Spanish oasis where mistakes are fun

It's bang opposite the Drury Lane theatre where The Lord Of The Rings is showing, yet so anonymous you almost miss it, but this is a reasonably priced oasis in the centre of Theatreland, that Angus Steakhouse hell where normally only naive, moneyed tourists dare to tread.

The decor is simple, dark wood floors and tables with a spiral staircase, leading to a second dining room upstairs. The tapas dishes are simple too - making it hard to choose between them. How to select between specials such as fried razor clams (£6.50) and deep fried calamari (£4.75)? Chorizo or acorn-fed Iberico ham? Then there's the further complicating fact that each dish has a little number by it cross-referencing it to a matching wine.

A surprising omission was the lack of sherry on this vinateria's wine list, but thank goodness, or we'd never have made up our minds. This is not a place for the indecisive.

We'd ordered some olives to nibble on - a top tip, since the service is authentically manana - but even so, by the time we eventually got our food we were left with matching pools of drool on the table.

Like the clientele, the dishes were a mixed bag, which is actually fine when you're talking tapas. My friend adored the Butifarras Setas (£5), a coiled sausage with hearty sliced mushrooms, whereas I thought it was fatty and looked too much like a dog's business. She thought the fragrant fried pork concoction (£4.75) I enthusiastically heaped on my garlic bruschetta was too gristly and salty (so wrong!). We both agreed the swordfish and courgette pincho skewers (£9.75) were a bit on the dry side, but went mad for the silvery boquerones, or vinegary anchovies (£4.95). You get the idea.

The only real "oops" of the meal was my adventurous blue cheese ice cream (£3.50), which sadly tasted as disgusting as it sounds - frozen Stilton with runny chocolate sauce anyone? That aside: Oops - I'd do it again.

Oops Restaurante and Vinateria
31 Catherine Street, WC2B 5JS