I went here for a birthday celebration, and I was pretty underwhelmed by the whole experience. The service was extremely slow despite having a reservation. There were several large parties at the restaurant and they seemed to be sucking the wait and cook staff away from attending to us. It took at least 10 minutes for someone to take a drink order, although the support staff filled our water very regularly and were easily the most attentive staff there.
Beyond the service, the Spanish tapas were disappointingly mediocre. Having lived in Spain previously, I was really hoping to find a high quality tapas restaurant in Charlotte and thought the food was very average and definitely overpriced. The pimientos rellenos were the only truly outstanding dish out of the twelve we tried. The classic tapas like croquetas and patatas bravas were fine but nothing great. DO NOT order the espinaca catalana - very disappointing.
I will say that my group of six each ordered two tapas and had plenty of food to go around. I enjoy the sharing style and it worked well at Malabar. We were all quite full at the end, I just did not feel like the quality matched the price here.