The Bar Avenida

I've been chided many, many times, by friends and acquaintances, for choosing to go into "old men's bars". If you live in Spain you know the sort of place. It's not a particularly lavishly decorated spot. In fact, normally it's a bit dowdy, poorly lit, a bit grubby. It has a tiled floor that has seen better times, the tables and chairs are a bit worse for wear too. Probably there are piles of abandoned kit in plain view - beer crates, extra tables, mop buckets and over there, by the toilets, an old fashioned chest freezer, emblazoned with a company name, now used just for ice and as a resting place for flotsam and jetsam. The bar of the bar is probably quite long and it's not particularly decorative  - stainless steel or some polished stone maybe. In the old days there used to be heaps of used serviettes on the floor by the bar. The telly will be on, though usually the sound is muted. That's not the case with the rest of the place. If what your eyes see is something a bit worn, a bit past its best then what your ears hear is a medley of very loud intertwined sounds. The coffee machine hissing loudly, the coffee grinder grinding, the clattering of washing up or something being chopped behind the bar. And, over the top of these ambient sounds there will be the people. Unlike the servants in the dining room at Downton Abbey the staff will not be going about their tasks silently. They will be communicating in a loud voice or simply shouting. The clients happily join in. As someone enters the first thing they do is to greet the bar - not anyone in particular but the throng. Metres from the bar they will be making their order whether they are heading for the bar or for their usual table. If they are of a more restrained nature they may wait until their chair has been dragged, squealing, from its parking place underneath their table to shout their order to the Pedro or Santi or Concha.

I just heard that an estimated 85,000 bars in Spain succumbed to  Covid. That's out of an estimated total of 250,000. The bars, the sort described above, are nearly always family run businesses. They open at some hideous time in the morning, for the regulars on their way to work or, in rural areas at the weekends, for the hunters. They close late at night. The money they make isn't sufficient to refit the place nor to provide a decent wage to the family who run it. But they keep going because nobody in the family draws a real wage. It's more like spending money or housekeeping money from a common pot. They are almost certainly the type of bars that went to the wall during the pandemic.

It's not as though these bars are an endangered species but they are definitely on the vulnerable list. They were a product of a poorer Spain, a Spain that went to the bar to watch the football, a Spain where the bar had regulars who formed a community and never considered going to another bar, the sort of bar which sold the same Christmas lottery ticket to the whole neighbourhood. In most cases regulars didn't really need to order anything because the people behind the bar knew that Manolo wanted a brandy with his morning coffee, a Mahou when he came in at 11am, the menú (which was almost certainly basic and cheap) at lunchtime and so on. In villages the bars were the social centre, they were the club, the meeting place, the place where post was delivered, the place where advice was sought. Nowadays it's quite common to see depopulated villages offering the village bar for free to anyone willing to see if they can make a living from it because, without the bar, the village is just some houses. 

These posher bars are usually owned by venture capital groups, by a pension fund or maybe they're a franchise operation with a carefully designed image. Naturally there are still individual bars but it's a bit unlikely that the new, enthusiastic and optimistic entrepreneur will set out to produce a bar with formica tables and plastic chairs. The difference of course is that the styled bars are there to make money, to sell you things, whilst the traditional bar might have had that same end aim but it did it with more care, with more sense of belonging, with more feeling for a neighbourhood. So, probably the days of the "old men's bars", a Spanish institution, are numbered. I feel it's our duty to use them as often as we can before time does away with them.

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Just before I go. How many Spanish bars have you ever been in that you might describe as comfy? A handful at most. Until very recently, around here at least, when it got cold, most of them never put on their heating and they'd leave the front door open. The chairs are never comfortable. Even with their considered design the trendy bars will still make you perch on high stools inside while outside, on their terraces, they are perfectly happy to use those plastic chairs, supplied by the brewery, that seem custom made to dig into the soft spot in your back.

Down the bar

I was in a bar this morning. The bar is called Arturo but the boss isn't; his name is Salvador or Salva to his friends.

Arturo is a nice bar, an ordinary bar. Plenty of Britons use it but we tend to be mid or late morning users. Earlyish morning it's a pretty Spanish environment. Clientele wise it's for anybody and everybody from pensioners and office workers to parents on the school run and working class blokes.

From what I can gather lots of Spaniards seem to leave home without a decent breakfast. I get the idea that most shower the night before so they're ready to go in the morning. It seems to be up and out rather than dawdling over toast and cereals. But regular food stops, and a real interest in food, are very Spanish traits. Anytime between nine and eleven in the morning overall wearing blokes down tools and open up their lunch-boxes. In a similar time slot bars the length and breadth of Spain fill up with people getting something to eat as a sort of more substantial mid morning breakfast.

Back in Arturo's it's around ten-o-clock and I'm sitting at the bar waiting for someone who never turned up. The noise level is high, I mean high, really high. Spaniards are not particularly quiet people as a rule, especially where they feel comfortable. It's not class related. The after show hubbub in the theatre lobby and the noise level in a truck stop transport cafe are pretty much the same. In Arturo's, every now and then, laughter, raucous laughter, breaks through the general din. The young woman who's only been serving here for a couple of weeks looks a bit shell shocked. Salva is working like some sort of machine handing out bottles of wine, bottles of vermouth, cans of soft drink, finger spreads of wine glasses. Ice chinks, the coffee machine hisses, the door bangs. Salva can I have more bread?, What's that there Salva?, Salva give me some of those red chorizos, Gachasmigas Salva, Three with milk and one black when you can Salva, Toast with cheese and tomato today Salva, Salva, how much is that?, Go on then Salva I'll have a brandy too.

A group of four men hit the bar at the same time, two of them have their shoulders against mine, they all have that sort of workshop smell - oil and grease. They're talking to each other, they're asking for things. Salva is answering all four of them and talking to the cook in the kitchen at the same time. I marvel. It's not something new, it's not something unknown, it's not even surprising but I did notice it and it did make me chuckle.

Sorry about the snap. I didn't have any pictures of busy bars and none of the Google ones were any better.

Sitting pretty

When I'm out, by myself, and I fancy a coffee, or a beer, I usually sit at the bar. That way I don't block up a table. It also saves the faff of the wait for whatever I've ordered to be delivered, asking to pay, waiting to pay and waiting for the change. Besides which there's usually something happening at the bar, something to watch or even to comment on. The bar is a public, not a private, space.

It's not comfy though and it's not good if you have lots of bags. Better then to use a table. If I'm going to sit at a table I usually order at the bar and then go and sit down.  I realise that's not the key principle of table service but it's both faster and more definite.

Maggie and I went down to Granada for Christmas. We were sitting at the bar in the hotel because there were no tables left. The bar stool was a bit rocky and my bottom overhung a lot. The innards of the stool were also palpably recognisable to my buttocks. A couple of youngsters were tormenting the automatic doors but it was a busy hotel anyway and the cold night air assaulted our position every few seconds. It was not a comfortable experience. I was reminded.

Years ago we were house hunting in Caravaca de la Cruz one February. I'd been a bit ill and I was hardly on top form. It was cold and damp outside and I remember wearing my overcoat and gloves as I perched on a wooden bar stool. The floor of the bar was as damp as the pavements outside and the street door was open. To all intents and purposes I was outside despite being inside. It was miserable.

Nowadays, in winter, most Spanish bars are reasonably well heated but there is not a lot of thought in the interior design. It's all a bit industrial. I can't remember the last time I sat on a sofa or even on a padded chair in a bar. Wood and plastic. Now I'm sure if I thought hard about it I could prove myself wrong but even when we visit places where there are traffic jams, and credit card payments are the norm, most bars are still pretty basic.

Juanito Andante and friends

Just thinking about the last blog, about being in Madrid and about going to the pictures. Yesterday we went to see Love, Simon or Con amor, Simon. I pronounced the name Simón in a Spanish sort of way and the woman on the cash desk came back at me with the English pronunciation. I've said in the past that this can be a bit strange at times. Trade names, film titles etc. can have a variety of pronunciations that are neither Spanish, in the usual link between letters and sounds, nor English in the sense that we say a word exactly as we want to.

So, I'm in Madrid, years ago. I've been drinking beer because it's easy to ask for but I want a whisky. I look at the array of bottles behind the bar. White label - odd pronunciation with the silent h and that w and probably labble instead of label - guiyt labble? Bells, double ll, a sort of y sound - Bays? Johnny Walker - odd letters to pronounce both j and w - ghhhonni wallka. And then I spy it, the obvious, the easy - J&B. What can be wrong with that? Me pones un J&B, por favor. Except that J is jota and B is be. And Spaniards don't say and between the letters. What I should have said is something like hota bay.

I got it in the end though and it's still the whisky I drink most often in bars and for the same reason.

Beginners guide to table manners

Very occasionally I write a piece for the blog which forms a part of the Country Fincas website. Country Fincas is the estate agent that Maggie works for in Pinoso.

Having written it specifically for them I thought why not use it myself? So here it is.

The English are ironic. The French don't like to wash. Germans are humourless and efficient. Well so they say. But the chances are that it's not actually true. There are some generalisations of course that are generally true. For instance punctuality is important, culturally important, in some countries and completely irrelevant in others. Punctuality doesn't really matter much if someone lives in a place without timepieces or where there are no trains to catch. My guess is that a Nigerian farmer in the middle of the countryside doesn't really care what time they start work so long as the work gets done.

Anyway, Spain is very similar, in most ways, to the rest of Europe. There is law and order, traffic is organised, water comes from taps, children go to school, supermarkets have lots and lots of food, cows are not sacred, head covering is optional, men can cut their hair as they wish, people only use chopsticks to eat under certain circumstances. In nearly all of the big things Spain is very much like the UK. There are hundreds or thousands of detail differences though and some don't seem so small when you are faced with what seems to be interminable bureaucracy or animal cruelty to give a couple of examples.

We've lived here for a while now and lots of those detail differences now seem so normal to us that we don't really notice them. When friends come to see us from the UK though it's different. They do notice. So here is my guide to eating and drinking. I'm sure that I will miss things out or overgeneralise but it's a good starting point for the tyro.

In a bar or café the server will come to you. It can be a little difficult deciding sometimes whether a place is a restaurant or whether it's a place where you can get a drinks and a snack. Table cloths usually indicate that you are expected to eat. Obviously you can choose to sit at the bar but you do not, usually, need to approach the bar to get served. Sit at your table, either inside or outside (on the terraza), and someone will come to you. If the terraza is deserted or if the bar staff do not have a clear view of the terrace it can be quicker to go to the bar, ask for your drinks, or whatever, and then sit down and wait for them to be brought. You do not need to pay until you are about to go though, if you are only going to make one order, it can be quicker to pay when the things are brought to you. If you pay the bar staff will presume that you do not need more service. In some seaside places or when a bar is crowded because of an event you may be asked to pay at once to avoid people slipping away without paying or to make life easier for the servers.

At events, music festivals, town fiestas etc. where there is a bar a bit like the beer tent at some British event, you may have to queue to get tickets which you then exchange at the bar to get the food or drink. The idea is to avoid the temporary bar staff stealing money by centralising the money taking.

Food is usually served from around 2pm through till 3.30pm for lunch and dinner from around 9pm till maybe 11pm. In tourist areas or where there are a lot of non Spaniards opening times are often earlier. Cold snacks, the famous tapas, are available at any time but anything that requires cooking may only be available when the kitchen is staffed for lunch or dinner. In the big cities food is available around the clock in many establishments. In lots of places there will be a display counter on the bar where you can browse some of the tapas on offer and order by pointing. Spaniards often order a lot of tapas to share rather than ordering a more formal meal.

Whether there will be a list of the things available or not is a bit hit and miss. Again lists and menus are more likely where there are more non Spanish customers. It's very usual for the server to list the things available and, when you ask for the bill, to simply tell you how much you owe without anything being written down.

The main meal of the day for many Spaniards is lunch rather than dinner. One way to eat cheaply and well is to have the menú diario or menú del día - the set meal - where you will usually be offered a range of first courses, second courses and desserts with a drink and bread. We Brits tend to think of the first course as being a starter but that's not usually the case and the first course is often as substantial as the second. The word menú suggests a set meal, the Spanish word for what we think of as a menu is actually carta. If you don't want to take one of the fixed options you can usually choose from the carta. The set meals are usually much, much cheaper. If you are wandering from restaurant to restaurant checking the set meal prices look to see whether the price includes bread (pan), bebida (drink), postre (pudding) and coffee (café). One of the little tricks in tourist areas is to miss those items off the list so that one 10€ menú includes everything whilst the 9€ menú next door charges extra for one or more of the items. It is very common for the menú to list postre o café, pudding or coffee so, if you have both, expect to pay a tad more.

Another little trick for tourists is that you see a blackboard outside a restaurant offering the set meal. Once you sit down you are given the carta and in it there is no mention of the fixed meal. Confused by the situation you then order from the carta and end up paying more than you intended. If there is a board offering a set meal then there is a set meal. Ask for it and you will get it.

Some places do a fixed evening meal too but it is much rarer than the daytime equivalent. Normally you will choose from the carta in the evening. One of those little differences is that if you choose something from the entrantes, starters, the serving staff will presume that it is to share with your fellow diners so the starters will be put in the middle of the table for everyone to have a go at.

I could go on but that's probably enough to digest for now.

Hello bed, hello room

There's one of those professional looking videos that does the rounds on Facebook that I rather like. In it a succession of people walk into a bar and greet nobody in particular. Then someone comes in and sits down at the table without saying a word. There are meaningful looks between the waiters and the bar becomes a little less lively. The bar owner goes over to the customer and asks "Is it that we slept together?" The client immediately grasps what is being said and restores calm and good humour to the bar by saying hello to everyone and no-one in particular.

It's absolutely true. Spaniards say hello to the room. Waiting in a bank or post office you get to greet lots of strangers. Maggie and I were in a hospital waiting room yesterday morning and everyone who came in said hello or good morning as they looked for a space to wait and most people said goodbye too as they came out of the consulting rooms and headed off somewhere else.

I know this is the custom. My trepidation over speaking Spanish does not stretch to problems with saying hello - though there is a little linguistic catch. There is not the usual match between a couple of paired words in the morning greeting - it's not buenas días it's buenos días. Spaniards do the opposite of Britons by shortening, for instance, "good evening" to "good" rather than following the English language habit of cutting "good evening" to "evening". The easy thing about this is that I can avoid this potential arror by simply saying "buenas" and, even better, that easy to say word will work at any time of the day.

There's something though that stops me greeting the room. I have no idea why but it doesn't seem to be just me. I was thinking about it this morning and I'm sure that most Britons who live here, Britons who are well aware of the practice, don't generally follow it either though I'm sure there are exceptions.

Form and function

I think it was John who told us there was a nice new bar in La Romana so, as we were passing, we dropped in for a coffee. He was right. Lots of right angles, tonal furniture, predominantly white, nice clean lines, modern looking, warm welcome and it was warm in the heated sense too,

The majority of Spanish bars and restaurants are very everyday. There's seldom any attempt to do what they've been doing with Irish style pubs for twenty five plus years in the UK - fishing rods, sewing machines and soap adverts or what all of those coffee shops that sell lattes, mochas and espressos do with overstuffed bookcases, creaking floorboards, chesterfield sofas or roaring log fires. They try to add a certain style. Ambience, well ambience not centred around handwritten notices for lottery tickets, crates of empty bottles and piles of detritus by the cash till, is in short supply in most, though not all, Spanish bars and restaurants. Bear in mind that I spend most of my time in Fortuna, Culebrón or Pinoso rather than Madrid or Barcelona.

On Saturday, as a birthday treat, Maggie took me to an eatery that we have never dared venture into before - partly for price and partly for the Porsches, Ferraris and  two a penny Beamers and Audis parked outside. It's in Pinoso and it has a reputation province wide, food guide wise and nationwide amongst cognoscenti for being a temple to the local rice dish made with rabbit and snails seasoned with wild herbs and cooked over burning bundles of scent giving twigs. The restaurant sees no need for a sign outside and makes do with a discreet nameplate so that diners know they have found the place.

The inside of the restaurant was nothing special. The tablecloths were cloth, the cutlery and glassware were clean and the servers were smart and civil but it looked like thousands of other eateries in Spain. I think it had tiles half way up the wall but then it had the stippled paint, it's called gotelé here but it's like painting over anaglypta in the UK. I wouldn't have been too surprised if there had been a telly on the wall showing the Simpsons. I don't think you could get a similar reputation for being quality eating in the UK without doing something about the decor. Different philosophy.

Down the road, in one of the villages, there's another restaurant with a growing reputation for rice. They have glass walls to the kitchen so you can see the paella being cooked, they have a printed menu (we weren't offered a written menu) and I think the waiters have some sort of modern uniform. The whole place looks like someone had a concept in mind when they talked to the builders and furnishers.

It was a good experience in Pinoso though. We had a good time and although the prices were high they were not frighteningly so. We saw another couple stick to beer and water, a pair of simple centre of the table starters, the rice of course and coffee and they got to pay with a single fifty euro note. Perfectly reasonable. To be honest though it wasn't the best rice I've eaten - a bit over salty and a bit greasy for my taste. The bread and ali-oli, also one of my yardsticks, was good but not exceptional and the salad was served a tad cold.

Now I have an idea for a place that looks great, has good looking young staff and serves only variations on egg and chips. What do you reckon?