Mas

by Charlottesville29

501 Monticello Road . Charlottesville, VA . (434) 979-0990
http://www.mastapas.com

 

Why MAS?

What can you do if you want to attend a dinner party but none is planned? Go to MAS, where it feels like like a party every night of the week. At Charlottesville’s original tapas bar, you’ll find a rollicking gala of beautiful food, free-flowing cocktails and wines, and fun-seeking people, all set in a cavernous space inspired by Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright. The food is serious. In the eighteen years since MAS opened, the restaurant has cultivated relationships with the area’s best purveyors. With such high quality ingredients, they like to keep the cooking simple. The results are often spectacular, and warrant a spot in The Charlottesville 29.

What to Order

Our favorite way to eat at MAS is to ask the kitchen to send whatever it wants. A degustacion, of sorts. This not only affirms the dinner party feel of eating at MAS. After all, we wouldn’t order food at a dinner party. It also puts our choices in the hands of the people with the most expertise: the kitchen staff. That being said, there are some regular dishes, below, that we do find ourselves craving again and again. Also below are the chef’s recommendations and appearances in Five Finds on Friday, where chefs and personalities have named a MAS dish one of the best in town.

Our Picks

  • Datil con tocino, fat, juicy, pitted Medjool dates roasted inside of apple-wood smoked bacon
  • Habas fritas,  baby fava beans w/ Amontillado, garlic, olive oil, sweet butter, aged Mahon
  • Gambas al’ parilla, jumbo shrimp grilled Catalan style-in the shell-w/garlic alioli and grey salt
  • Bocadillo
  • Chuletas, baby lamb chops grilled rare only w/flatbread, mojo verde
  • Porktopus
  • Carne Asada

Chef’s Picks

  • Bikini, a pan fried sandwich of sauteed morels, shallots, Urgelia cheese, and white truffle butter on sunflower wheat
  • Plato de Iberico
  • Tomato plate
  • Duck confit with figs
  • Cachetes de ternero
  • Porktopus
  • Clams in coconut green curry

Five Finds on Friday’s Picks

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