Showered, changed and full of expectation, at 6.00pm we walked across the road to the restaurant, (it's the pink building with the arches - this is taken from our room, so not far to walk) careful of the Spanish traffic, not that we have found it to be as bad as some people suggest, but there is a roundabout with both a local road and a dual carriage through road to negotiate, it’s difficult to know where to look first.
We walked into the restaurant and we were the first customers in. It’s absolutely huge inside and at the far end there is the most incredible oven which looks like a wood burner where they just rake some embers level and then cook the food over that, it looks about 30 feet wide. It must be incredibly hot to work there. There is the head chef sorting the warm breads and olive oils out keeping a very cose eye on everything that's going on. No-one is allowed to stand idle. It was amazing how busy they all were considering we were the only 2 people in, but it was Saturday night, they were obviously expecting a busy night.
We were shown to a table, we were actually going to eat here – oh boy, it better be good or Dan will be getting an e-mail from me first thing Monday morning, this place has come with his high recommendation. We were sat not too far from the cooking area and it was incredible to watch them prepare the foods. We are both people watchers and this place just had so much going on.
It was an interesting experience. From the UK, we get the impression that the whole of Europe is fluent in English. Not so. The waiters in this restaurant knew about as much English as we knew Spanish, it was going to be a fun evening. High on the list of things to do, learn basic Spanish! It took a lot of discussion to sort out 2 glasses of house red! I could have ordered 2 beers, but fancied trying the local wine.
Having ordered a couple of drinks, we were given our menu’s, each of which had an English version and a Spanish version. This made ordering extremely easy, we indicated the number of the dish on our English menu and the waiter matched it to the Spanish menu – a very simple idea, but worked extremely well.
Neil ordered prawns in a garlic sauce and I had a variety of cold meats, we always try each others food anyway, as a lot of people do so we had gone for 2 quite different starters. We then had a sea-food paella to share, well we were in Spain.
When it arrived it looked fabulous and I really wished I had taken my camera, and it tasted as good as it looked. There were all sorts of stuff in there, mussels, crayfish, prawns and it didn’t take us long to finish it off along with the local red wine. We finished with coffee and had to agree with Dan, it is a very good restaurant and well worth the wait. He will be getting an e-mail on Monday, but only to say thanks for making us aware that it was a good place to eat.
It had filled up very quickly and there was a huge mix of English and Spanish family groups. It made for a lovely atmosphere on a Saturday night and certainly re-enforced our views of moving to Spain for a more family orientated society.
When we visit next, I may suggest eating there again and trying something else off the menu as it’s only a short drive to the airport and fit’s the departure time quite well.
We are next over in February, I can’t wait El Patio is well worth a re-visit.
We walked into the restaurant and we were the first customers in. It’s absolutely huge inside and at the far end there is the most incredible oven which looks like a wood burner where they just rake some embers level and then cook the food over that, it looks about 30 feet wide. It must be incredibly hot to work there. There is the head chef sorting the warm breads and olive oils out keeping a very cose eye on everything that's going on. No-one is allowed to stand idle. It was amazing how busy they all were considering we were the only 2 people in, but it was Saturday night, they were obviously expecting a busy night.
We were shown to a table, we were actually going to eat here – oh boy, it better be good or Dan will be getting an e-mail from me first thing Monday morning, this place has come with his high recommendation. We were sat not too far from the cooking area and it was incredible to watch them prepare the foods. We are both people watchers and this place just had so much going on.
It was an interesting experience. From the UK, we get the impression that the whole of Europe is fluent in English. Not so. The waiters in this restaurant knew about as much English as we knew Spanish, it was going to be a fun evening. High on the list of things to do, learn basic Spanish! It took a lot of discussion to sort out 2 glasses of house red! I could have ordered 2 beers, but fancied trying the local wine.
Having ordered a couple of drinks, we were given our menu’s, each of which had an English version and a Spanish version. This made ordering extremely easy, we indicated the number of the dish on our English menu and the waiter matched it to the Spanish menu – a very simple idea, but worked extremely well.
Neil ordered prawns in a garlic sauce and I had a variety of cold meats, we always try each others food anyway, as a lot of people do so we had gone for 2 quite different starters. We then had a sea-food paella to share, well we were in Spain.
When it arrived it looked fabulous and I really wished I had taken my camera, and it tasted as good as it looked. There were all sorts of stuff in there, mussels, crayfish, prawns and it didn’t take us long to finish it off along with the local red wine. We finished with coffee and had to agree with Dan, it is a very good restaurant and well worth the wait. He will be getting an e-mail on Monday, but only to say thanks for making us aware that it was a good place to eat.
It had filled up very quickly and there was a huge mix of English and Spanish family groups. It made for a lovely atmosphere on a Saturday night and certainly re-enforced our views of moving to Spain for a more family orientated society.
When we visit next, I may suggest eating there again and trying something else off the menu as it’s only a short drive to the airport and fit’s the departure time quite well.
We are next over in February, I can’t wait El Patio is well worth a re-visit.
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