Bocadillos

710 Montgomery Street @ Jackson (Financial District)

As soon as we checked out the menu of Bocadillos and saw an entire section dedicated to 'Innards', we knew that we came to the right place. After a few sangrias at the bar, we dove right into the menu. The first small dish we ordered was the sorano ham and manchego cheese platter. The sorano ham was a perfect combination of sweet and salty and the cheese was earthy and peppered with crystalized buds of cheese, giving it a great texture.

We then moved to the fois gras roll, again with sorano ham, and when these two incredible ingredients were mixed together, the result was a bit too rich and salty. The lamb chops with pear apple chutney was an excellent second course, though the limited number of chops made this dish a bad choice for sharing.

We then dove into the calamari with and the patatas bravas, both spanish tapas staples served with romesco sauce. Though we all enjoyed the dish (and love anything that's fried), the romesco sauce coupled with the fried food proved to be a bit heavy and too rich when eaten side by side.

One of our final dishes was a play on the deviled egg, chilled prawns with 'huevos diablo'. This was a refreshing way to end the meal. The shrimp was perfectly cooked and quite tender, and the combination of pimento, paprika, egg yolks and seasonings proved to be light and exemplified Spanish flavor.

Food: Four beltloops
Service: Check Plus (one of the cooks was quite taken by Michi, which got us two dishes on the house)
Ambiance: Check Plus
Price: Impress your date and not go into debt, win win.