Topless

Well, that's what it sounded like they were saying. It's a new TAPAS bar in Mill Creek (just west across the street from Central Market). "Hi, Welcome to Tablas Woodstone Taverna. We serve tapas."

There just aren't enough great restaurants between my office and our house -- you know, just dash in for a fairly quick, not too expensive, casual, GOOD meal. We've tried Emory's three times recently, and I want to love them. (They rebuilt after an arsonist burned down their place on Silver Lake.) I "get" what they are trying to do inside -- offer a bar-type party atmosphere -- but if you want to go for dinner, and there are more than ONE of you at the table, you will not be able to hear the other person talking. It is SO loud in there. The second time we went, we actually asked to move our table (and ended up behind a wall in the back). The third time, I just asked to sit back there. The food is ok (changed up from the first time), though I think it was better before. Management has said they are looking at ways to work on the acoustics to tone down the volume. They need to. The poor, elderly people were all congregating in the back room with us.

Anyway, back to the topless place. I actually Yelped "Mill Creek Restaurants" and Tablas came up. The reviews sounded pretty good, so we stopped in. It wasn't very busy on a weeknight, but actually, by the time we were getting around to leaving, it was pretty full.

They call themselves "A Tapas Restaurant: Mediterranean Cuisine with the Flavor of Spain."

The menu choices are varied. The idea is you choose three or four or five small plates to share around the table. They also have some pre-done "platters" (if you can't decide what you want). We decided to order the "turf" platter.

 

Salad in upper left, a couple of lamb and pork skewers, a pile of rosemary roasted potatoes, some kind of chicken mixture in the upper right bowl (to roll in the lettuce leaves), empanadas (lower right), bacon wrapped dates (to left of empanadas), and little spicy sausages in bottom left bowl. Everything was pretty tasty; my least fave were the spicy sausages. I probably wouldn't order those again. 

Their desserts are also "small bites."  There are 8 or 10 to choose from and they are $3.00 each. Unfortunately, my camera burped when I took THAT photo. We had the lava cake and the espresso mousse, and both were tasty.

We will definitely try it again, but this time we will order individual "small bites" instead of a platter to try a bigger variety of items.