This Little Piggy went tapeando @ Lizarran

I was so excited a few weeks ago when Grub Street introduced a new tapas place that would be opening in Soho.  They explained that Lizarran, which maintains 200 locations worldwide,

"operates a little differently from other local tapas joints, in that waiters jet around trying to tempt you with trays of what are essentially tapas mounted on bread, each of them costing $2.50 to $2.75 (there’s a constantly rotating selection of 200 of them). You choose what you want and are billed by the toothpick — somewhat like a dim sum joint except in this case, you’re likely to be under the influence of Spanish beer and wine."

As you can imagine due to my love of all things Spanish gained from living there for 6 months, I felt the need to go here as soon as possible.  My brother and I decided to stop by after work yesterday to grab a "copa" and "tapear" (meaning to eat tapas).  As you've probably noticed from most of my blog posts, I have a difficult time saying poor things about restaurants.  I am trying to be better about that, so here it goes.

I feel there is usually at least one redeeming quality about a restaurant, which in this case, was the decor.  Other than that, however, I was not left with much of a desire to return.  The menu was way over priced, and I feel they would be much more successful allowing you to build your own meat and cheese plate than providing you with the three listed options (a cheese plate, a mixed snack plate, and a jamón serrano plate).  Furthermore, there were only three or four white wines by the glass and a comparable number of reds... none of which really jumped out at me.  I initially ordered a glass of the tried and true Albariño, but when I requested a second glass, I was informed they had run out.  I opted for a Txakolina that was recommended by the waitress, and though it was decent, it was not even on the same page as other Txacolís I have had in the past.  Additionally, their beers on tap... Coors Light and Sam Adams.  They did have Estrella Dam in bottle, though not Cruz Campo, which our waitress had never heard of.

Food wise, I was probably even less impressed.  Once seated we were told that there was a selection of cold "pintxos" in a case up front.  The waitress did a nice job of explaining to us what our options were, though unfortunately, nothing really looked appetizing. The jamon serrano sort of looked like cardboard and the chorizo was merely one slice sitting atop of a piece of bread.  I got my hopes up when I saw that pan con tomate (bread with tomato) was listed with the sides, but when it arrived at the table we didn't even finish it.  The bread was cold, untoasted and the tomato was minimal and lacked flavor entirely.  I can't even touch on the presence of dishes encompassing "molecular gastronomy", which was also mentioned in the Grub Street article.  Frankly, if you can't get bread and tomato right, I'm certainly not interested in trying anything more advanced, like a foam.  Ohh, and evidently there was a happy hour special (white and red sangria for $6, and a couple other drinks for the same), though the only reason we found out about this was when another waitress informed a neighboring table.  Another server came by and offered us some hot pintxos, but we opted to stick to wine.

I'm really hoping that since this is only their second week open, things will improve in the near future.  I would possibly even give them another try, though with the amazing meats and cheeses at Pata Negra, and the tapas at Casa Mono and Bar Jamón , it will make it a highly unlikely choice.

This Little Piggy gives Lizarran one oink.