Oh Spain...

We love being here. The people are delightful, the roads are empty, the scenery is glorious and the coastline wonderful. The food is delicious…except.

We are Northern Europeans. Our working hours are roughly 9 to 5 and we go home and eat sometime between 6 and 7 at home, maybe 8 if we’re eating out. So, when we are in Spain, where people have most of the afternoon off and begin work again at 6pm, taking their evening meal at 9pm at the earliest, we find it tricky.

Picture the scene. Today we arrived in Oviedo. We checked into our hotel and waited until around 7.30pm to go out for a drink, in the hope that we’d find an aperitif somewhere to keep us going.

We settled ourselves at a table, ordered a couple of beers and asked when the kitchen opened. 8.30pm was the answer. Just an hour to wait then.

Around 8.15 we ordered another couple of beers.

Around 8.35 someone brought a “reserved” marker to our table. What? We quickly asked if our table was going to be taken. “Not until around 8.45” came the reply.

Oh no. Please, don’t tell us we’ve sat here for an hour expecting to see a menu and order food at 8.30 only to learn that we’re going to be shown the door in favour of someone with a booking? Clearly, our hunger was plain to see, because the maitre d’ returned to his desk and quickly began scanning his reservation list. Around 9pm he returned and reassured us it would be fine. We could have a table - the one over there - for a short time, maybe till around 9.30.

We thanked him profusely. That suited us well - the sooner they could bring us something to eat, the better. We also noted that he was not the restaurant manager’s favourite person at that moment, as words were exchanged by the desk. We felt that we should play our part and order as soon as we could, enjoy a single course and keep our side of the bargain, in return for his kindness is accommodating us.

So we each ordered the same; Black monkfish served Basque style and were delighted with our choice. It came fairly quickly and was served at our table by the maitre d’.

It was delicious. We lept our side of the bargain and were done by 9.30pm though he came to ask if we’d like dessert (even though we knew that someone would be wanting our table). We didn’t linger, but paid the bill and booked a table properly for Wednesday evening in order to savour a meal properly here.

As we left, we noticed he had charged us for just one portion of monkfish and pointed it out to him. He waved it away with a “de nada”, not even accepting a tip for his kindness.

How special was that?