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Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Eating my way to failure!


How are the mighty fallen!

My sheet of the ruta de tapas (which is now held together with Sellotape) is filling up nicely.  I was down to single figures of the bars and restaurants that I had to visit days ago.  Slowly and surely I was completing my list and my tattered sheet was groaning with the weight of ink from the individual stamps of the restaurants I had visited.

Today I was determined to bring the number down yet again.  Toni had deigned to accompany me (in spite of the fact that he would not be ale to eat many of the tapas as they all used cheese as an essential ingredient) and asked me to draft out the most intelligent route to get the maximum number of tapas eaten and stamped.

It was at this point that I looked a little more closely at the opening times of the restaurants and the days on which they might be closed.  All of my potential targets looked secure: they were open and ready to serve me the tapa.

As a cursory detail I decided to check the dates of their summer holidays being assured that they were all some time in August and I was safe to eat.

All except for one restaurant.  One restaurant had decided to take their summer holidays from the first of September until the 15th.  The 15th of September being the closing date for completion of the Ruta de Tapas.  It is now the 7th of September and therefore impossible for me to complete the Ruta!

Disaster!

And I had cleared a space in my diary for the gastronomic meal that was the prize for the lucky completer of the ruta sheet.  I feel thoroughly defrauded.

Although to look at things more positively perhaps participation in the ruta for the first year merely equips you to complete it more thoroughly the next year.

Next year I shall strengthen all the creased in my sheet with Sellotape as soon as I get it; I will start my eating in July as soon as it opens; I will check dates more thoroughly; I will pace myself; I WILL complete it and WILL win.

Of course thinking about tapas and meditating on all the new establishments we have found is so much better than contemplating the lurking horror of 8.45 am on Monday the 12th of September.

We had three tapas today.  The first was in a bar we had never visited in a part of town outside our usual ambit.  The tapa was uninspiring but the goat’s cheese was good and the strawberry jam adequate.  The white wine however was disgusting.  There is not justification whatsoever for any restaurant, however mean, to serve disgusting wine.  In this country it is perfectly possible to buy a bottle of drinkable wine for less than €1 - though I am using the word “drinkable” in its widest possible interpretation here.

Our second tapa was in a restaurant we have passed a number of times but never been in.  The tapa was tuna and red pepper on toast.  Uninspired.  The red wine (once bitten twice shy) was vile.

The third and last tapa was in the most uninspiring restaurant and consequently the best.  Toasted bread with caramelized onions with tomato, bacon and pork loin topped with cheese made a hearty tapa and the wine which accompanied it was workaday reasonable.  Excellent value for money – and quite enough for one evening.

I am now left with three restaurants, two of which I will visit tomorrow and the third – well, the third will be a reminder to me for next year that even the most random of experiences must be planned!

And another day of meetings tomorrow.

O Joy!

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