When you are with a crowed who loves to share all the dishes, then you might just want to find a good Tapas restaurant. They are made to share smaller portion dished, making it easier to taste many different types of food, and of course, make the dinner time more fun!

In Worcester, MA, I found this awesome Tapas place with attractive menu, so we decided to check them out.  They feature over 40 different tapas, a selection of imported meats and cheeses, signature paella dishes as well as other house specialties. Sounds good to me. It was located at kind of a corner lot (it was curved at the end of street), looked like a nice size from outside. The exterior was sleek and clean, nice and modern.

The inside had nice brick wall on the left side, which I always like. With dark wood floor and sleek and modern furniture, carrying on the same ambiance from the exterior design. The entry area was nice and bright with the natural lights coming in from the windows, and had several seating and a bar.  At the end of the bar, there is a few staircase to go to the other dining areas to the back, and to the right.

We were first taken to the dining to the right of the staircase, which had more modern furniture, minimal decorations, simple but yet classy. This dining area goes all the way to the front of the building, so it also had nice natural lights coming in from the windows.

This area had its own bar at the back of the room. The bar was lit with yellow under the counter, they seem to use vivid colors contrasting clean, white colors in this area.

Even thought this dining area looked really nice, we were looking for more “comfortable” seating, possibly a booth. So, with that request, the hostess took us to another dining area, which is at the back of the building. This is the area located at the back from the main dining area by the entrance. This area had nice brick wall that continued from the front entrance, and also had lighting with reddish hue. We got to sit at one of the nice big booth, and it even came with a great waiter.

As it was our first time dining there, we had some questions and our waiter, Brian, was very good at explaining everything, and also gave really great recommendation, from drinks to dishes and portions. And on top of that, he was very personable, friendly, and patient with us. Service is such an important part of the dining experience, and they certainly got this part down.

We started off with some drinks. They have great selections of Sangria, different kinds and different flavors. We of course ordered a House Special Blend Sangria for the tanble ($25/carafe). It is a wine punch, hand crafted in house, and features a fruit driven Spanish red wine, brandy, honey, triple sec and fresh citrus fruits. It was so tasty and rich, full of flavor. It was sweet, more so than regular Sangria I have tasted in the past, but I still like it a lot. We also order a glass of white Sangria, since not everyone loves red wine. We went with Strawberry Sangria which is a homemade White Sangria with Strawberry Liqueur ($8/glass). It was also sweet and tasty, maybe a bit too sweet for some, but if you are not into sweet drinks, you might not be a fan. It seems like all of their Sangria have sweet flavors, which is good for some, but not so great for those who don’t like sweet, fruity drinks. For those people, they do have many other selections of wines, so I am sure you can find something you like from the drink menu. For me, I really enjoyed the sweet Sangria!

 

As for main dishes, we decided to order “The Bocado Experience” which is like a tasting menu of tapas and other dishes they offer. You get to choose meats & cheeses, tapas plates, a large plate entrée or paella and dessert. The menu is for 2 people, 4 people, or 6 (or more) people.  We were a group of 4, but if ordered this course set for 4 people, it comes with large paella (which I heard is really big). So, we decided to order the course menu for 2 people portion, and add couple of small plates, so that we won’t have way too much food.

With The Boado Experience for 2 people ($75), you get to choose 2 of Charcuterua & Queso (meat & cheese), 4 Tapas, Small Paella, and Postres (dessert).  For meat & cheese, we went with Brian’s recommendations, Pato ahumado which is house-smoked duck breast with balsamic syrup, and Queso  de Cabra Con Miel, which is fried goat cheese with honey. They came on a wooden board with nice big loaf of bread, roasted almonds, pepper, and a hard jelly-like pate, which I forgot what it was exactly… The duck breast was tender but it needed more flavor. Maybe it just needed a bit more of that syrup. On the other hand, fried goat cheese was very flavorful. It was lightly fried, crunchy on the outside and gooey yummy cheese in the inside. It was awesome! All the extra sides such as almonds added extra texture and flavor, it was really great to have them on top of nice, soft, moist bread.

 

As for our 4 tapas, we went with Sweet Potato Wedges, Oven-Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Hamburguesas de Wagyu, Albóndigas de Cerdo. Our waiter told us that the sweet potato wedges, which comes with lamb and currant ragout, goat cheese, port & honey aigre doux, are more like “lamb with some wedges.” And he was completely right. The sweet potato wedges were covered with great amount of delicious lamb! The sweet potatoes were nice and soft without being too soft, the lamb had great flavor, and goat cheese added that extra flavor that complimented both. And, it was a nice big portion for tapas, I thought it would be mush smaller. We all got to have a pretty good amount of it.

 

Brussels Sprouts were really nice also, comes with crispy pork belly lardons, piquillo crema, bacon allioli, bread crumbs. The pork added that really nice, savory flavor, and Brussels sprouts were cooked just right. Some were charred and crunchy, and some were moist and soft, all mixed together in nice harmony with pork lardons. This was also a nice portion, I started to see this place really do give out good amount of food for each tapas dish.

Hamburguesas de Wagyu were twin mini Kobe-style beef burgers, wit basil Dijon mayo, lettuce, tomato, and Spanish onion. It was a nice size burger, smaller than a normal burger but larger than a slider. The patty was juicy and tasty but nothing really special. It was not the best Wagyu burger I’ve ever had.

Albóndigas de Cerdo were the pork meatballs with red wine, figs and bleu cheese. They were tasty, soft, and moist. The sauce really made this dish, the fig and bleu cheese flavor went really great with the red wine, and hugging the meatballs entirely, so that you get to taste the sauce with every bite.

We also ordered 2 extra small plates, Calamares Con Ajo ($8) and Gambas al Ajillo ($7.5).  Calamares are fried calamari with garlic, lemon, parsley and orange horseradish crema. They were lightly fried, nice seasoning, and I liked the dipping sauce that had a nice little kick to it. Gambas are sautéed shrimp with garlic, parsley and olive oil. This one was more like the normal tapas size, a bit smaller portion. But as you can see, they still have plenty of shrimps to go around 4 people. The shrimps were nice and plump, had good garlic flavor to it.

At this point, every single items we ordered were pretty great, we enjoyed them all. But, I was most excited about their signature paella. They actually have 4 kinds of paella, which are basically meat & seafood, vegetarian, meat, and seafood. Even though I wanted to try them all, we finally went with Paella de Mariscos. To me, I have always associated paella with all sorts of seafood. I love seafood, so that also played a big part… Their seafood paella comes with shrimp, calamari, scallops, white fish, mussels, clams, basil, tomatoes and peas. When it was brought to our table, we were surprised of the size, even though this is the “small” paella, it was pretty large portion! We were of course happy, but already a bit full, we were thinking “we will be taking this home with us!” We of course had some taste, and it had nice spiciness to it, which I was not expecting. It was super flavorful, generous amont of seafood, all cooked just right. It was just simply delicious! Some parts of the pan cooked rice to get charred and crispy, which was also nice, I enjoyed every bite. And yes, we took about the half of it home. We enjoyed them all over again the next day.

And when we thought it was all over, our waiter reminded us that it also comes with dessert, which is Churros y Chocolate. At this point, we were really full, but then again, you will always have a small room left for desserts…or at least I do. Nicely fried churros came to our table, but it was unfortunately not great. It didn’t really have much flavor, and what’s worse, chocolate was watery. So, instead of getting the chocolate to coat the churros, it just got a little bit of chocolate on it, as it just dripped right off like a water. I was disappointed, as all the other dishes were great, they sure can get the desserts right. Maybe it was their off day…

Overall, we had great time, we enjoyed the “Bocado Experience” a whole lot, minus the desserts. It would have been great if we get to choose the desserts, instead of it being pre-selected. But, the tapas dishes were really nice, we liked/loved them all, and the service was really great. Thanks to our knowledgeable waiter, Brian, he made our dinner experience easier and of course, more fun. I would love to go back there for more tapas and maybe a different kind of paella!

 

Bocadod Tapas Wine Bar – 82 Winter Street, Worcester, MA 01604