Restaurant reviews by Justin Tanner, our retired food critic who wouldn’t fancy being in the dressing room when these woman ‘footballers’ find out they all have to wear the same outfit
ONCE a year even I say it: bollocks to Britain. Much as I love living in the greatest country in the world, even I need a break sometimes.
So I’m off to the patriot’s choice: Spain. They’re more British than the British on the Costa del Sol, even boasting some of our choicer villains.
There’s more pubs per square mile than Soho, everyone’s English and nobody wastes their time speaking Spanish. Far better than Turkey or Italy where they’ll have your wallet away in a cloud of moped exhaust.
I have my first pint at the airport at 6am, along with a full English breakfast, and reflect that if it wasn’t for the French garlic-and-ponciness addiction Wetherspoons would have a full five Michelin stars by now. Kwik Fit should set up a rival rating.
Anyway, the Heroes of ’66 Hotel, my usual establishment, is just as I remember it with all the best British beers – Stella, Carling, Grolsch etc – on draft, because Spain might have achieved fuck all as a country but it recognises we know best on lager.
After a few hours by the pool sleeping off my jet lag, I head on down to the Princess Diana for tea. A proper Spanish boozer with the menu to match, and it doesn’t disappoint.
Steak and chips, egg and chips, fish and chips, and ketchup and vinegar on the table as standard. They even do a chicken madras, so you can’t call it parochial. I order the roast and it’s as good as anything you’d get in a Beefeater.
The peas are perfect, the meat’s good and burned and the roast potatoes? Why would any prick order patatas bravas when they’ve crisped these perfectly, other than sheer xenophobic ignorance? I’ll be in here every night of my stay.
Not everything’s perfect, not even here. There’s a few Irish bars popped up which seems totally out of place to me. This isn’t fucking Dublin. And I swerve all the places selling ‘street food’ because I don’t need to eat on the street. I’m not homeless.
A week here topping up my sunburn, talking about Villa’s prospects next season and enjoying the absolutely top-notch tribute acts at the hotel, and I’ll return home as refreshed and rejuvenated as if I’d fucked a waiter.
Boggles the mind that you have to come abroad to get the full benefit of what Britain’s done for the world’s cuisine. Not like foreigners would ever admit it, but all roads lead to home.
