PHUKET: With its lively shiny green and orange colour scheme, Sangria’s Tapas Bar & Restaurant is certainly not the type of place to go to drown your sorrows. There’s a sure magnetic draw to the good and cozy glow spilling from the large windows and a definite festive air in regards to the place.
At the core of Sangria’s is owner and head chef Aimee Grainge. Aimee takes satisfaction in her business and floats round greeting and chatting to clients and simply generally making everyone really feel warm and welcome.
The menu at Sangria’s isn’t large just like the encyclopedic variations discovered at some restaurants across the island. The tapas menu has a couple dozen offerings – simply enough to fulfill most tastes.
Why not begin with the classics? There is a Spanish olive medley with artichoke hearts and mushrooms that will get you in the right mindset and bruschetta with unusually fresh-tasting minced tomatoes drizzled with a candy balsamic reduction. Other diversions from the traditional bruschetta recipe similar to black olive bruschetta and a smoked salmon pate bruschetta can be found for the more adventurous.
Although not on the set menu but, one of several specials for the week was a seafood paella. “It took us a month of looking simply to seek out the best rice,” stated Aimee. Indeed, it was price it. There is a sure texture to paella that cannot be substituted, and its delicate saffron and curry flavors discovered their approach to appreciative taste buds, selling out on some days.
The chili garlic prawns (shrimp gambas) are served swimming in a delectable ocean of garlicky white wine butter sauce. No doubt, it’s a wealthy dish, but the chunks of deep pink, yet gentle chilies seem to one means or the other maintain the buttery goodness from overwhelming the palate. For tapas dishes, the gambas and a variety of other others, are available fairly massive portions – in all probability in a place to satisfy less ravenous appetites single-handedly.
Another classic is the battered and deep-fried paprika calamari. Pay zero cooked to the ideal texture with a hint of lemon and delicate peppery paprika.
“One factor we needed to do was to maintain issues easy. We didn’t need complicated dishes that take a long time to make, so prospects can be served rapidly,” defined Aimee.
For Free who fancy some red meat with their meal, the chili tomato meatballs are one such simple dishes that make an excellent alternative. The first bite reveals that the lean beef is good quality and then there could be the rich and flavorful spicy chili sauce – not for the faint of heart or weak of tastebuds – with a delightful zing and smoky, virtually slightly bitter chipotle taste. This hearty dish ranked as one of many highlights of the night.
Of course, it should be talked about that the restaurant’s namesake, sangria, simply might be the menu merchandise that keeps patrons of their seats all evening. Available by the glass or by the “jug”, the fruit infused concoction is made with a signature twist – a stick of cinnamon – which appears to make all of the distinction.
Sangria’s has a specials board that rotates weekly which is able to assist information the path of the evolving menu as nicely as a number of specialty salads, ciabatta sandwiches and jacket potatoes.
Although Sangria’s, which has solely been open a short while, has a spectrum of sumptuous selections on the menu, the meals is just part of the equation.
“What we try to create is more than a restaurant, we are attempting to create an experience; a spot where reminiscences are made,” said Aimee.
The restaurant, positioned in the Fishermen’s Way purchasing heart on Wiset Road in Rawai, with its vibrant colors, upbeat music, out of doors couches and after-dinner shisha, is an sudden Spanish oasis in the land of smiles..