Aoli Bodega Espanola Review

Ok, Aoli. I decided to go there because I wanted to try somewhere new. I was racking my brain about where to eat friday night and I am so sick of everywhere in downtown Sac that I can't stand it! Our party of four ladies was able to get a table right away without a res at about 7:30 on a friday night. This place isn't as busy as other not-as-good places, like the craptastic Zocalo or Black Pearl Oyster bar. We couldn't get onto the tiny patio, but I hear it's beautiful so next time I will go I will try to make a reservation to sit out there. The waiter was brusque, as I find many Spaniards to be (sorry for the generalization) so I started getting stressed out. He turned out to be nice, though.

We ordered the cheapest bottle of wine, a 26$ bottle of Dom Minho, a tasty Portuguese wine. They bring a tiny basket of bread to your table and a garlicky white bean dip. We all started with salads. The salads here are really big and you could definitely get by with a salad and a tapa and a glass of wine without spending a ton. I got the endive salad. It was supposed to have a Spanish cheese but Brew and I were pretty sure they substituted blue cheese on the sly, which was disappointing. It was delicious, though, and I'd order it again. After the salads we each ordered a tapa. I got the assortment of Spanish meats and cheeses (good, not too exciting, a smaller assortment than Tapa's gives you, but the stuff at Aoli has a better flavor). We got a seared skirt steak (so-so, a bit tough), some grilled veggies (delicious and very spicy somehow) and stuffed calamari (the only off-note of the dinner, it was very fishy. The busser didn't know what it was filled with but I'm hoping that anchovies were in there because otherwise I don't know how calamari could be that fishy). We saw flan at the next table and it was so good we split one. Excellent flan. All in all, a pleasant and delicious meal, without the airport runway-style noise level at Tapa's.