Esperpento

Tapas are always a great food. And Esperpento's tapas were so-so on the tapas scale (the top being the tapas place in Santa Cruz that closed down, with the tapas place in DC in Chinatown coming in second). A lot of the reviews on yelp consist of yay for good food and nay for service. Tonight for Sarah's birthday dinner, we had the best waitress ever. She was wonderful and I was more then happy to pay to automatic included tip for out group. The food, like I mentioned, was so-so. I heard a lot of good things about the patatas bravas and the garlic shrimp. Maybe I'm just really not used to the salt content in restaurant food beacuse everything was a bit more salty then I liked. And I was a bit disappointed in the patatas bravas - they were almost a spicy bland. The paella was excellent (though to spicy) - the rice was the perfect consistency. One other large draw back is the restaurant is uber-loud. This is not a place for a first date or a group larger then four people.