Santiago's doesn't really know what it wants to be. Under the flag of Spanish / South American cuisine, their menu is a hodgepodge of Latin, Asian, Indian and North American dishes. We were surprised by the limited selection of South American dishes.

We were seated quickly and drink order taken in short order. My sister-in-law Krista and myself were delighted to see pisco (Chilean brandy) sours were the special cocktail of the day. We were a little disappointed to find that they were more like daiquiris than sours. Patty and my brother Hew ordered beers from the moderate selection of of import and one domestic beer.

We set about studying the menu. We were perplexed by the selection and the organisation. The first page is a compilation of first course tex-mex fare and burgers - with the exception of paella for two. The second page is all tapas, some of which was South American inspired, some of which was Thai and Indian. We like Thai and Indian, but we'd come to Santiago's for South American. In addition to the tapas, they listed over a dozen of mussel and prawn dishes, with different sauces, but all fairly similar.

We decided to go for the tapas option. Starting with the ceviche ($11.95) we were delighted by the freshness and portioning of both the seafood and salad. Patty commented that he would have liked a few more tortilla chips to scoop with. Our ceviche was followed by the adobo y chorizo ($10.95) with potatoes ($3.25), pollo naranja ($9.95) and mussels tomatillo ($11.95). The chorizo dish was tasty and I liked the fresh, sautéed tomatoes, but served with a butter cabernet sauce was simply waaay too oily - fat overkill. The chicken was interesting, if you didn't like orange you would hate it, but we were intrigued by the concept. Both dishes were served a top large croutons - an unusual approach, we liked it. The 'famous' potatoes, that we ordered only to see what garnered their infamy, were burnt and tasted bad. The mussels were good, with a clear tomatillo flavour and medium heat. In all cases, we were surprised by large portioning. Simply put, this was not tapas. It's always confusing when the Little Piggy complains about excessive portioning - bigger is better right? WRONG! When you expect tapas sized portions, it's annoying to get dinner sized portions. In the restaurant business sending your customers away a) too full, or b) feeling like they ordered too much food (i.e. wasted money), is bad.  I would have rather had better quality, smaller portions, that better reflected their description on the menu.

The wine and beverage list has major shortcomings. They have many martinis, but they only have four equally pedestrian bottles of wine, 2 red and 2 white - all from the same wine maker - Concho y Toro, and all with a 100%+ markup. Wow, this is one of the worst wine selections in town. There is no reason for a restaurant in this price range, to have a such poor wine selection. We ordered the Sangria. It was ok, but was expensive ($26.95 / pitcher). The beer list is passable, but extremely limited.

With a largely transient clientele, most downtown, waterfront restaurants, think they're bullet proof to consumer scrutiny - Santiago's appears to be no exception. 

Value of Food 66/100

Quality of Food 64/100

Service 76/100

Wine and beverage list 46/100

Ambiance 78/100

Average 66/100

Reviewed May 1 06