La Salsa is spreading its wings successfully
9:40am Thursday 4th August 2011 in Eating Out
YOU know what you are getting with tapas these days, thanks to that rather well-known chain, which doesn’t sound too dissimilar to La Salsa.
It is never going to be truly authentic, but La Salsa, which has now opened its third venture in Horwich, at least promises fresh ingredients, freshly prepared.
So, how does it measure up to its sister restaurant in Bolton town centre? The good news is, there’s not much difference.
After a shaky start to its life in Horwich — there are a couple of unpleasant early customer reviews online — it looks like La Salsa is managing to repeat its winning formula.
What was genuinely surprising was the superb job it has done in revamping the former Inkaa and PuddleDuk restaurant.
It’s a big building, and La Salsa has split it into a very pleasant bar area with comfy sofas and coffee tables, and a stylish restaurant, with a hardwood floor, chunky wooden tables and chairs, intimate booths for couples, split by old refurbished oak doors, and an open kitchen.
There on a dreary Monday with an old colleague from a former life, I noted they still did brisk trade.
We must have polished off a good 15 dishes between us as we put the world to rights.
The calamares were excellent — tender squid, crispy batter. But the mussels in a spicy tomato sauce did not live up to the same standard.
Deep fried king prawns were big, fat and juicy, and the pan fried “white fish” (my guess is haddock) was good too, we ordered two more.
A curious item on the menu was the chicken fajita, or you could have beef. I always had that down as a Mexican dish. It was fine, nevertheless.
The chorizo, pan-fried in red wine, wasn’t great; oily and a touch over done.
The patatas were good, crispy, deep-fried potatoes with garlic mayo.
I dipped my toe in the vegetarian waters too, trying aubergine grilled with cheese. It sounded interesting, but was a bit of an odd, brown, albeit tasty, mush. Manchego cheese with serrano ham, grilled on toasted bread — aka cheese on toast — made a decent snack, too.
Overall, not bad. Nice, unfussy service too.
What you cannot argue with is the price. The dishes are small, but you can eat as many as you like at £11 a head.
It’s an introductory offer and it will rise to £13 soon enough, but it’s still a very reasonable night out.
With a couple of pints of San Miguel, two glasses of Rioja and a very boring vanilla ice-cream with almonds and “Spanish chocolate sauce” (quite what made it Spanish I don’t know), the bill came to £40.
La Salsa is practically a mini-chain in its own right now, and it makes a nice new addition to the restaurant scene in Horwich.
