Carmen, carmen, carmen!
This newly opened Spanish restaurant on Queen W had set some high expectations for, as I had heard nothing but amazing things, and Carmen definitely met those expectations!
My party and I tried a large arrange of the tapas, as well as a couple of the desserts & paellas.
The standouts for me were:
-Fried Artichokes with salt & aioli. Mmmm. Incredibly delicious. Fried yet still not too greasy like many fried foods can be.
-Jicama con Aguacate: bite sized jicama shells filled with creamy avocado. Little bites of avocadoey heaven.
-Paella de Montana: rabbit, escargot, artichokes, & tempranillo. The rabbit was cooked to PERFECTION - asbolutely amazing. The rice in the paella had those nice & crispy delicious bits like you can find in a really good paella. The flavours in the paella all worked so well together. A++
The Carmen Paella with shrimps, clams, mussels, scallops, chorizo, chicken & saffron, was good, but fell a little flat for me in comparison to the Paella de Montana. I think it may not have been cooked long enough as it was more runny than the other Paella we had.
I'd say the Paella de Montana and tapas were on a different level than the desserts & way outshined them. We had the creme caramel, which was okay, but nothing special, and the Amole (sugar and milk infused with saffron, with pine nuts and an almond-pecan biscuit) which was yummy, but again, not on the same level as the rest of our meal.
This place is pretty loud, so if you want to sit and have a conversation with a group of friends during peak hours, be prepared, you'll be shouting a bit.
All in all, we had a GREAT experience here. I want to come back to try all of the delicious tapas. Om nom nom.