Little Donkey – Number 40

Little Donkey is our first top 50 restaurant with a party greater than the two as we have our super duper friends visiting us from Atlanta.  And we couldn’t have chosen a better restaurant for four people as they offer sharing plates.  With the two of us we would have been limited in the number of dishes we could order (there’s only so much we can eat), but with four we can try more.  Yum.

The best advice is to order 2 or 3 dishes at a time.  We were told about 3 dishes per person, but had we ordered everything in one go, it actually would have been too much and not allowed for a sampling of the desserts.  Also, there’s a strong possibility that all the food would have come out very quickly.  Evening over.  We don’t want that.

The food at Little Donkey is tapas from all over the world.  We managed to sample food influenced by Russia, America, India and Mexico, but we also saw Japanese, Vietnamese, Italian, Middle Eastern and Chinese influences on the menu.  It’s so great to be in a place that offers so much variety and it’s unusual to be somewhere where you can sample all these different cuisines together…and it works!

We had a few favourites.  The crab nachos were swiftly polished off, with all the delicious bits and pieces on top (more crab though please).  The beef stroganoff was really tasty and an excellent choice from Donna.  And who can resist a fried chicken sandwich, choice of Frank, which came with two options; ‘regular’ or ‘hot and messy’.  Really no choice at all, and yes it was hot, courtesy of the jalapeños, and messy due to the avocado ranch dressing and the green papaya slaw. Totally worth the extra napkins needed.We also decided to be sophisticated and decadent and try the caviar sandwich.  We were advised to get two due to the small size (it really would have been impossible to split one between four).  A tasty morsel, but really disappointing as we couldn’t taste the caviar (3 out of 4 tasters agreed).  The taste of the roll and the butter totally took over and at $22 we expected to taste caviar.  Save your money, or treat yourself to dessert (actually, you can have 3 desserts for the same price).

Ambience – Little Donkey and the whole tapas sharing concept creates a lively and conversational vibe.  We were quite a loud table (I’m being polite), but the noise we made was nicely swallowed up by the constant hum of conversation and laughter from the rest of the restaurant.  The bar was pleasantly full the whole time we were there, and the kitchen at the end of the restaurant is open so you can see the chefs hard at work feeding the hungry hoards.In the end we ordered about 8 dishes between us and it was definitely enough, we were completely full and totally satisfied. We finished off with some sake and Donna and I decided we had room for one dessert between us.  We forgot we were in the land of small plates, but as it goes, it was just enough.