Nothing makes me see red, like a bull for a matador when I get bad Spanish food.
At any bar, even in the most suburban Spain, even one with soccer playing on a TV up high on a bracket in the corner of a slightly seedy dark room with a surly generous bellied barman with a tea towel on his shoulder; he'll be ready to serve you a frothy cold beer and an array of questionable cold bar snacks from under a sneeze guard at best, but I guarantee you they'll be delicious.
The tapas you'll choose will usually be served straight from the hatch unless briefly microwaved, so may the gastroenteritis gods be with me, as to this day, I have not yet had food poisoning.
I can forgive these humble hospitalities, because what's offered are the likes of delicious pickled fish, brined baby octopus, olives and actually rather moreish lumps of usually stale white bread which are best used to mop up generous warm olive oily oozy chorizo stains that are left on the plate.
So it stifles me to be stiffed for bad Spanish when a restaurant clearly doesn't bother with honesty; fresh ingredients and simple cooking techniques where minimal effort is required.
I've learned that South Australia produces some of the best produce and wine in the world, so why not use it?
There was no way I was going to pay through the nose for some bog standard Spanish imported stuff, but asking for $15 to BYOB is rich!
Not as cheeky though as it was to serve five buck unsalted nuts to chomp on as we investigated the menu. A quick toss it a hot pan to release their flavors, some salt, some care couldn't have gone a miss.
However, the menu didn't get the juices flowing enough to help those dry nuts, clearly straight from the packet with a few wasabi peas on top for good measure, go down.
I've found lint covered peanuts down the back of my sofa more palatable.
The very well-meaning waiter was helpful in explaining the menu, but the food was just...well, mean.
Chicken wings; all four of them, were just pieces of the wrist of the chicken if you will, not even complete wings, were all, I guarantee; from frozen.
Someone was winging it in that kitchen because no chef should have passed out what arrived at our table:
The soggy broccoli and (burnt) garlic, definitely seemed like veg from the freezer too.
I would have marched out if it weren't for my dinner date being on the verge of passing out with hunger, so we decided to forfeit the wait that could have escalated from my ready complaints, to instead just dive into the Morcilla and capsicum peppers (vinegary and definitely from a jar) that finally arrived.
I don't know what was going on there but it wasn't what I'd call black pudding. It was more like a chorizo, albeit cold on one side, burnt on the other with a plastic skin still intact on slicing it and it had horribly stuck to half of the 'meat' making it inedible.
At a loss, I thought quickly. What's filling and pretty hard to get wrong? We were disappointed with dinner, but still seriously still hungry, so: Garlic bread. Garlic Bread? What arrived was an impression of Bruschetta but worse, toast, with soggy cold chopped tomato and raw; I'm pretty sure 'lazy' garlic spread underneath.
The option of ordering more from the lazy cook out back? No thanks.
Despite our lovely waiter offering us the opportunity to order more, as he no doubt could hear out stomachs rumbling, perhaps he could feel the gravity of my eyes rolling causing great tides to occur in the drinks he was serving someone else at the bar however, we decided enough was enough.
It was too much of a risk. I through the towel in. Well, my napkin down.
There was no way I'd spend a penny more there.
So it was over the road for a bun from the 24 hour bakery on the way home.
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