La Viva Spanish Bar and Tapas

I recently went to La Viva Spanish Bar and Tapas for dinner...twice in a week. It occupied the exact location as Ocho used to be in CHIJMES. Ocho was the venue for my first ever CC outing, where I met and made many new friends, back in end Oct or early Nov 2004. Ever since then, I didn't go back to Ocho again.

Ocho disappeared (well, more likely it was sold after the parent company closed down) and La Viva appeared. The layout and menu looked the same, the food was about the same too. This time, it was only Davis and I.

We shared the seafood paella and a sangria chorizo. The paella was a bit of a disappointment as the flavor was not prominent in the rice. The rice was quite soft and soggy too. However it was full of seafood (mussels, squids, prawns, fish). The chorizo fared slightly better and there was a hint of sangria in them. Very nice.

I tried the tropical sangria and it was wonderful. Instead of the usual red wine, it was white wine with pieces of lychees and pineapples in it. Sweet and packed a punch. I like.

Few days later, I was there again with Van. She has the Martini card thing where you can get 30 alcoholic drinks and 10 non-alcoholic drinks at various locations. Between the 2 of us, we ordered 5 martinis. They were surprisingly good, and I am not a big fan of martini in the first place.

I had the Midori Martini, Desire and Dessert Espanola. Van ordered Desire and La Viva Breeze. Now what are in them?

Midori Martini - 10ml midori, 10ml vodka, 5ml martini bianco, 15ml apple juice
Desire - 30ml vodka, 10ml cassis, 10ml peach liquor, 30ml cranberry juice
La Viva Breeze - 30ml midori, 30ml Absolut citron, 30ml triple sec, 45ml lime juice
Dessert Espanola - 30ml kahlua, 15ml drumbuie, 75ml milk

There are plenty more of other martinis on the menu, but we stuck with those. We order 3 tapas to go with them. We had the eggplants with goat cheese and shrimps, beef stew with wine and minced chicken and potatoes patties. They were pretty good, except for the goat cheese which has a strong taste to it.

Location
La Viva Spanish Bar and Tapas
30 Victoria Street, Chijmes #01-12/13/14
Tel: 6339 4290
Operating Hours: 5pm to 12am from Sunday to Thursday, 5pm to 1am on Fridays and Saturdays