Not terrible, but not great either.

I am increasingly becoming frustrated by the sheer lack of places to eat when on a budget. As I am a student on a tight budget, I need to choose where I eat, and how often I eat out, very carefully.Last week I came here with a friend of mine on a Saturday evening; she was staying for the week-end and I didn't feel like cooking, so we decided to venture out for dinner, but close to home. We settled on La Bota as it was close by and had received decent reviews on another restaurant review site (obviously, nowhere near as good as TP). It wasn't too busy for a Saturday night and we were greeted and seated right away. Initially we were excited as the food on the other tables looked really quite appetizing, so we ordered a handful of tapas dishes and a bottle of the house Rioja. The food was fine. Edible. Average. But mediocre. Maybe I am being harsh, but it seems that in London it is very difficult to be very, very pleased with a meal on the cheaper side. A run down of the dishes: the chorizo in red wine was pretty damn good, but it is near-impossible to screw up. Marinated artichoke hearts - the ones that I buy from Tesco, stored in oil, are better. I think they had either opened up a can, drained them out poorly, and liberally sprinkled them with olive oil - or else pulled them out of a jar and added water to the plate. Either way, it was rather bizarre to be presented with a plate of cut-up artichoke hearts, lying, rather sadly, in a pool of water. The mussels, on the other hand, were nice. They were fresh and plump, but I think that they had been steamed in some sort of chicken broth - strange, but the achieved effect was tasty. The pimiento relleno was tasty, but it had been sprinkled with that horrible canned cheese... you know the stuff that comes in a shaker and costs perhaps 50p at the grocery store? No thank you. The patatas bravas were good, but again, they are hard to ruin. And the bread was tiger bread - courtesy of the local Sainsburys or the like. While I like tiger bread and will buy it for my own consumption at home, I think it would have been nicer if the restaurant had gone to an effort to source a decent local bakery. Good bread almost sets the tone for a meal and is a mainstay...So frustration it is. We left full, and the bill was not expensive - but I just don't like my personal inability to find a restaurant where I leave exceptionally pleased, taking into consideration both the final price and the quality of the food, on a budget.

A User - 12/02/2008 | report this review