I was really excited as soon as I set foot in Minotaure — it was small, intimate, colorful, and there were two flamenco guitarists playing in the corner of the restaurant! Totally cute, sophisticated, and really unexpected considering the rest of the area is a little ghetto. And to top it off, the waitress introduced herself and gave me a hug when I walked in (she knew the friend I was dining with, who is a regular). Later, one of the owners herself stopped by, introduced herself, and thanked us for eating there. I just thought it was the friendliest place on earth.
So Minotaure is a tapas and wine bar, so we started with the wine. I don’t know much about wine, but the wine I got was good, so I was happy about it. The tapas menu looked inviting… but here’s where my restaurant experience went downhill.
I had already eaten dinner, so we only ordered 2 plates of tapas. One was a rack of lamb tapa plate – with 4 pieces of lamb – and it was $16. The other was tuna roja – basically 4 pieces of tuna on a bed of salad – for $14. I have to say, I was really disappointed in the food. Not only was it expensive, it just wasn’t really that good. The lamb was chewy and too rare for my tastes, and the ahi was bland. The desserts looked like they might save the day, but we filled ourselves up on the bread and garlic butter (now that garlic butter was AWESOME. it earns a star for this restaurant all by itself!).
Despite the food being not so great and way too expensive, I did really like the restaurant staff. There was a point where someone came over and sat down to “talk to” my friend and I, and I could see the waitress watching him like a hawk to make sure we were ok. When it became apparent that he wasn’t planning on leaving any time soon, she let us sneak out the back door of the restaurant.
5* for service, but only 1* for the food. Sorry.
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