Eating out!!

Okay - once again long time no blog - I blame the "visitors" of the previous blog.  Too much fun and not enough seriousness!!! Sounds great eh?

Up until the family arrived we had had quite a quiet summer, deeming it too hot and too much effort to go out much but when you have visitors its go, go, go.  So we went!!!

Because there are so many restaurants and cafes available its hard to know sometimes where to go.  We ended up trying three very different places in the evenings and before the family left yesterday I did a "Restaurant Review" with them.  Below is the result (please bear in mind that this is the opinion of six individuals and quite clearly is not an "authentic" review).  These are average scores from all six of us, out of 10.

El Fogon - Alhaurin el Grande - Gerald Brennan Street.

Food - 5.5 (Starters were good - main course was what let the score down)
Ambience - 3 (bear in mind we were sat outside and its a busy street - inside for during the winter looks delightful)
Service - 7.5 (lovely waitress)

Dinner at Max Beach - Calahonda

Max Beach - Calahonda

Food - 8.5 (good international cuisine with some local flavour)

Ambience - 8 (the atmosphere was what we went there for)

Service - 7 (efficient but not exactly friendly)

Finca La Mota - Alhaurin el Grande 

Food - 8 (good international cuisine)

Ambience - 7.5 (Arrived as sun setting then as it got dark lanterns were placed on tables - nice)

Service - 8.5 (nice and efficient)

The general opinion of the the visitors was that Max Beach was the favourite for a party atmosphere but Finca La Mota was a nice place for a quieter meal.  The service was good in all three restaurants which counts for a lot especially at this time of year when all are busy.

As I say - this is just a bit of fun between the 6 of us but we have all eaten in some pretty good places in our time so we tried to make it an "informed" study.

We would eat in all of them again!!

Sunny (?) Spain??

Well - now I really am going to keep this blog up. Promise.
It came to me last week reading comments on Facebook and other social networks, you can take the folk out of the UK but you cant take the UK out of the folk!! WE STILL TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER! And yes didn't we give it hell. We have lived in Spain for just over five years and I have to say that yes, the weather around Christmas and New Year was the worst we had encountered but it amounted to DAYS of rain not MONTHS.

Yes, we all have different reasons for coming to live in Spain but for most of us, if we are honest, the weather is a major point. And for about 300 days of the year its great but boy oh boy don't we moan when we hit a glitch.

There is a reason for this though. Spain does NOT DO RAIN. It quite simply cant cope. The roads become littered with debris that is washed out of the storm drains (the storm drains that for 2 thirds of the year are rubbish receptacles!). Then there is the mud. I have never seen two dogs conceal so much mud about themselves. They gather it like flowers from a meadow (poetic - yes?) and then hide it surreptitiously beneath their fur only to be shed in lumps (both wet and dry) over furniture, clothes, car - hmmmmm! Special !

But for those of you not yet arrived and those still agonising over the decision - its not all bad. Spain needs its rain. We "apparently" now have enough reserve water for two years if it doesn't rain again in that period. (Hmmm not quite sure who is responsible for that information). Whatever the reserves, we do have lots of water and should be able to enjoy a fine old summer of swimming, watering the vegetables and most importantly showering!

And now we are enjoying lovely warm weather with the odd day not so great but really back to situation normal for a Costa del Sol January. Phew!