Spanish restaurant Catalunya offers an extensive menu for sharing

Ah … first-world problems. "It's so hard getting a table at Catalunya. You have to book so far in advance. And when you finally eat there, there's too much on the menu that sounds good, so it's hard to decide what to eat."

The latter really is a problem. It's not that the menu is too extensive, because it's not. The menu descriptions can be annoying: one dish is said to be "yummy" while it says of another "... fresh fish captured by our chef's eagle eye"? (Does an eagle eye work better than a fishing pole?)

But even after ignoring all the dishes that depend more on good sourcing, rather than cooking (such as the cheese and charcuterie), there's still a lot I wanted to eat. The chef, Alain Devahive Tolosa, had worked at the now-closed elBulli, in Spain, so I knew the food, while it was based on traditional Spanish dishes, wouldn't necessarily be the traditional versions.

I was grateful that I'd asked two friends to join me for dinner, because it would have been extremely difficult to review the place with just one other person; as many of the main courses are meant for sharing, a meal for two would have meant limiting yourself to just a few tapas dishes.

We were served the fried dishes first, and they didn't impress. With the jamon Iberico croquettes (HK$100), we couldn't detect the taste of the distinctive flavour of air-dried ham - the small bits of meat could have been anything.

We had the same problem with the too-smooth cod fritters (HK$75), which didn't taste much of cod. The suckling pig tapa (HK$135) came as three boneless pieces that had crunchy skin, but were slightly overcooked.