EATING OUT W

For to look from the outside it’s tiny, mid-terraced down a side street in Slaithwaite.

But when we went on a Friday night the place was buzzing both downstairs and up.

The downstairs is the bar – and every seat was taken – while the restaurant is upstairs and was fully booked.

That’s always a good sign. Popular almost always means good and that’s certainly the case here.

Jax is tapas, and while it’s not an extensive menu there’s more than enough on there to give a decent variety and ‘fill yer boots.’

There were four of us – me, wife Ruth and friends Dave and Jane – and it can be difficult to gauge just how much to order but no worries with tapas as you can always add to it as you go along.

So we set to and didn’t hold back.

First up the meat platter (£13.50) consisting of smoked chicken, jamon serrano, salchichon, peppered silverside, chorizo, olives, mixed pickles, green peppercorn mayo and crusty bread.

A good selection that’ll make you think of sunnier climes, and a dish you just can’t help picking at again and again.

Halloumi fans are in for a treat with the chicken and halloumi skewers with lemon and garlic marinade (£6.75) – they vanished like greased lightning.

But the top dish for Ruth and Jane was undoubtedly the blue cheese and butternut squash pearl barley risotto (£5). Now these two know a thing or two about risotto and their fear is it will turn out bland. No such worries here – they thought it was moist and packed to the gunnels with flavour.

My favourite had to be king prawns in ginger, garlic, chilli and basil (£7.50) – just enough and plenty of bread so a drop of the sauce wasn’t wasted.

If you fancy going upmarket try the posh chips (£4) – fries with manchego, bacon crisps and truffle oil which shows that your humble chip doesn’t have to be that humble.

We also had the house marinated olives (£2.95) in Jax’s secret marinade that made them gorgeously juicy.

The house bread and things (£2.75) includes stuffed vine leaves as one of the things – an unexpected treat.

And it’d be plain rude to have tapas and not go for patatas bravas

Every single plate was completely emptied. That’s testament enough to what we thought of the meal

(£4.95), small chunks of potato coated in tomatoes and baked aioli. It was so busy the venison meatballs in bacon gravy (£6.50) had sold out and the restaurant wasn’t happy it could source good enough mussels at this time of year when they’re not in season so they had pulled the Jax mussels – Thai broth or mariniere with crusty bread (£6) from the menu for now.

They also do a tandoori cod on garlic nan with a mint dip and Asian slaw (£5) and another is goats cheese gnocchi and squash bake (£6).

For puds we shared a homemade pecan fudge brownie with vanilla ice-cream and cinnamon sugared churros with chocolate orange dip – both were a fiver.

Both great – the brownie brilliantly chewy – while the chocolate orange I’m ashamed to admit was so good it was picked up and slurped once the churros had gone.

Every single plate was completely emptied. That’s testament enough to what we thought of the meal.

Service was very good - quick, efficient and always with a smile, even though the place was packed.