Review: La Yazmira

Running with the incoming herd of simple European restaurants braying at Shanghai’s comfort-seeking yuppies, La Yazmira is a cute, innocent Spanish offering. But it may need to more than sincere home-cooked food at the foot of a nice villa to make it.

Their enclosed and alluring three-table courtyard should be enough to attract the fleeting attention of passers by. Perhaps the busy Changle-Donghu triangle has enough distractions already. We can’t help but wish we’d wandered down a placid, leafy street in an area more conducive to hidden gems.

From the small menu, of which half the options are not yet available thanks to still unreliable distributors, all the staples are present. Pitched as honestly priced, honestly prepared staples, we found a plate of patatas bravas to be expectedly roasted, cubed potatoes with paprika and tomato sauce. Similarly exact was a light and no-frills bacon Ceasar salad. They didn’t have our favorite, croquettes, though we can guess how they are.

The mains maintained the safe theme: pincho skewers of pork, onion and bell peppers were their constituent elements cubed, slotted on a stick and grilled. In the seafood paella we found exactly what we were expecting in a tasty stock soaked into seafood rice served with chunks of mixed seafood.

Perfectly cooked too is their home-made flan. Alongside a house glass of Spanish white, it’s all too easy. The beauty of La Yazmira is the honest simplicity of the offering. Its downfall could be serving the food that our Spanish granny would make but without her presence or any of the magical family atmosphere. There needs to be a spark somewhere to bring the experience to life.