I love experiences like this: you walk into a restaurant with no expectations about quality and walk out having had a really good meal.

Actually, my expectations of Tangerine were low - very low. For one thing, when I sat down at 8pm on a weeknight, there were no other customers - although, as we all know, the popularity of a place isn't necessarily an indication of the quality of its food (and vice versa).

The menu, at first glance, seemed confused, as it stated "Thai. Tapas. Wine". I worried it would be Thai food and Spanish tapas - in other words, a restaurant attempting to serve two disparate cuisines, a formula that is very rarely successful. Then we were given chopsticks, rather than a fork and spoon - the usual implements used to eat a Thai meal.

But as I sat and waited for my guest, a few other customers walked in and the friendly servers gave them a warm welcome; it was obvious that our fellow diners were regulars. And as I examined the menu more closely, I saw that all the dishes - even on the tapas side of the menu - were Thai. We only ordered from the Thai tapas section, which, we assume, were smaller than the mains, so we could taste more items. Each tapa had a suggestion on what wine would pair well with it.