Al-Andalus Tapas Bar, Oxford

Never underestimate a male stomach. Just when you think you’ve got things under wraps and are on the home straight, it whips out right in front of you holding up a large red stop sign that says ‘feed me’.

Such was the situation when leaving Oxford’s New Theatre post Ricky Gervais, with me thinking it was in the bag with a quick pint before we headed home.

Mr Greedy, however, had other ideas, announcing he was hungry and needed feeding. It must have been all that sitting down that gave him such terrible hunger pangs, or perhaps the endless laughing burned off all those calories, rendering him famished. But feed him we must.

But it was late, late for eating anyway, and by the time we reached The White Rabbit it had sold out of pizzas. They’d had a takeaway order for 30 apparently which had cleaned the kitchen out. We had a pint anyway and then wandered down St Giles. Where to go?

Peering into Baz’s evening service at St Giles Café, it looked wonderfully enticing, but they were finishing up their set menu, and everyone was on their coffee by then so we moved on, sadly.

Little Clarendon Street came next and there was a choice of Italian, French or Spanish, we went Spanish, deciding that as it was still light maybe tapas was the ideal way to finish off the day.

Now I like a bit of tapas but it’s designed for a Spanish climate when you can find a nice square in Barcelona, order a cold beer or a glass of wine and settle down for nibbles, before meandering off and doing it all over again a few hours later.

But being English, we feel this overwhelming urge to sit down and eat a proper meal and I’m just not sure if tapas fits into that equation.

It was nice in Al-Andalus though, although still too cold to sit outside, and busy, even at that time of night. The slightly surly lady behind the bar said we were welcome but it was too late for paella. Fair enough. Instead we ordered the Pimientos de Padron, tiny green peppers flash fried and showered in salt which burst in the mouth, perfect with a cold beer, and sat back to study the menu. All the classics were there, each dish under £5, and we ordered two each, plus some patatas bravas and a plate of tortilla. We tried the calamares, and the mushrooms with garlic and parsley, the pisto – a special – which was a tomatoey mediterranean stew like a ratatouille, and another special the Huevos Fritos, which when it arrived was more like a Spanish truck driver’s breakfast – oily chorizo, potato and an egg baked in a ramekin dish.

And then everything arrived at once, in large portions, not the tiny taste experiences you expect, and you find yourself apportioning a bit of each dish onto your plate, only to find they just don’t go. You’d never order a plate of food like that in any other restaurant so why here? Because it’s Spanish? And so we ate the spicy potatoes, and the brown unadorned mushrooms which arrived in a bowl of oil, and the truckies brekkie which had been left in the oven too long so the eggs were hard, and the enormous plate of calamares, and the stodgy Spanish omelette. And it was fine. But our overall sensation was one of an oily, mismatched concoction that you wouldn’t ever put together ordinarily, and we went home feeling rather unhealthy and a bit deflated.

So give me a market square in Spain and some sunshine, a glass of Rioja and a plate of little Padron peppers or a slice of Spanish omelette. But just don’t do it the British way. It’s not good for you.

Al-Andalus Tapas Bar, 10 Little Clarendon Street, Oxford
01865 516688 tapasoxford.co.uk