La Tasca - Colchester

Leah (29 October 2008)

I went with a good friend of mine to La Tasca last night hoping for some good tapas. When we got there we were told that they were fully booked, and we started to walk out the door. I wish we had. They shouted after us to let us know that they had a table upstairs. It was a particularly cold evening and we were already feeling very cold. The room they put us in upstairs was absolutely freezing, and only had a tiny heater, which I don't think was even working. It was so cold we ended up putting our coats on. We ordered some wine, which took around half an hour to come, and then the food took another hour and a half. When we got it, it wasn't even hot. They had mixed up the order with a couple sitting near us and left our food in the middle of the room until they realised it was for us. When we told the waiter how long we had been waiting, he just shrugged his shoulders. At no point was there an apology, or anyone even checking that we were okay or that the food was okay. All the waiters-waitresses were generally rude and unfriendly. The food was completely overpriced for what was given; £4 for each tiny dish. I know its tapas, which is supposed to be a selection of small dishes, but this was ridiculous. The goat’s cheese salad had four slices of tomato with some goats’ cheese sprinkled on top. We were feeling so cold that even if the food was good we wouldn't have appreciated it as we were shivering so much. I don’t advise anyone to go to La Tasca in Colchester, as it was extremely disappointing and overpriced, and I will never be going again.

CH (7 June 2008)

We had a family birthday Sunday lunch there at the end of April. I had phoned earlier in the week to book paella for four. We got there at 1.30pm as reserved. It was an hour before any food appeared. There was one waitress who was completely overworked and grumpy. When the tapas arrived they were quite nice but we don't think we got everything we ordered as we were given certain substitutes because they were short of ingredients. The paella eventually appeared and what a glutinous mess it was. We left most of the rice as it was unappetising. We were hunting around for chicken and shell fish and complained to the waitress that there was hardly anything but rice in there. She said they were short of ingredients.