard - 2
Stephen - 3
Me - 1

Need I say more?

 Where do you go after such a miserable experience? Chad wasn't sure whether to subject us to more pain, but suggested a place where we've never been for dessert. We were happy to go along with it, and eventually ended up standing outside the Elephant again, only this time we went next door to the Howling Owl.

The atmosphere inside was most pleasant - not too busy at that time of night. We slid into a booth with a retro lamp and ordered coffees.

Well, Chad managed to save the night with this place. We talked about Con taking over from Stephen in 2020 to be the 'table-flipper' but in the end we decided Con wasn't up for the job. We ended up giving him a lift back to Norwood.