Talking about food!

I decided it was time to talk about food again.

When we arrived here on Friday and the heat knocked us put, we almost forgot about food and only into the evening did it dawn on us that we had not eaten since breakfast. We were rather looking forward to revisiting an old favourite place here, A Caçarola, a restaurant whose name I totally misread first time around and assumed it mean The Snail. In fact it means The Saucepan, The Stewpot, The Casserole. They do an amazingly good fish soup. Imagine our consternation when we discovered that it was shut, not only for the weekend but for holidays. It would not re-open until November 7th. We will be gone by then.

What to do?

Well, go to Caçarola 2, of course.

This is it’s posher cousin round the corner, refurbished last year and bow doing quite splendidly. It might appear a little posher but the prices are still very reasonable. Phil had the fish soup. I had a cream of shellfish soup followed by fanecas, small fish which I also eat in Spain but whose English name I never can remember. Phil ordered squid to follow his soup. Then came a question: would he like his squid grilled, or stuffed with mashed potato? What? Stuffed with mashed potato? Is that even something you do to squid? So he opted for grilled, not being a mashed potato man at the best of times.

The squid, when they arrived, were enormous. No wonder they could be stuffed! Quite tasty but a prodigious amount of squid! The fanecas were also tasty but fiddly, a little dry, a lot of effort for little reward. So it goes.

On Saturday I rose early in order to have time to wash and dry my hair before breakfast. Then we went shopping for the items on the list we had made the previous evening: chocolate (for the chessplayer to take to his games), fruit, toothpaste, toothbrushes (Phil had left his at home), deodorant (I had left mine at home), bottle of water, suntan lotion (29 degrees out there!) and mugs (our room has a kettle but only expanded polystyrene beakers to drink out of). We also acquired sunhats - not on the list. The last of the big spendsrs.

At lunchtime we went to a little place called Buzio, located in a back street. We had come across it accidentally a few years ago, spotted it had a menu do dia, tried it out and found it good and gone back several times. We had a soup made with unidentified vegetables and containing floating strands of grelos, the ubiquitous greens that crop up in so many northern Iberian dishes. Very good! Then came bifes de frango, chicken steaks (maybe bife comes from French biftek which comes from English beefsteak!) served with chips AND rice. Very good too.

Very good except that I was feeling odd. Not quite in my plate, as the French say. I did not finish my wine; I gave it to Phil. I thought a fruit salad might refresh me. It did. It was a good fruit salad. We ordered coffee. Just the smell put me off. I gave it to Phil as well.

The bill arrived and we had a small but amicable disagreement with the waiter. We had been charged for olives and a tomato salad which we had not consumed. He went off and changed the bill. Then we were consumed with guilt as we realise that we had not been charged for the unidentified vegetable soup! It was a small items, only €1.50 or so but we felt churlish, having quibbled over olives and tomato salad!

And so we set off back to the hotel but I was definitely not right. We took the lift instead of the stairs - a sure sign that something was wrong. I made it to the room and promptly threw up my lunch and slept the rest of the afternoon. What a waste! I wondered of I had suffered from a mild heat stroke and dehydration from the travelling!

By the time Sunday came around, with an extra hour’s sleep, courtesy of the clocks going back, I seemed to be recovered and ran down the promenade as usual. At lunchtime we planned to go to A Caçarola 2 again but the queue was immense: victims of their success. So we went back to Buzio. It was just as well that I was sure it was me and not their food that was wonky on Saturday.

I had a fine salada de camarões with grilled prawns and pineapple. Phil manfully tackled a huge fish, robalo, and an enormous plate of chips. No wine, only water, as the chess games were beginning that evening. Nothing untoward ensued! Hurray!

And the chess tournament started.

And Phil lost his first game against a stronger player.

To begin woth a win would have been nice but today, to misquote Scarlett O’Hara, is another day!