Camino, City of London

Camino Monumento 15 Mincing Lane, London EC3R 7BD Tel - 02035893954 Cuisine - Spanish Tapas Twitter - @caminomonumento Web - www.camino.uk.com/monument E - managers.mon@camino.uk.com The latest edition to the City of London restaurant scene is brought to us by Camino Monumento, their third coming following successful openings in Kings Cross and Canary Wharf. Camino offers a slightly different twist to its rivals in the City by offering larger plates along with the usual smaller tapas, with Steaks, Mix Grills and Suckling Pig available (allow 48hrs notice) it does try hard to remove itself from your standard Tapas eatery. Unfortunately the meal started disappointingly when I found there to be no Albondigas on the menu! My favourite Tapas dish was missing, my disappointment slowly disappeared after dish after dish turned up and delivered. The Boniato (sweet potato's) with ginger, fennel and yogurt was flavoursome, try also the grilled asparagus with romesco sauce a refreshing clean plate which complements the excellent chorizo sausage, cooked really well, soft and spicy the chorizo was very impressive. Croquetas De Jamon were also very tasty, the serrano ham in a potato croquette was not enough ham for us as we had two further portions of serrano ham. With arguably the best Pimientos de Padron (sea salted green peppers) I have had the meal was really making my mouth water. As the meal was impressive we decided to order two more dishes, unfortunately the Prawns (Gambas Al Ajillo) were over cooked and lacked flavour, seems the garlic and chilli were involved but they were far outweighed with the oil whilst the Pinchito de Pollo were very small and we needed two of those alone as one is not enough to share. We were fairly rushed towards the end due to a fire drill which may explain the lack of care taken with the prawn dish but the staff were pleasant and allowed us to take our time and go with our pace throughout the beginning and middle of the meal. With eight beers and service you are looking at £95 so typical City prices for Tapas. I think it is up there with its main City rivals i.e. Ortega's and Barcelona's but perhaps maybe not better value. Gastro Greglarr rating: 6/10 Gastro Greglarr likes: the food was of a good standard but independent Tapas restaurants still represent your best bet for delivering a higher class of food and value Gastro Greglarr dislikes: Gambas Al Ajillo, should be renamed Gambas served with to much Oillio