Never mind that it is a bit inaccessible, Spanish restaurant Don Quijote located just off the Upper Bukit Timah Road is one of the best new restaurants that we’ve visited lately. We’ve tried our fair share of tapas places, but Don Quijote is heads and shoulders above the rest. Its proprietors decided to open at the quiet stretch here to avoid the expensive rents in the central areas and to invest their efforts in good food instead—and it has paid off. There is an abundance of tapas dishes to choose from, such as Spanish meatballs, mixed sauteed mushrooms and garlic prawns, to name a few. We settled on the vieiras al horno (oven‑baked scallops with bacon bits) and berenjenas al horo (oven‑baked eggplant) instead. The scallops may be a little pricey, but they were pure indulgence. The tasty bacon bits gave the dish an extra crunch while the scallops were nicely baked with a zesty, lemony aftertaste. Our eggplant was also most interesting (in a good way). It came piping hot in a tasty light broth drowned in small bits of tomatoes and onions which made the dish utterly delicious—we had polished up the broth by meal’s end. But the dish that made our day was the fideua negra (Spanish‑style pasta with squid ink, small portion). While it could well do with more squid, the squid ink sauce itself was perfect, and the very thin pasta (which reminds us of yummy, thin Hong Kong noodles) was simply the right texture for the sauce. Although it’s a bit of a trek to get here, we really wouldn’t mind coming back again to try more tapas.
