New Restaurant: La Taperia (ex Terry's Singapore)

I love Spanish food and when I heard a new Spanish restaurant was opening in Singapore under the Les Amis group and by an established Spanish chef, I knew I was visiting this restaurant for dinner next. So on Tuesday, N and I had dinner at this beautiful place. 

Its located in the "new wing" of Shaw Centre which houses new shops and restaurants and Terry's was one of them. The decor was homely, chill, and rather romantic with the dark walls and dim lights. What's a plus point is that they have a room for smokers! A stand-up table area where they can drink and smoke. Great idea we think! 

Terry's is jointly opened by Mr Terry, a Spaniard who opened a chain of highly acclaimed Terry's in Manila and they aim to bring true authentic Spanish food to us without having to pay for airfare or accommodation!   

[Update: Mr Terry is no longer part of this partnership and the restaurant is renamed La Taperia]

We were very warmly greeted by an extremely polite staff and seated and handed menus. We knew dinner was off to a very good start! Immediately it was - service checked!

The menu is huge! Probably the only minus point cos its a little hard to hold over the table haha. Anyway for tapas they've portioned it into "regular" and "large". The former is for 2-3 people and the latter 4-6 people. So for today's review, unless otherwise stated, all portions and prices are for regular sized.

Part of the restaurant interior

Pre-dinner snacks - pitted olives!

La Elegancia Heca Sopa de Ostras

An elegant soup made of a melange of freshly shucked oysters and baby artichokes

$20 (one size)

We were deciding between this and the seafood soup w pumpkin puree however we decided on this in the end as we seemed the opinion of our waiter and he recommended this + told us this was a signature dish! We were apprehensive initially as we weren't sure what kind of soup it'll be i.e. clear soup or creamy or wtv and how does oyster soup w baby artichokes taste like?!

Am glad we ordered this because it was truly a surprise! The soup is a little like those sour Chinese soup but this only had a tinge of sourness, mostly sweet tasting, slightly thick soup which had carrots, lots of oysters and some artichoke slices! I would say its rather refreshing to start off with this and would order this again to let others try. Kudos for creativity :) 4.3/5

The soup came with this delicious grilled baguette that was super crispy and was hot, earning points in both our books and tummies. Went really well with the soup as well as a snack on its own. You can order this ala carte from the menu as well for about $4 I think?

Capricho De Santona

Piquillo pepper stuffed with tuna, bound with anchovy remoulade

$16

Whenever I see piquillo peppers, its a must order for me so this time was no different and we were both very satisfied with this dish! Firstly the peppers were very sweet and fragrant. Secondly the stuffed tuna was super smooth, not like those canned tuna, but you could tell it was tuna you were eating and it went really well with the peppers! I love the smooth texture of the tuna as well as the remoulade "capping" it along with the slight crunch of the pepper. However I couldn't taste anchovies though. That orange sauce tasted like bell peppers as well but a more concentrated taste and reminded me of gazpachos. I really like the combi of this dish and would definitely reorder! 4.5/5

Croquetas de Cochinillo Confitado

Crisp-tender suckling pig bechamel croquettes. A daring culinary concept

$16

Another creative take! However this did not work so well. The suckling pig was barely discernible as the sauce totally overpowered its taste and it was minced too finely that there was no crispy sucking pig texture at all. There were bits of I think chinese sausage (not sure haha) inside as well. It was very crispy and well fried though. 2.8/5

Champinones con jamon al Ajillo

Fresh mushroom and garlic silvers sauteed in extra olive oil with Jamon Serrano crowned with an organic egg yolk

$14

This was also recommended to us and being mushroom junkies we ordered it. However it was just an average dish I mean what could go wrong with mushrooms and gooey yolk porn? But this also means its difficult to make this dish memorable. It was definitely well executed so if you're craving for some nice earthy mushrooms with a flowing egg yolk - this will surely satisfy you. 3/5

Pulpo a Feira con pimenton De la Vera

The quintessential way of cooking octopus in Galicia

$18

The boy liked this dish! However I felt that we've had better octopus elsewhere. This was quite nicely done though! No tough chewy difficult to bite octopus. But I thought it was slightly bland. 3/5

Rabo de Toro en chilindron

The distinctive characteristics of this dish are rooted in the flavours released by slowly stewing oxtail with Jamon Serrano, fresh and sundried bell peppers, red Spanish wine reduction and grated dark chocolate

$28

Now this we ordered cos we were intrigued! The sauce described captured our attention - peppers, red wine, and dark chocolate?! I told him that this was a must order haha. And true enough the sauce was heaven. So full of flavour, so sweet from the carrots and the peppers I suppose + whatever else they added, but at the same time savoury cos of the beef. It was slightly thickened and we finished all of the sauce cos it was that good. Couldn't really taste the chocolate but we did find lots of chocolate bits on the beef itself! Dark chocolate mmmm :) The beef was fork tender and of course, was well perfumed by the sauce! 4.5/5

Paella Negra de marisco

A squid ink seafood paella inspired by the Siete Puertas restaurant in Barcelona

$32

This paella is much drier than the one we had at FOC and I guess this is where personal tastes takes over. Its like how you like your clay pot rice - wetter or drier. I like mine wetter but with charred bits, the boy likes drier. So he preferred this version of paella to that of FOC's but I liked FOC's better! This was a good rendition though I must say! Very well perfumed with squid ink, rather generous with the seafood as well and the rice was not overly cooked. There were a bit of charred bits too. So if you like drier paella, this is definitely a must order for you! 4/5

Helado de aceitunas Negras Confitadas

Black olive confit ice cream bathed in raisin cream showered with albarino syrup

$10

We ordered this because of the black olive confit ice cream however the ice cream did not taste like black olives although it had black olive bits in it as well. The raisin cream tasted faintly of raisin. The scoop of ice cream was quite big though so if you want ice cream to end your meal, this is a good choice. 3.5/5

Marquesa de Chocolate

Chocolate marquise topped with baked almond praline. Best seller at Terry's Philippines

$14

Now this I would say is best to be shared amongst 4 people or more. Because that chocolate marquise is basically chocolate ganache! One big chunk of it and honestly I was a little sick of it as it was shared between the 2 of us and we had quite a lot for dinner already. The almond praline really helped a lot and I loved the praline! Reminded us of popcorn and was really yummy :) 3.6/5

Overall - I really liked the food here except for desserts which weren't that satisfactory. And would definitely be back for Spanish food if I'm in the vicinity! Also, the service here is DAMN good haha there was this particular guy who was super professional, very friendly, polite and very smiley. I didn't manage to catch his name but kudos to you! You made a lasting impression on me and my boyfriend :) its really not easy to be so cheerful when work is long hours and its dreary but thanks for making people's day better with good service :)

La Taperia

Shaw Centre #02-10/11 (its at the "new" side of shaw centre so go to level 2 of isetan and then walk towards the toilet and the new Mango - standalone shop, then you'll find this new part of Shaw with new shops like SK II boutique, a hair salon and what not)

6737 8336

Daily Lunch 12-3pm

Sun-Thurs dinner 6.30pm-12am

Fri-Sat 6.30pm-1am

Website

They used to have their menu on the website when it was Terry's but now they've taken it off so I'm not sure if there're any changes to the menu