We have mainly been eating in at La Villa Wow this holiday (well, it seems  daft Nikki bringing all those BBQ tools and us not using them).  However last night with it being Rachel’s Birthday we went out to a fish restaurant in Alhurin called Casa Paco (Paco’s House.  I’m getting good at this Spanish lark aren’t I?).  Nik doesn’t really do fish and so forcing her to BBQ it for us would be a bit cruel. I also think that you lose the ambiance of a meal when you can hear the chef balking as she cooks it.  I think if we thought that Jamie Oliver was in his kitchen balking as he cooked his special then we may think twice about visiting his establishment.  If it was Heston Blumenthal, then fine.  We would be disappointed if he wasn’t suffering from exposure to liquid nitrogen or dilithium crystals.
At the restaurant Nik played safe and went for a Steak (cooked blue.  Or in other words just slapped on the griddle for a few seconds either side.  I think a good vet could resuscitate some of Nik’s steaks).  The rest of us had fish of varying types) but Rachel and Tibu went for the full Sea Food Medley.   When the meals arrived ours came with cutlery (as expected) but Rachel and Tibu’s arrived with a selection of tools of torture that any self respecting  East End gangster would be proud of.  Pliers, skewers, things for cracking shells with.  We all tucked in, but whereas in a restaurant you are usually accompanied by the gentle sound of music or the chatter of fellow diners, our audio accompaniment was that of breaking bones and flesh being ripped out of orifices.

The two of them took great delight in crunching, smashing and ripping the seafood from it’s shell.  At one point I’m sure I saw a lobster stuck in a vice as Tibu pulled its claws out.  It was like something out of the SAW movies.   Eventually it was over, but whereas we had lovely clean plates, you couldn’t tell any difference with theirs due to the mass of shells that were still on their plates.  Still, one good thing that did come out of it all though was that I finally saw the creature that lives in a razor shell. It wasn’t pretty.

Today we visited Mija and had another meal out (I know decadent or what?)  Again fish was consumed along with steak, duck, lamb, pigs trotters and ox tail.  Now this oxtail lark is a bit confusing.  I thought it was literally the tail of an ox. It’s actually bull. (No, not as in I’m kidding you, it is literally the meat of a bull).  When the waiter served me my meal he said “this was one that lost on Sunday”.  Well we were about 100 yards from the bull ring.  The waiter was one of the highlights of the meal.  He certainly worked for his tip and regaled us with jokes, which Rachel and Tibu had to explain to us.  I can’t really repeat them here, but the one which had a bidet as the punchline was certainly the best one.

Speaking of bulls, we walked up to the bull ring for a look.  It would appear that Mija is the Manchester United of the bull fighting world.  They wanted to charge us 4 Euros each just to go in and look at an empty bull ring.  If we fancied watching a contest, 50 Euros to sit in the sun, 65 Euros to sit in the shade.  And I bet you that it looks like the bull is going to win they add on extra time on as well.