We came here via the El Rastro Street Market...
Worth it for the crowded atmosphere but oddly nothing much worth buying, unless you like the same old junk you can buy at any street market anywhere and after further down Calle de Segovia, having dodged gangs of thugs accosting tourists and locals alike with equal impunity, trying to extricate some spare euros from our already over-stretched wallets.
From the outside terrace where we ate, the place looked and felt like we were camping out under a motorway overpass. It was all drab and dark and grey. We sat down at a rickety table on a scary angle to hell and envied the punters in the restaurant across the road, on the sunny side of the street. After what seemed an eternity but was probably about 10 minutes, we got served.
I cook, a lot, so I know how much ingredients cost. When I opened the menu to discover that here at least rice had hit parity with gold, I smelt that familiar whiff of rip off. Too tired and hungry to decamp, we settled on the 22 euro a head degustation. An ordinary pickled capsicum salad was followed by what we think was barbecued squid before the main attraction arrived, paella.
The flavours in this dish were intense and complex. Just enough spice and plenty of heat. We loved the fat, fresh prawns. Sadly, the same could not be said for the pork. Someone braver than me should tap the chef on the shoulder and tell her or him that there are not so fine lines between rustic and rough, tasty and tough. It spoilt what otherwise would have been a good paella.
The saving grace of this place turned out to be the sangria. It was loaded with red wine and had a tingle in it that told us it had not been sitting in the back of the fridge for weeks. Sangria is fruit cup for grown-ups. As its delicious funk possessed us we felt ridiculously relaxed and right at home. About then the locals started turning up for their booze only Sunday afternoon in the shade.
My shouts to the waiter to bring the bill were met with an increasingly perplexed look on her face, as in leave me alone you lunatic! I was muttering in my head 'how rude!' until my partner nudged me to say, 'you idiot, that's another customer!'
Must have been the sangria talking... read more