Beer: Cruzcampo 5%
Back street bar run on “free (chosen) tapas for every drink” line. This place, just off the beaten track, is seemingly run by and for the benefit of the owner rather than the somewhat lesser spotted tourist. The big telly at the back of the bar is screening news of the Catalonia Independence debacle. Everyone in these parts seems staunchly Spanish. The owner is binning bottles at the back of the bar – his eyes fixed to the screen. Apart from us, there is one other customer in a place which has none of the vibrancy but all of the integrity missing from the touristy joints of Tapas Alley.
Separate from the gratis range of tapas is the great big pork scratching – which as a 2Euro surcharge. Still, I want one. Having made the order I watch as the gnarled strip of pig blubber is cut into little bits and put in the microwave. So, it was hot and chewy and not like a pork scratching at all. It was alright… just not the same (or as good) as ones I’ve had before – which were bigger than, but served akin to, the Black Country varieties back home. We have a couple (or drinks, not scratchings) and, on paying up, suspect we’ve been overcharged.
Still, I do like this place.
It’s getting toward late afternoon by now – and we head back to… the expat part of town where the Brit bars are. We give them a miss, this trip, which might be amiss of us. I used to be far more of a Benidorm snob than I am now (having returned more than... anyone probably should). The expat part of town is noisy and brash – but there is a genuine sense of (apparently not overtly transitory) community here too – and you can get a pint of Amstel for 1Euro to sup on while sunburning y’tattooed torso.
Back street bar run on “free (chosen) tapas for every drink” line. This place, just off the beaten track, is seemingly run by and for the benefit of the owner rather than the somewhat lesser spotted tourist. The big telly at the back of the bar is screening news of the Catalonia Independence debacle. Everyone in these parts seems staunchly Spanish. The owner is binning bottles at the back of the bar – his eyes fixed to the screen. Apart from us, there is one other customer in a place which has none of the vibrancy but all of the integrity missing from the touristy joints of Tapas Alley.
Separate from the gratis range of tapas is the great big pork scratching – which as a 2Euro surcharge. Still, I want one. Having made the order I watch as the gnarled strip of pig blubber is cut into little bits and put in the microwave. So, it was hot and chewy and not like a pork scratching at all. It was alright… just not the same (or as good) as ones I’ve had before – which were bigger than, but served akin to, the Black Country varieties back home. We have a couple (or drinks, not scratchings) and, on paying up, suspect we’ve been overcharged.
Still, I do like this place.It’s getting toward late afternoon by now – and we head back to… the expat part of town where the Brit bars are. We give them a miss, this trip, which might be amiss of us. I used to be far more of a Benidorm snob than I am now (having returned more than... anyone probably should). The expat part of town is noisy and brash – but there is a genuine sense of (apparently not overtly transitory) community here too – and you can get a pint of Amstel for 1Euro to sup on while sunburning y’tattooed torso.
Wonderful to see this new blog. Plenty of happy reading for me here, which will make a change from news stories about the mental state of D. Trump. I really hope you’ll compile it as a book at some p(o)int.
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