Espana Bar de Tapas

I love Spanish food, and I love to eat it tapas-​style. So when I heard about Bar España, I knew that we had to check it out. I also knew that this would likely be not such a kid friendly location so we took our preschooler to the sitters and had a date night!
Like other reviewers have mentioned, there’s a bit of an identity crisis going on here. It’s as if they are trying to be a tapas and sports bar that turns into a night club after 8 PM. We got there very early because we wanted no part of that nonsense. Besides I wanted to take advantage of happy hour where I got my Estrella on tap at a good price. My wife opted for one of the ladies night $ 1.00 margaritas, which isn’t Spanish but hey, this is Texas. We ordered a big round at first. Gambas al alijo was a must as it is a favorite of ours, so that was in the first round. My wife wanted to mussels so we got those, too. The pinxtos were little grilled skewers of pork, and pork is always a winner with us, so those were on the list. At our waitress’ suggestion we got the pollo al jares. We rounded it out with some Serrano stuffed mushrooms. The only thing that was a swing and a miss were the mussels. They were fish tasting and grainy. They shrimp were good, but the pinxtos and chicken were outstanding, the mushrooms were great, too.
Service was good, too. Our server was informative and attentive. Overall I’d say the place is 3.5 stars, I’d definitely go back.

A reproach to Spanish cuisine. My wife and I ate here upon settling in San Antonio, excited to try a Spanish restaurant in a new town. The food was just bad. Not fresh at all. I’m pretty sure a huge batch of paella is made in advance and served throughout the week. Won’t be coming back here, until I see a positive trend in recent reviews. Management should pay attention to feedback coming through Unilocal and make some improvements.

Ouch. I’ve given so few one star ratings, and it really pains me to do it.
This place… is not good. I’m sorry.
Unilocal reviewers have it right. This restaurant (if you can call it that) is struggling with an identity crisis. I’d say stick with one thing you’re good at… don’t try to do it all. I’m sure that as a night club, it might be fun (if that’s what this place is. We couldn’t really tell?) but going at 6:30 on a Tuesday night… we were the ONLY people in the entire place. I think that says something about the food.
We ordered both of the potato tapas they offer. One of them was fried potato chunks with some sort of spicy red sauce on top. That one was tolerable… I’m not exactly sure what the spicy red sauce was but it was okay. The other one, which was described as boiled potatoes with some sort of aioli sauce on top was nothing more than potato salad. Gross. Please don’t serve me cold potato salad unless I’m at a picnic with my extended family and it’s the only thing remotely vegetarian.
I will say that my Alaskan brew beer was good. So there’s that.