Reijosfood

Restaurant Casa Largo on the ground floor of Sokos department store is a modern “Spanish” restaurant with a bar, tapas bar and restaurant as well as wine bar. Main dining room is on 1st floor opposite of Railway Station and tapas bar is on 2nd floor. You can see hotel Vaakuna reception from so called 2nd floor wine bar which is behind tapas bar. Functionalist style, which was popular during Helsinki Olympic games 1952 including Glass Palace (Lasipalatsi) being opposite the hotel Vaakuna, has been maintained. Picture below is from the hotel lobby taken from the Casa Largo wine bar.

All HOK-Elanto restaurants have Champagne offer for the whole year 2013. You can get bottle of Nicolas Feuillatte Brut for 39€, which costs the same as wines at the restaurant. Had to taste it instead of Cava although we were in the “Spanish” restaurant. BUT, it was served too warm which made the tasting useless. Pity for champagne,,,,Hopefully champagne is not wasted in other HOK-Elanto restaurants.

Started dinner with Tapas frias & calientes: TOSTADAS manchego, piquillo peppers and aioli on toast and several times POLLO AL AJILLO garlic seasoned chicken, Really delicious and well prepared dishes. Also had Tapas frias: QUESO MANCHEGO Manchego cheese and rosemary honey and CHORIZO Chorizo sausage. To be honest tapas were best part of dinner. Recommend to order 4 tapas dishes for main course and you are there. Chicken has been always delicious and seldom Manchego lets you down. TORTILLA ESPAÑOLA potato omelette was OK but original ones in Spain beat this one.

For main courses had 2 times DORADA A LA PARRILLA whole gilthead bream, grilled and stuffed with garlic butter and herbs, served with escalivada vegetables and herbs. Because Solomillo is usually good test for quality of kitchen compared to original Spanish kitchen, also ordered SOLOMILLO A LA PIMIENTA grilled fillet of beef (200g) with creamy peppersauce. Guilthead was basically ok but it was over cooked. Meat was best part of main course, really tender and soft, to be honest better than same dishes in Spain. Also ordered POLLO ASADO CON CREMA ESPINACAS corn fed chicken breast with creamy spinach and sherry sauce. Unfortunately chicken was too dry.

You have to order side dish from separate list (no additional cost); alternatives were TORTILLA ESPAÑOLA potato omelette, ARROZ rice with saffron, PATATAS BRAVAS fried potatoes with salsa brava and aioli and ENSALADA salad. You could order Patatas Bravas as one of the tapas starters but it suited well with Solomillo, this was bull’s eye pairing!

For desserts ordered famous Spanish “Churros”. Unfortunately you should stick to original churros because this version was not enough baked. Churros are perfect if prepared well and sorbet is always eatable, if prepared at the restaurant. Do not know if it was, because of the chewyness.

Unfortunately service had not improved. We had to ask several times for service but requestd were forgotten. Also paying was problem, had to go to cashier as mobile system did not work.
Casa Largo is really popular restaurant because of location. Remember to book table beforehand but be careful your wishes are conveyd to restaurant, ours were not.

REVIEW: FOOD 3+/5 – SERVICE 2/5 – OVERALL GRADE 3/5

http://www.casalargo.fi/