Dinner at El Tapeo Restaurant in Oak Brook, IL is nothing but boring. With such a wide array of delightful items, you will be hard-pressed not to find something that delights your palate. Given that El Tapeo revolves around the idea of tapas, it is only deserving that we begin our exploration of the restaurant’s dinner menu by looking at the variety of tapa selections on offer. The Albondigas is a great example of what a tapa should be. This tapa selection goes for $10 and wonderfully combines bacon and lamb meatball, sherry tomato sauce, and almonds. The Coca goes for $9 and features flatbread, arugula, goat cheese, and tomato jam. At $10, the carne cabre features braised short rib, polenta bread, piquillo pepper jam, and goat cheese. The pulpo negro features octopus, black pepper sauce, tarragon, oranges, and fennel. The Remolachas goes for $8 and features roasted beets, almonds, goat cheese, ras el hanout, and shallot. The calamares makes an entry at $9 featuring sauteed calamari, herbs, white wine, garlic, onions, and pepper. If you are looking for something a bit simple, the Bruselas may be worthy of your time. This delightful selection goes for $8 and features whole grain mustard vinaigrette and fried Brussels sprouts. The patatas bravas is also wonderful and combines fingerling potatoes, creme fraiche, and spicy tomato sauce to create a delightful dish. El Tapeo Restaurant also features some greens inspired tapas. If you like your tapas to be rich in greens, the Ensalada de Nuece may interest you. This tapas selection goes for $10 and features mixed greens, tomato, dried corn, radish, cucumber, walnuts, and maple walnut vinaigrette. The Caprese Espanol goes for $12 and features heirloom tomatoes, mache, sherry reduction, avocado, and San Simon cheese.
Next on the El Tapeo dinner menu is their selection of Embutidos y Quesos. The El Plato allows you to build your own unique combination of embutidos or quesos. At $23, you can combine any four embutidos or quesos. Another exciting entry is the Pata Negra paleta which goes for $10 and features black-footed Iberico shoulder, and Cinco jotas acorn-fed. Cheeses/Quesos include San Simon smoked, la peral, black beer, montelarreina, drunken goat, and monte enebro. Meats/embutidos include imperial hot chorizo, chorizo, Iberico salami, Iberico, serrano, and blood sausage.
El Tapeo Restaurant in Oak Brook, IL also features a wide selection of paellas on their dinner menu. The paellas come in 3 different portions: half, full, and family portion. One of the most exciting entries here is the paella de valencia which features braised pork butt, rosemary, orange juice, serrano ham, onions, and peppers. The paella de pollo is equally exciting and features grilled and diced chicken breasts, lemon aioli, arugula, onions, peppers, tomato juice, and serrano ham. The dinner menu also features a wonderful selection of seafood-inspired paellas. The paella mezclando features shrimp, lemons, saffron rice, sofrito, butifarra, calamari, and clams. Another seafood-inspired paella is the paella de diablo featuring shrimp, spicy chorizo, spicy aioli, saffron rice, onions, pepper, peas, and chicken. The seafood adventure gets even better with the paella de Catalana, featuring shrimp, lobster, squid ink, lemon aioli, onions, peppers, bomba rice, mussels, and clams. The Paella de verduras features peas, saffron rice, tofu, mushrooms, onions, and peppers.