Food: El Aljibe, Cadiz, Spain, 10th April 2007 and 15th April 2007

We went here (no website!) the night before we went to El Faro with Kiran and her friend Steffi. I can’t really remember what anyone ate!! Indy [in between his barely sensical ranting on other issues] has come up with the thought that I should have a notebook to take to restaurants so that I don’t forget! Genius. Anyway, I will do my best to fill in the gaps*!

Starters

Scallop and langoustine gratin (Me)

Tuna Carpaccio with manchego shavings and avocado sauce (Jessie)

Vegetable timbale (Kiran and Steffi shared, Spanish style)

Main Courses

Milhojas of prawns and cod (me)

Prawn and spinach lasagna (Jessie and Steffi, but not sharing)

Some sort of salt cod dish (Kiran)

Desserts

Chocolate cake (Kiran and Jessie, not sharing again)

Cappuccino ice cream with flaky pastry (Me)

Tiramisu (Steffi)

Food Cost: approx. €80 (I didn’t pick up the bill for some reason)

Wine

Bodegas Julian Chivite, Navarra, Gran Feudo, Chardonnay 2004

Wine Cost: €11.25

Another great value meal, ’tis the nature of the region. When we arrived it was pretty dead although we weren’t there that early (it must have been about 9. I suppose the fact that it was Wednesday did not help, the restaurant part (restaurant upstairs, tapas bar downstairs and outside when the weather is good enough!) was not full at any part of the evening. Once again we had a friendly waiter and some pre dinner drinks (juices for the ladies, a glass of fino for myself) downstairs in the bar area whilst we perused the menu. The menu was in Spanish so there were some terms we didn’t understand but the waiter really helped out, at one point bringing out a scallop shell to demonstrate!

Upstairs the service was a little more austere but still very efficient. I chose the wine on the basis that we wanted white, I knew the Navarra region to produce good wines, this was the only bottle from Navarra. That is was chosen on such a flimsy basis is even greater reason to celebrate how good it was; bright yellow almost in colour, it had a slight fruit taste and was not at all oaky (something that often overpowers chardonnay taste?) and even Kiran, a resolute non-wine drinker, was led to conclude: “for a wine, that is pretty nice”. Buy some if you can but initial internet searches suggest low availability.

On to the food. Our starters were all delicious. Jess loves tuna, loves carpaccio and loves manchego so that was always going to be a hit. Kiran liked theirs so much that she ordered it as a main course when we returned later in the week (see below). Mine was served in the scallop shell and the creamy and rich mixture of cream and cheese in the gratin was nicely broken up by the seafood. The only negative aspect was a slight grittiness where the filling met the shell.

The main courses were good, but not quite up there with the starters. Kiran’s salt cold was too salty, I can’t remember what the source was that accompanied it but it didn’t take away the overly saltly flavour. This may seem something of a unfair charge, to label cod too salty but my dish was also made of salt cod and it had a far better balanced flavour. So ner! “Milhojas” we translated as “millefeuille” but I think it would be more accurate to say layered since there was no pastry to be seen. It was once again in a cream based sauce which meant that I was getting pretty stuffed. This wasn’t so much of a problem on that evening but was the following lunch when I longingly stared at the el Faro dessert menu. Jess and Steffi’s lasanga was very tasty they both admitted but was somewhat lacking in prawns! This was especially galling as we had been debating how the prawns would be fitted into the lasagna, it seemed that sparingly was the correct answer!

The dessert menu was a little dull (as they tended to be almost everywhere that we went in the region) but we were all in the mood and so tucked in regardless. Steffi declared her Triamisu delicious (and ordered it again when we returned). Jess and Kiran asked about a particular chocolate dish and were informed that it was based around a biscuit of some kind. When it arrived it was pretty much chocolate cake (and a slightly dull chocolate cake at that) and so something must have been lost in translation. My own dessert was tasty but unimaginative, the Cappuccion ice cream tasted strongly of coffee but the flaky pastry pieces that accompanied it were drizzled with honey.

As I mentioned, we returned to the restaurant on Saturday, this time with Jessie B and Steffi’s mum, Claudia, in attendance. I won’t go into too much detail (!). We had intended to have tapas but the Saturday night clientel had crowded out the bar and it was a little too cold to sit outside so headed up to the restaurant again. Everyone ordered just one course apart from me who was ordering the wine (same wine) when this pact was made and thus looked like a right plonker tucking into my starter (what I thought would be asparagus with hollandaise but turned out to be a terrine of asparagus and what tasted like whey) with a crowd of onlookers. Claudia and Jessie B ordered a sea bass dish in which some pieces had an tough, uncooked texture: I would be interested in knowing whether this is just the way sea bass is or whether it was uncooked- we had some debate upon the matter.

The highlight for me was certainly my main course, the signature dish of the restuarant (according to the rought guide) of deer in a chesnut sauce. The deer was tiny roasted cutlets that had a high fat-meat ratio but were cooked excellently and complemented perfectly by the chesnut sauce which had a slightly smoky flavour to it. A really tasty dish for game lovers. We finished with a round of cafe solos.

All in all this was a great restaurant, we paid €25 a head for a three course meal with wine, coffee and pre dinner drinks the first time we went so it was tremendously reasonable as well.

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*Jessie clearly has a far superior memory to me as she was able to recall almost everything that people ate and thus make this look far better than it would have done.