Address: Casa Naranjo Ltd, Barracks Passage, Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury, SY1 1XA
Tel: 01743 588 165
Website: http://www.casanaranjo.co.uk/
Described as: Family Run Spanish Tapas
Submitted by: Julia

A good tapas bar can be difficult to find outside Barcelona; although Tapas seems to be all the rage, many restaurant and bars don’t seem to be able to produce delicious dishes with an authentic touch. After hearing that a new Tapas bar had opened in Shrewsbury, I had to go and check out whether they could live up to my expectations and they certainly did!

With a friend’s birthday coming up I needed to organise somewhere to have a surprise birthday party; somewhere formal enough for a birthday, but also informal enough for a large group of friends to spend an evening eating and chatting. Casa Najanjo turned out to be the perfect location; situated just off Wyle Cop on Barracks Passage it’s very much a hidden gem.

Run by a Spanish family, the restaurant has the feel of a real authentic Tapas restaurant. We’d been asked to pre order our choices from the menu as we were a party of 12, I always find this a little risky as you never know if you’ll see something on the specials board or the next table and get food envy. We’d been told we could always add more, but luckily we’d ordered enough for everyone to be very full and happy! The food was absolutely delicious, brought out in stages we were able to nibble away at different dishes and enjoy the delicious Sangria.

We picked a selection of Tapas dishes from the hot and cold selection available, a couple of our group were vegetarians. The vegetarian dishes did not disappoint from Lentejas de mi Abuela (green lentils cooked with mixed Vegetables and Paprika) to the very scrummy Pimientos Rellenos de Queso de Cabra (Piquillo Peppers stuffed with Goats cheese).

Like most “Tapas” menus you find in bars and restaurants you’ll find the more mainstreams types of Tapas on the Menu such as Patatas Bravas (crispy fried potato with a spicy red pepper sauce) and Tortilla Espanola (traditional onion and potato omelette), however the flavour and style of cooking is far superior. You’ll also find a delicious selection of other tapas dishes which I think many bars wouldn’t even attempt to cook. We all loved the lamb stew (Caldereta de Cordero). The quality of the lamb was unbelievable; it literally melted in your mouth!

We hadn’t ordered dessert, so when the waitress bought the menu over we were quite excited to see what was available. I had the Crema Catalana which is the Spanish version of a Creme Brullee, it was divine; perfectly creaming with the delicious satisfying crack of the hard caramel topping. This was a popular choice with our party as well as the Creme Caramel and the Chocolate Brownie and ice cream. The brownie was very rich made with a intense dark chocolate.

I’ll certainly be visiting Casa Najanjo again, the food was faultless and the service fantastic. It’s great to finally find a restaurant that can cater for large parties. The staff were really friendly and constantly checked if we needed anything without intruding on our conversations.

The Sangria was certainly flowing!