Restaurant Review - El Coto, Newcastle

Spanish food has got to be one of my favourite cuisines.  I've given this much thought over the years and had conversations with everyone in my family, so they all know if I was on my death bed, my main meal would definitely be Paella. The Starter and Dessert have already been picked out too.
With such a mix of variety and flavours, depth and simplicity, health and indulgence its like having a mini buffet. Having been to the Canaries over Christmas the selection and variety of really excellent fresh wonderful healthy food they have out there still has me day dreaming about the place now. So when my friend picked out El CoTo for her birthday, I was over the moon. Any chance of replicating authentic Spanish food and I'm on board.

I've been to many Spanish restaurants before and I know how unhealthy they can be, tapas choices tend to all be deep fat fried or smothered in cheese and fatty meats. I wanted to see if I could actually eat healthy here, adopting my new Vegan lifestyle as I did in the Canaries. My friends are not vegan or vegetarian so they tried different choices to me but all gave me their feedback.

Now my friends and I love our food and we can really eat. We chose 3 tapas choices each, which the waiter scoffed at and looked perplexed that we would choose so many (12 in total), but we thought this was completely reasonable and to be honest we were holding back a bit for pudding. Because of the waiters reaction we were expecting overwhelming giagantic portions and worried that we would waste food.

I have to start on a bad note and say the service was shocking, we felt hassled for our order when we first arrived and then they seemed to forget about us later on, there were 2 or 3 different waiters bringing us food and most of it was wrong. The first 2 dishes got sent to our table instead of someone else's and then most of our food were sent elsewhere, Im hoping that the staff were new, and that they simply didn't know the floor plan. With much confusion we eventually received our food with one or two dishes missing.

I went for the Arroz de Verduras (rice with vegetables), Tomato Alinado (tomato salad) and Garbanzo (chickpea casserole). The Garbanzo was delicious I wish I had a big bowl of it and nothing else, while the rice was just ok and the tomato salad was beautiful.
The girls went for a wide selection including Arroz de Matanza (rice with chicken, pork, chorizo), Ternera a la Mesonera (beef stew), Pata con Salsa de Mostaza (potato with creamy mustard and honey dressing), Gambas al Ajillo (king prawns will chilli and garlic), Pollo al Ajillo (chicken with white wine, olive oil, parsley, garlic) and MORE! They all said the food was absolutely lovely, really rich, large potions and could tell it had been made fresh. Although I finished my dishes they left a little of theirs and we ended up not having pudding! Partly because we were full and partly because we probably wouldn't receive it anyway.

On a health focus I would say most of the dishes are quite indulgent, like I said a lot of tapas dishes in England are deep fat fried, so if you're watching the waistline at the moment you may have to treat this place as a 'cheat day'. They do plenty of vegetarian dishes and only a couple catered for vegan. They also have a gluten and dairy free menu too, which is great. I did enjoy the food and the prices are good too, its just a shame about the service, maybe we will give it a while before going back and hopefully the waiters will know the floor plan by then.

Rating (Out of 5)

Quality of Food ****

Food Variety ****

Cater for intolerance's/allergies *****

Health rating *

Restaurant & Staff *

Cost ****