Last Sunday Maggie put up less resistance to eating at Eduardo's than usual. There were several possible reasons for the feeble struggle that she put up but I think the main one was that, being Mother's Day, she knew that most restaurants would be awash with diners and Eduardo's is never awash. We had house guests too and I think that Maggie recognises that Eduardo's offers a rich and varied Spanish experience. And so it was. There was the usual reluctance, on the part of the restaurant, to be clear about what there was to eat but, in the end, we got a good meal at a good price. At least I think so. You'd have to ask John and Claire what they thought to get a reasonably unbiased view. Maggie and I have entrenched positions about Eduardo's that are unshakeable before logic or reason.
The thing that did surprise me was that the meal was very Pinoso yet it seemed to be new to our friends. Amongst other things we got entremeses, well generally a selection of local embutidos, sausages, in the way that salami and pastrami and black pudding are sausages, rather than bangers, served as part of the range of food before the main dish. For a main we had been offered gazpacho but Maggie's not a big fan of the local gazpacho. It's not the liquid salad gazpacho of Andalucia but a rabbit stew served with a sort of pancake in the base of the bowl and a dough, based on wheat flour, floating in the stew. The gazpacho rejected we went for rice, for paella.
Now John and Claire are no strangers to Spain so they know what a paella is but the local rice is a bit different to the "generic" paella of the coast. Rice dishes are different all over Spain and the one with seafood or chicken and those flat green beans isn't the one in these here parts. Our rice, still cooked in a paella pan, has rabbit and snails with a dry rice only a few grains thick. It's success depends on the quality of the broth that gives the taste to the rice. Something a bit different for J&C.
Rice over it all looked a bit humdrum - Vienetta, variations on creme caramel, industrial cheesecake etc but there was a final flourish when we got perusas. We call them dust cakes because when you bite into them they melt in your mouth. They disappear. Like dust.
An experience, as always, and, I realised, quite Pinoso.
