foodista on pointe: Reminiscing...

For those of you who were not following this blog during the summer months, the Boston Ballet went on tour to Spain for five weeks. It was a great tour, full of theaters, planes, buses, luggage and hotel rooms. More importantly however, the trip was also filled with Sangria, tinto de verrano (summer wine) and great tapas. It's hard sometimes, to come back to reality and realise that you can't just nip down the street for some fabulous bocadillo con jampon y queso...or aceitunas in olive oil...it becomes even harder when you are aware of the fact that you live in proximity to Toro - a great tapas restaurant which happens to be among one of the busiest restaurants that doesn't take reservations.
Having been to Toro once before, I know that the tastes you will encounter at this restaurant live up to (and in some cases exceed) much of the food I experienced in Spain. This weekend, it was a good friend of mine's birthday and I figured we should go the extra mile and head back to the tastes of the summer... I also figured that if we went after our last performance on Sunday evening, we wouldn't be greeted by the usual 2 hr wait time. I was still surprised however at how busy it was; we ended up waiting about 30 minutes...but as you will see, it was well worth it.

By the time we were seated with our tinto de verrano, we had our order planned out and ready. We got the 'Datiles con Jamon', medjool dates filled with Marcona almonds and Cabrales blue cheese, wrapped in Jamon Serrano - in other words, bite sized pieces of heaven.

Maíz Asado con Alioli y Queso Cotija is also a must have at this place, it is their house special grilled corn with alioli, lime, espelette pepper and aged cheese - I failed to get a picture of this, they disappeared too quickly!

Garbanzos con Chorizo: chickpeas with chorizo, greens and hard boiled egg - delicious when soaked up with bread.

Also delicious was their 'Costilla de Bourguignon', Red wine braised beef short rib with bacon, mushrooms and pearl onions

And lastly, their 'Ensalada de Otoño' : Heirloom squash and maitake mushrooms with crispy jamon, fried brussels’ sprout leaves, pumpkin seeds and Valdeon...sublime!

Everything was delicious and just the right amount. That is the art of tapas, you can order many little plates and share them all. The tricky part about tapas restaurants is that you forget how quickly the price can rise, most dishes range from 8-12 dollars, pincho plates are cheaper and some of the heavier tapas are more costly. It is not a cheap place, but it is certainly much cheaper than a flight to Espana!