La Tasca's Very Important Blogger Event

A few weeks ago. I very excitingly got invited to my first ever blogger event to celebrate the relaunch of the La Tasca brand in Leeds with a redesigned restaurent and menu. Well, it was pretty exciting for me anyway :) So I put on my gladrags - another ASOS sale bargain! - and off I went.

Dress: ASOS

Belt: H&M

Tights: Primark

Shoes: 'borrowed' (thanks mum)

When I arrived I was promptly given a name sticker and a glass of sangria, which was a very welcome greeting :) I'm not a huge red wine fan, but the sangria was lovely - absolutely freezing because of all the ice they put in it (not the best on a chilly autumn night), but very yummy all the same. It was great to meet other bloggers from Leeds, everyone else there was primarily a food blogger - unlike me - and they all seemed to know each other, but everyone was very friendly.

Soon after I arrived the event properly got started with a sangria making lesson. We were shown how to make the house sangria recipe, which we were all tucking into merrily, and a fancier Cava (rather than red wine) based version. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to try that one, but it looked delicious! Then a couple of bloggers got the chance to try their hand at making them themselves

Tom from La Tasca, Lolo and Eleanor 

Next was a Jamon iberico ham carving lesson, which, for obvious reasons I abstained from getting involved with, but by all accounts, was some pretty fantastic pork. When I ate meat the charcuterie at La Tasca was always very tasty, so I'm sure it was delicious, if you like that sort of thing.

Then we moved downstairs for more sangria and olives, before the dishes started to arrive. Obviously most of the dishes were meaty or fishy, but as you can see from my dinner plate, I still had quite a few options, and everyone was very nice about passing me the vegetarian dishes first to make sure I had enough. Declan, the general manager, very kindly even offered to get something made up especially for me!

The menu has definitely stepped up a gear compared to previous visits. Much fancier dishes, with some interesting ingredient combinations - there's definitely a marked improvement in quality.

On my plate: Patatas Bravas, A Festival of Mushrooms, Mixed Bean w/ Orange & Mint Salad, Almond w/ Tetilla Cheese & Apple Salad, and my personal favourite, Montadito de Queso - ciabatta topped with goat's cheese, walnuts and grapes. Hardly an original combination, but still super tasty. The mushrooms were good too, and the apple salad - although it lacked a little substance (I suggested they include a grain or a bean with it).

At the end of the meal they provided us with some sample dishes for us to photograph, which I thought was a great idea, because I'd not managed to take many pictures whilst busy tucking in and chatting to everyone.

Pictured: Patatas Bravas, Goat's Cheese & Tomato Salad and Pescado Blanco Frito (San Miguel battered white fish with a paprika & garlic mayonnaise) - which sounds delicious, if only it were cheese or a vegetable inside!

As I said, it's not just the menu that's been changed, but the whole interior of design of the restaurent. It was very dimly lit whilst we were there, which was cosy, but much too dark for good photographs, but these photo's from their website show. We had the downstairs (first picture) all to ourselves, but I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy being on one of the smaller tables with a large party in the middle of the room. That said, I'm not sure how often I'd be going there as a smaller party - as enjoyable as the evening was, I think it still remains better for larger parties - because the variety of food and the sharing aspects of the evening made for a very sociable dinner.

All pictures are mine except the bottom two (source)

I'd definitely consider it if I had a large group of people with mixed tastes looking for somewhere to eat in Leeds though. A big thank you to La Tasca Leeds for all the sangria and to Manifest Communications who hosted the event and invited me along, I had a very fun evening :)