bil

Well, first off I have never seen tuna on display in the CDS, just here. It's possible that my taste buds are so shite these days that I couldn't tell the difference between top grade tuna and stuff that is only fit for canning.

I'm always a little cautious when people talk like that about things like tuna and so on. Sometimes it is people just showing off to appear more knowledgeable than everyone else, often with no real basis. Everywhere I have bought tuna it has been pretty much the same. I don't doubt that it almost certainly isn't sashimi grade tuna, but it is a good piece of fish, usually makes a delicious meal, and I would have to say you are the only person I have ever heard talking it down.

jackytoo

Or just honest I have seen a few posts which have said more or less the same but I am the prefered person to quote I didn't say I didn't find any good food, just avoid the transport caff type of MDL's. Been to one or two good ones around Vejer a couple of bad ones too!

Mitzyboy

Well, to be fair quality can vary from place to place strange as that may seem.

The fish we get here is generally excellent. We eat a lot of swordfish, salmon and Tuna. However from the same supermarket it can vary so we only buy when it looks good. Monday is a bad day to buy fish here

johnnyone

I used have had plenty of menu del dias. They are generally adequate but no more, but mainly do represent value for money. Perfectly ok for everday grub but nothing to write home about and very rarely restaurant quality.
I now tend to have them less often working on the theory one good course is better than four average ones.
I also think there is a bit of rose tinted glasses about good Spanish food. I have more trouble finding a good restaurant to a poor one.
And don't believe there is not a Spanish version of Brake Bros. Most of the bars and many of the restaurants rely on frozen or pre-prepared food. eg you don't often get freshly cut potatoes anymore including most patatas bravas I have had.
And I know a freshly cut chip when I see one as the wife still cuts her own.

bil

Well, that's what you said, and this is what whitelinen said

"That usually means a few lettuce leaves drowning in vile vinegar, the ringpiece of an unidentifiable origin and rice or 6 chips, followed by flan which in reality is not a flan but a watery apology of a creme caramel."

I will repeat. Everywhere I go here, the food is of similar quality. It isn't Michelin 3 star, but it is good, acceptable and tasty food. Filling too.

I have NEVER been served any food of the squalid quality described in her or your posts. I posted to your reply because it was more detailed than hers and made the comment that you had NEVER found a good menu del dia.

We went just the other day, the small salad to start was fresh and crisp, with none of the ingredients limp. I had to apply my own vinegar and oil as always. Where is this 'vile' vinegar coming from?

The first course was a chickpea stew, the pieces of meat small, and almost certainly trimmings, but no gristle or reject material. Second course a succulent steak of tuna or pork or grouper, and again, a good quality piece of meat, no rubbish. Dessert we had a crema catalan, and a flan which was a perfectly reasonable creme caramel.

I still am at a loss to understand how you can never find decent food. I have to say that I think you exaggerate, as in these days of crisis, I think that faced with crap food, the Spanish clientele would very speedily vote with their feet. I know I would.

bil

Which were those?

johnnyone

The fish counters always display the country of origin. It's surprising how little is locally caught with much coming considerable distances.

Lynn R

Only the Spanish do menu del dia - que va! I've eaten menu del dia in Thai, Indian, French and Italian restaurants as well as Spanish.

BTW, should anyone be visiting Palma de Mallorca I recommend the restaurant Mel D'Abella in C/Concepcio (www.maldabella.com). Not a Google search I can assure you, I ate there last summer - menu del dia, which is all they do, I had chilled melon soup with mint, seafood crepe with lobster sauce and chocolate cake, cost 12€ including a glass of wine. Imaginative food, beautifully presented, lovely surroundings in a historic building and good service - and it didn't hurt that our waiter was a dead ringer for a young Ruud Gullit! And they cater for vegetarians too.

betris

Ive worked it out.He is used to pie or curry and chips and a few pints of lager.a proper menue del dia

cricketman

Depends where you shop, how much you want to pay and what part of Spain you are living in.

On the North Atlantic Coast usually at least half the fish on display is from there, but it is more expensive. It is much cheaper to buy farmed fish or fish taken from as far away as the Indian Ocean. Spain eats too much fish to be able to rely just on its own shores.

For example, farmed lubina or rosada (caught miles away) will be between 7-12 euros per kilo. While wild Atlantic lubina is between 20-30 euros per kilo.

Re tuna, jackytoo is so very ignorant it is embarrasing. Cádiz is renowned for its tuna fishing, there is a certain time every year when the wild tuna come through the straights and half the male population go to catch them, it is a tradition. Again the quality of the fish depends how much you want to pay! At 30 euros a kilo in hipercor it is a good as anywhere, for 10 euros a kilo in mercadona it will be very mediocre. You pay your money and take your chances!

cricketman

That reminds me of the best menu del dia I've ever eaten in a restaurant set inside a cave in Ciutadella, Menorca.

We had a selection of 5 or 6 starters, tasting menu style - and then caldereta de marisco, hmm. Delicious world class food and for a 30 euro menu del dia, an absolute bargain

Rosemary

Believe me what the Spanish have has no relation to Brake Bros. They even sell cottage pies, lasagne etc in individual pottery dishes, ready cooked just microwave and serve. This allows the premises, mainly pubs to serve up grub apparently home made.
Chips and potato products have been frozen and used in eating establishments in Spain and Uk for years.

Graham

johnnyone

Every bar prepares it's own albondigas? I doubt it. I have also seen individual Paella. These are frozen.
The list of tapas/meals available in most bars is so long it is impossible for the food to be freshly made, much of it is bought in.

steviedeluxe

I agree it is possible that some places (especially chains) do this. However my experience in many places in Madrid and Valencia is that you can often see into the cooking area. Go and have your morning coffee and you can the various dishes eg albondigas, bean stew etc being prepared, then (sometimes) being placed on trays, readyto be warmed up again later when served. Other tapas eg chorizo, morcilla, jamon, tinned anchovies etc are by their nature designed to last some time and don't need to be "freshly made".
Edit: If these places all bought in the albondigas, they would all taste the same. I've found in the past there was a great difference between places even in the same street. Some were great, others weren't all that. I've cooked albondigas myself - it can get a little messy when forming the meatballs, but it really isn't that difficult to do.

megmet

Exactly what I was about to say!

Of course in the tourist areas on the coast that's not always going to be the case, but even in Marbella (where I've spent much time over the last thirty years), it's still more than possible to get good freshly prepared and cooked food that is far removed from that which another poster here would have us believe.
As a more than capable cook myself, if the food here was as bad as some say we would never eat out, something we do on average twice a week!

IMO there is much snobbery about food, personally we prefer the good wholesome food that's served in the venta's here, in preference to the pretencious nothing on your plate servings in the so called 'top' restaurants, usually with an over the top corresponding bill at the end of it.