Sangria

88 Upper Street, islington, London N1. Tel: 020 7704 5253

I love tapas. I love flying to Barcelona and eating tapas. I love all the different bite sized delights: fish, shellfish, meat and stews, fantastic.

I hate UK tapas. I hate the small portions and high prices.

I love Sangria. It has restored my faith in trying tapas in the UK. Although it was Valentines day when me and some members of staff were in London for a show and ventured in for dinner, I think it would have been just as busy.

After previous experiences of places like La Tasca I decided to order 3 dishes and I still asked if it would be enough. I went for mussels (mejillones tigre - two large mussels breadcrumbed and stuffed with mince squid and pepper), pork with roquefort (lomito con roquefort) and a tuna salad. Just having the tuna salad would probably have been enough!

The tuna salad was in a large bowl with sweet tomatoes and peppers. Normally those items are just tasteless and watery elsewhere. There was also pickled artichokes and white asparagus, which I don't get as they really are bland and watery.

Someone ordered a plate of white bait that still had a quarter left even after I had a few.

This truly is a taste of Spain.

We decided to go for desserts even though we were stuff. We ordered 3 tiramisu but they only had one left. We were surprised that they gave the two replacements free of charge. Now that is service!

I would really recommend a visit.

I do wish they have half bottles of sherry on the drinks list though.