manchego: the resto, not the cheese

it seems like tapas is all the rage these days in the westside of la. first, there was bar pintxo. then, the bazaar. now, there's manchego on main in santa monica.

the space is cozy (read small) but significantly roomier than bar pintxo. i think that bar pintxo has more of an ambience because there's a jamon on the counter (which i think is always pretty to look at) and the tapas are on display in a case (reminds me of madrid).

so how does manchego's food compare? well, the only thing that i can say i tried that the resto prepared were: (1) the gazpacho; (2) the peppers with feta and pita bread (picture below); and the pureed tomato spread.



the rest were pretty much prepared elesewhere. we ordered the la mancha sampler, which included three types of cheeses (manchego, idiazabal & iberico), 2 types of jamon serrano, 2 types of chorizo, the aforementioned gazpacho, olives, and the pureed tomato.



the gazpacho had a nice garlicky kick. the pureed tomato, used as a spread, was ok - but i thought it needed more salt and olive oil. the peppers and feta just did nothing for me.

i don't know whether they cut their own jamon -- because everything came from the kitchen, which was hidden. but i distinctly remember thinking that one type of jamon serrano was just too salty, if that was even possible.

one thing i can say about manchego was that they knew how to store the cheese. they weren't stale. and normally, i would expect that of any restaurant but i recently had to turn down manchego because it was too dry.

so, if i were to rank the tapas place around, i'd rate the bazaar tops. i can't really decide on whether manchego is better than bar pintxo until i have had more of manchego's prepared food. i guess that means i will have to make another trek to santa monica.