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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