Patria is a Spanish tapas restaurant on King West. The space is beautiful - contemporary yet warm with medium wood, embroidered wall decor, and grand modern light fixture. Great place for group dinner to share many tapas, albeit small portions and big price tag.
Patatas Bravas - served with a beautiful sunny side up egg on top before the server mixed it all together. Crispy cubed potatoes, soft inside, in spicy tomato sauce. Sort of tastes and looks like Chinese radish cake. Prefer the version I had in Barcelona which was wedges topped with mayo and chili oil.
Octopus - from the special menu. Large pieces, good firm texture, on top of a slice of potato in a paprika oil sauce.
Salad - butter lettuce, avocado, goat cheese, quince dressing, marcona almonds
This was pretty good! Very light and refreshing, slightly sweet dressing.
Pimientos De Padrón - blistered peppers + sea salt
Standard tapas.. some peppers are spicy, some are not
Prawns in parsley + olive oil - from the special menu. Large pieces and great simple sauce.
Ham Croquettes + aioli - batter is good and crispy. Inside is mushy (flour and milk mixture) with tiny bits of ham (jamon).
Paella Patria - langoustine, shrimp, mussels, cuttlefish, monkfish, snap peas, saffron
Between five people, we only each got a small portion so I didn't get to try all the seafood. The cuttlefish and langoustine that I did have were a good size and texture. Mussels are tiny! Rice is not too wet nor salty and pairs well with the snap peas.
Iberico Pork Flank + Piquillo Pepper Jam - thinly sliced, the texture is similar to pork neck in Cantonese cooking. I like the sweet pepper jam - a good pairing.
Dessert was a very pleasant surprise and perhaps best of the night. Very detailed and refined taste and presentation!
Fried Milk + Saffron Ice Cream + Honey - my sister loves HK style fried milk so we ordered this. (Again it resembles a Cantonese dish - fried tofu/radish cake) The batter is a bit hard, but inside is a good milk flavor. I love the icecream - so incredibly smooth with strong vanilla/sweet flavor. Because of the saffron, my mum and sis said it tastes like the paella.. but I couldn't taste the saffron :(
Dulce de Leche Mousse + Creme Fraiche + Chocolate - normally don't like mousse, but the dulce de leche was great, not too overpowering. The creme fraiche was a bit sour and tasted like Greek yogurt.
Price: Total bill came to $200+ for 5 people (including wine). Quite the splurge!
Service: Generally friendly, but felt the server was too pushy, always asking if we want to order more food and alcohol.
Taste-wise, I wouldn't say it's that *wow* (especially having La Carnita a few days before). This type of cuisine is not as fine as others, but dining is also about the whole experience, including atmosphere/ambiance. Overall, I would give it 8/10.