Cantina Bar & Grill

245 Oxford Street

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

Ph: 02 9357 3033

Our good friend Clayton held his birthday dinner here on a warm balmy night in October. With about 10 guests (small & intimate) we had the $50 per person set menu, which was so much food (even for me the vegetarian) so i can't imagine how stuffed everyone else was feeling.

I have never been to a Spanish restaurant that isn't loud and packed with diners, and a few rowdy tables making the place almost impossible to hear anyone from the otherside of the table talking. This adds to the ambience of the restaurant, and its hard not to have a good time :)

Food came out fairly quickly, lots of tapas dishes, starting with salads and dips, then vegetables, then meat, meat & more meat (so much meat!)

baby spinach salad

w/ roast pumpkin, goats cheese, pine nuts

& grilled peppers

I particularly liked the goats cheese as it was extremely creamy with a strong tang on the tongue. The baby spinach leaves were fresh and un-bruised, a lovely fresh salad with a generous sprinkling of pine nuts on top.

chickpea salad

w/ cucumber, grilled peppers, spanish onion,

mint & manchego cheese

The chickpea salad was VERY healthy, and packed a punch with the added onions and mint. I wasnt sure of what what sprinkled on top, but came home & checked the menu- these cheese was light and not too strong on the palate.

Manchego cheese is the most important and well known sheeps milk cheese in Spain. It is aged for 3 months or longer, semi-firm texture, and ranges from being mild to sharp depending on the time it is aged for.

dip plate

w/ white bean, chickpea, beetroot, pumpkin,

eggplant & grilled olive sourdough

With four types of dip in the bowl, i couldn't help but have sometimes 2 or even 3 dip flavours on my piece of bread. My favourite would have to be the beetroot.

panfried haloumi

w/ chargrilled marinated red pepper & lemon

This one piece was definitely not enough for me or anyone else, we all only got one to two pieces each (depending on how quick we were to grab!). The chewy texture and saltiness, and having been panfried, this little yellow piece of cheese is so enticing!

pan fried field mushrooms

w/ garlic, parsley & jerez

The mushrooms were firm and flavour was soaked right to the middle. The pieces were large and at this stage i was starting to feel full already.

dusted calamari

w/ chilli & lime mayo

chilli tiger prawns

cooked in chilli, tomato, garlic & parsley

patatas bravas

potato cubes w/ onion

chilli & tomato sauce

I've had better patatas bravas (@ El Bulli) and here, they just didn't make me feel the same way. Firstly there weas not enough sauce, and secondly, the potatoes were flavorless.

grilled spanish chorizo

w/romesco sauce

lamb & pork baked meatball

w/ garlic, paprika & tomato

paella w/

calamari, clams, prawns,

mussels, green peas & roasted peppers

The paella came out last (not the first time i've seen it come out last) and by this point everyone was really full, and only really picking the mussels out and trying the rice.

With paying $50 per person, i'd say everyone but me got their money's worth, as half of it was all meaty things. El Bulli still stands as my favourite spanish restaurant, but for Richard to have tried all the meat dishes i think he liked this restaurant very much.