Forte European Tapas

I arrived at Forte Tapas with high expectations after reading all the rave reviews from Yelpers I admire. The seating we chose wasn't the best, since the chairs weren't comfortable and the table too high. What we won't sacrifice for good lighting for our food pictures.

With a semi-large group of diners, we were able to sample a good number of menu items. We started with the house pita bread, which I didn't love. A little on the doughy side for my taste. We decided on a good sampling from the options on the menu and waited with anticipation.

As others have noted, the timing of our food didn't come out as spaced out as we would have liked and refills came only after a few reminders, I still enjoyed quite a bit about our meal here.

My favorites from lunch were the Calamares rellenos en su tinta, Thracian clay pot, sofiiska baniza, Chebureki and Adjarski khachapurri. I would return for any of these menu items in a heartbeat. My least favorite parts of the meal were the sugary sweet and drippy baklava, the overcooked and overly sweet almond stuffed dates and uninventive and incrediby generic-tasting Spanish chorizo chips. The Bulgarian lamb was just ok, I can't see myself ordering this again and the biscuit cake, although a favorite at our table was a little too dense and sweet-tasting for my particular palate.

Based on the number of items we ordered, I notice that the ones I didn't like outnumbered those that I did enjoy, but I would return to enjoy those few items I loved alone.