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Bar Casa Puga, Almeria

7 Oct

Yesterday we took Mick’s mum to Almeria shopping.  Well, at least I wanted to go shopping and the last time Sadie went to Almeria with one of her other boys she was taken straight to the football stadium and home again!  So we thought she deserved to actually see the city this time, you know, with shops, coffee stops and everything!  I always like to go to Zara Home at the Mediterranean Shopping Centre and needed to exchange something.   But our other main reason for going to Almeria was to take Sadie to our very favourite tapas bar for lunch.

 

Casa Puga exterior

 

Casa Puga is something of an institution for the locals; located in the old town near the cathedral, it has been run by the same family since 1870 and is a truly authentic Spanish experience.  It has a fabulous long marble bar where people stand and have a drink and a tapa, where the waiters tot up and write bills in pencil on the bar and then there are a certain amount of small marble tables, mainly at the back for a proper lunch or dinner.  You are all crammed in together, which is just as well as you want to see what everyone else is having (in these places they always seem to serve stuff which isn’t on the menu, and we hate missing out!).  They serve the best mushrooms, prawns in batter and the most fabulous jamon iberico – it is the good stuff and pretty pricey by standards around here – 17 euros for a plate, but plenty for three of us.

 

As authentic as it gets!

 

The staff run around constantly, bringing more dishes in any old order, and you just lift your glass to indicate wanting another, so you are never really waiting for anything.  Mick finished with what I can only describe as a miniature black pudding paninni – exquisite.  As we were having a leg of roast lamb for dinner we decided not to go too crazy, but could have easily stayed until 4 o’clock stuffing ourselves – it is the most wonderful place to end a shopping trip – you need to arrive by quarter to two though, in order to get a seat – otherwise you have to stand and eat at the bar, not good if you have been schlepping about for 2 or 3 hours.  Evenings there, particularly on Friday nights, are noisy, smoky, fun affairs and attract a vibrant and interesting crowd – so long as you can persuade one of your party to drive home it is worth the hour long trip.

Here’s the fabulous mushroom recipe as shown by Juan the barman.

Casa Puga telephone number: 950 231 530

Riad Cabrera/Fatima’s Restaurant – Sierra Cabrera

13 Sep

If you are happy to go for an ever so slightly hairy drive into the hills that are Sierra Cabrera, you couldn’t find a more charming gem than this fantastic restaurant.  It nestles in a dip high up in the Cabrera’s, near the town of Turre.  The influence of course, is Moroccan and is where Fatima herself hails from.  The restaurant is absolutely beautiful – a fabulous terrace to dine or have drinks on in the warm summer and early autumn nights and an intimate bar inside with stunning Moorish tiling for when the evenings are no longer warm enough to be outside.  The huge inside dining rooms are immaculate and stylish and would make a magnificent venue for any party, whether it is a formal wedding reception or a special birthday or anniversary do.  So all of that without even mentioning the food!

The view onto the terrace from the restaurant

Well, you need a good twenty minutes and a large gin and tonic (served in a wonderful goblet) to study the extensive and inventive menu.  It is a joy to read and very hard to decide what to choose and in fact, when deciding,  you are in your mind already planning your next visit!

To start you have to select one of about twenty six – no mean feat!  Duck foie with blackberry sauce and sweet wine jelly does it for me (but among other things you could have Spanish ham and melon, anchovies, fresh marinated tuna tartare with wasabi sauce, ostrich pate, various delicious sounding salads, prawns, risottos, fresh pasta with pear and cheese….. I could go on.

The beautiful terrace

The house specialities consist of various delicious tagines (lamb, chicken, venison and vegetable), several different types of cous cous, fish pie with Moroccan herbs and spices, confit of duck cooked in onion oil, cinnamon, lemon and honey to name a few.

Then there are the most delicious meat and fish dishes, including suckling pig with mashed apple, lots of beef choices and roast leg of young goat with cous cous.  There is fish for every taste, red tuna rolled in sesame with teriyaki sauce, grilled hake, cod, or tuna and prawn kebab.

There is separate dessert menu, if you manage to get that far.  I am sure you have gathered that this is a high end restaurant but still offers fantastic value for money.

The service is warm and welcoming and I guarantee you will want to go back again.

Go for lunch if you are scared of driving in the dark, but do go – you won’t be disappointed.

Riad Cabrera telephone number: 950 092 042

Restaurante La Cabana – Mojacar

6 Sep

My blog today is dedicated to my dad – it is a very simple Argentinean grill on the main drag on Mojacar Playa but it is my dad’s “favourite restaurant in the world”.  We will be taking him there the week after next – he would go straight from the airport if he could!  The staff are great and we have been going there for 7 years and never had a duff meal yet.  It is a large, no frills, airy place, with a terrace for warm nights.  They have the best Argentinean beef ever, rib eye, sirloin, fillet and rump and it is fantastic value too.

La Cabana outdoor terrace

They serve chirichurri, a kind of chilli tapenade and blue cheese with brandy with hot bread first so you have something to nibble whilst you decide which cut to have.  They do gorgeous rack of lamb and chicken and vegetable kebabs too, together with huge platters of salad with everything in them so perfect for vegetarians (although I grant you not many vegetarians frequent La Cabana – why would they?).

My mum always just has the salad and pinches a tiny piece of steak from each of us as it is too much for her.  The other thing they do fantastically well is big fat chips and really that is all you need – we never bother with a starter and rarely have a pud so it ends up being like the most sumptuous fast food place and if it is just Mick and I, we are in and out within an hour which always makes us laugh!  But mostly we go in a large party of friends or family and everyone loves it.  If you are down here it is simply unmissable and I bet you go there more than once!

La Cabana telephone number: 950 615 179

Chiringuito Perichan – San Juan de los Terreros

2 Sep

The Perichan chiringuito is situated a few hundred metres down from the Calypso Hotel at San Juan, 20 minutes from the cortijo.  It is a favourite with Spaniards and English alike and during the summer months it is essential to book for lunch, especially at the weekends.  It is a large airy space, cool inside or if you prefer you can sit at a table outside.

Perichan interior

The staff are friendly and slick and you never have to wait for a drink, some bread and alioli (garlic mayonnaise) and a menu – a winner with me as I hate having to try and attract the attention of waiters who are obviously busy, but refuse to catch your eye!  This way everyone is happy and no-one minds a short wait until your order is taken.  You need time anyway to peruse the vast menu – endless starters of boquerones (fresh anchovies), squid, octopus, prawns, salads to name a few.

Choose between the sea view...

Main courses consist mainly of lovely fresh fish, always fantastic and grilled to perfection, or all kinds of grilled meat and kebabs, burgers if you must and a kind of all day Spanish fry up, good for brunch.  If you are spectacularly hungry, order the mixed fish platter, grilled not fried, and a huge salad, a bottle of Rosado (rose wine) or a cold beer and some agua con gas and you are all set for the next hour at least.

...or the mountain view

There is no hurry here, no kicking you off for the next sitting and no rushing you with dessert and coffee – you are nearly always offered a chupito, a liqueur of the house (sometimes you are offered a drink of your choice if you have had a particularly large meal!) with the bill.  This beach bar is a must during a visit here – the beach is gorgeous too so spend the whole day there and sleep off lunch under a brolly at the Calypso Hotel.

Perichan telephone number: 610 784 360

San Juan de los Terreros

31 Aug

The last Saturday in August and I am thinking “Can it get any hotter?” I am rushing through my chores, the rooms, clearing up breakfast and doing a bit of preparation for dinner tonight as we have a houseful – 10 including 4 under the age of 7!  The littlies are having lasagne at 7 pm so that their parents can enjoy a relaxed dinner later.  They are all allowed to stay up tonight for the outdoor cinema – they are on holiday and they don’t want to go to bed, even the littlest 2 year old! 

By two o’clock we are just about ready to head off to one of our other lovely beaches at San Juan de los Terreros – only a 20 minute drive away.  So we head off for the pleasant short drive there, a windy road through lots of hilly countryside and nothing on the road because is it lunchtime, something, rather like the French, Spaniards take great pleasure in though it is a rather less formal affair. 

We go to our favourite chiringuito, Perichan, which is packed but they find us a table for two.  Even though there are dozens of people the service is great – they take your drinks order immediately and bring them back with bread and garlic mayonnaise and leave you to peruse the menu, taking the pressure off them and you not waiting!  I order grilled sepia with salad (squid) and Mick orders a hamburger because I am cooking fish tonight!  The menu is huge so there will be something for everyone but as we on the sea, obviously fish is the choice of the day.  You can have huge platter of mixed seafood or fish to share, a bottle of vino and a salad for under 20 euros a head.

San Juan Calypso hotel

Then as we are a bit pushed for time today, we head back down the beach to our favourite spot, in front of the Calypso hotel.  There are beds and brollies for hire, an air conditioned bar for those who wish to escape the heat and a great restaurant too but you need a bit of time to linger over lunch here.  We nap and read a little, and then just before coming home at 5.30, I go for a delicious swim.  The waves are up and I leap around to keep above them and enjoy the feeling of being on holiday, albeit only for a short while.  We wish we could stay till sunset, and next week when we are by ourselves we will.

La Posada del Candil – Seron

17 Aug

Sometimes, when we’re feeling a bit ‘desert-ed out’ we say ‘let’s go and find somewhere new’  which generally means inland as we have driven quite a distance along our coast.  On one of these days, Mick remembered a place that he had read about called Seron so we thought we would head off there.  It is around an hour’s drive from the house but as always driving here is a doddle as there is virtually never any traffic on the motorway and the roads thereafter.

Seron is set high upon a hill and is an ancient little town which seems to sell nothing but, well, ham!  There is the ham factory, the house of ham, the family ham shop and ham interiors (well I made that bit up).  But seriously this is obviously what Seron is famous for.  It is a lovely little town though and provides cool relief in the summer and a good little excursion with a beer at the end of it.

We came across a fabulous Casa Rural – a sign for which we came upon when heading up to Seron itself.  To find it, you take the turning before the town and drive up and up and just when you are thinking “where the bloody hell is it?” you are on top of it – literally.

It is called La Posada del Candil and has undergone major renovation – I mean big time.  They have obviously spent a fortune as it is very very classy and immaculate. The view is astonishing and puts one in mind of being in an Alpine forest in Switzerland rather than dusty Spain.

La Posada del Candil

When we arrived it was clear that they had a massive party arriving any time soon – the tables were all beautifully laid out inside and there was lots of activity going on in the kitchen.  We were starving by this point and so I sought out an official looking dude and fell at his feet asking please for a menu and a small table.  He laughed and said that if we wouldn’t mind eating on the “porch” (actually the fabulous terrace with the view!) then he could provide a simple meal for us.  Our rubbish spanish came in very useful as not a word of English was spoken, as you might imagine.

The view from our table

We ordered delicious wine by the glass, ham (of course) and then another load of stuff which we weren’t entirely sure what we would be getting!  But we kind of knew that this was a pretty special place and that it would all be good.  It was – fantastic skewers of meat, sausages, chorizo, lamb chops – all done on an outside barbeque in the car park – a meat fest really so if you are vegetarian I wouldn’t recommend it unless you aren’t hungry and only want to look at the view and drink!

Buena vista!

Another clever little touch is that on their card they include the co-ordinates of the location so sat nav is easily done and numpties like me won’t get lost.  It is rather remote to say the least.  They have rooms here too which I would say is a must if you choose to go for dinner – the drive would be very dark and a bit scary and it is too far to go for dinner.  Lunchtime is a different matter though.

As we drove down the hill again, we were met by a string of cars containing the party – I think it was a wedding party as they were all glammed up to death.

Anyhow, check out their website in addition to our pix shown here.  Another visit is definitely due.

La Posada del Candil telephone number: 696 388 561

Las Brisas – Villaricos Playa

16 Aug

Placido Domingo or Lazy Sunday to you!  We went down to our nearest beach at Villaricos to meet some friends for lunch at one of our favourite restaurants, Las Brisas.  It is a charming chiringuito that serves fantastic food at lunchtimes.  6 or 8 choices of fresh fish, prawns, salads, and a decent choice of meat, steaks, lamb chops and pork dishes.

Lovely Sunday lunch

If you want the traditional lunch of Paella, you need to telephone the day before (apparently it is naff to have paella at any other time of day though goodness knows why!).

Paella - order the day before!

After a two hour lunch (pathetically short) it is down to the sea 10 yards away for a refreshing dip – the waves knock us off our feet and all hope of looking like Ursula Andress emerging from the surf goes out the window!  We don’t care – we have the rest of the afternoon ahead of us.  The beach here is under 15 minutes drive from the Cortijo so even if you just want a swim and a beer for an hour during the day it is no hassle.

Villaricos Playa

It is a lovely natural beach, with no umbrellas or beds – you take your own.  There is a natural lagoon so the water is always really warm at this time of year and the shore is flanked by lots of local Spanish families coming down to enjoy their regular family day out.  They bring everything but the kitchen sink with them and sit right on top of the water’s edge so nipping in and out of the waves is not too much effort!  They won’t leave untl sundown, but I have to get back to cook dinner for my guests but luckily I have prepared most it in the morning, so only a bit of last minute cooking to do.  I won’t get to bed before midnight as the kids have requested ‘The Hangover’ in the outdoor cinema after dinner.  There will be plenty of time for early nights in the autumn and if I am lucky I will get a short siesta in on Monday afternoon.

Las Brisas telephone number: 639 600 949

Vera Beach

12 Aug

Vera Beach is a beautiful long stretch of sand where you can happily spend the day sunbathing and swimming, or for those of you who like a bit more action, wind surfing or sailing the catamarans for hire.  It is just beyond the water Park so you can spend the morning on the beach and go to the park in the afternoon.  The water is clear and warm and there are beds and umberellas for hire.

Mick and I are off to Vera Beach after work for a drink at Lua, the beach club there (click here for pics etc) It is a very chilled out place for a drink either outside looking over the beach on the grass area or inside in the cool of the air-conditioned bar.  It is around 15 minutes away from the Cortijo by car so easy to get to either for a quick drink or to go later on for dinner.

You can lunch at Lua and use their facilities too -either a casual pizza or something more substantial – it is all good.  They also have a swimming pool and beds and umberellas next to the bar if you prefer.  Be careful which part of the beach you end up on though as it is Spain’s first legal naturist resort at one end so you may get more than you bargained for.  Err not for me thanks!  I like to take my early evening cocktail with my bikini on!

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