Back to our roots

Even though we have adapted to a Spanglish diet, our taste buds still need to be reminded of our English heritage. We buy Heinz baked beans, Tetley teabags and pork pies and sausages from the English butcher for example.

We don't normally eat in English restaurants though so yesterday was a rare treat.

Ken and Kay, our neighbours have been very good to us, particularly in the last year when we've needed to go back to England so many times. By way of thanking them we took them to the Downtown Quesada restaurant for the self-service Sunday carvery. There you get the usual mix of soup, salad, roast dinner and dessert. For meat we had a choice of beef, pork, turkey and gammon or all four if we'd wished. The desserts, which can often be disappointing at these places, were excellent. I had apple crumble whilst the others had home made trifle. The portions were generous and the quality was superb. Having thoroughly enjoyed our meal, we weren't surprised to find that they had served 200 covers yesterday over the two sittings.

The only carvery we have been to here in Spain that came near to the quality of Downtown Quesada was at Monroe's where a full three courses including half a bottle of wine cost an unbelievable 5,75€.

One incident that amused me yesterday; when we were getting our meat, Kay asked me if I liked "batter". Now Kay lived in London prior to moving to Spain so I thought she was asking me if I wanted "butter" which she pronounces the same. I couldn't understand why I would want butter with my meat. What she really wanted to know was whether I liked Yorkshire puddings. Yes I do but I have to say the ones they served weren't like the ones my mother used to make!