Life, the Universe, and Stuff

This is coming in way late. The trip happened in early October 2006, during my untenured leave, when I attended MSWiM 2006. It was a crazy trip to get there (more stops than I wanted), but it was well worth it. I still remember an obnoxious German tourist in bright orange shirt, who looked like he'd come out of the movie Trainspotting. He argued with me in the small plane, trying to convince me that my seat was the tight spot by the window in the last row when a quick glance at his ticket stub showed he was wrong. I was already sitting down when he approached me and blurted out: "I'm sitting here. You have to move." He ended up taking his own assigned seat, but since I was just one row ahead, I was within earshot of his pathetic attempts to pick up the English girl who sat next to him.

The airport in Málaga is a bit small and nearly chaotic. I struggled with idea of catching the train to Torremolinos, but chickned out in the end and opted for the 15 euro cab ride. As the taxi that brought me from Málaga entered Torremolinos and came down to the ocean front, I was met with contradictory feelings. Was this going to be a tourist trap on the beach or was it going to have a real taste of Spain? Well, I had mixed opinions after my first day, but as time went on and I learned to navigate around the town, I discovered that there is quite a bit of character to the town, but you have to get away from the beach.

Calle San Miguel was not even two blocks from the hotel. Going up the winding street mobbed with people browsing through the cheap merchandise, I eventually ended up where the town really is. Not the ocean front town with the tackyness that is characteristic of most beach resorts (think Rehoboth Beach, Delaware). On the way up this street you pass some forgettable eateries, but eventually you find places that make an impression on the palate. For instance, Lepanto Cafeteria (Calle San Miguel, 54) - excellent pastries, strong, honest, well-made espresso. Venturing further up one night and desperately hungry, I succumbed to what I thought I was going to be a bust. The kind of restaurant that relies on attractive hostesses passing fliers on the street. It was after 10pm; the workshop ended around 6pm, after which I had a two-hour relaxing, reading interlude on the beach, followed by a one-hour nap. (Yep, that's the life.) I got out of the hotel late and was praying to find a good place to eat without too much effort, but had to get away from the beach area, so naturally, up San Miguel I went. Was this cheap seduction a sign that no good food waited upstairs? Wrong. Restaurante El Toro Azul (Calle San Miguel, 54) served me simple but delicious "salmonetitos a la plancha", grilled red mullet.



The San Miguel discovery came on my second night in town. I wasn't overwhelmingly impressed on my first dinner in town, though. The owner of a small store recommended me Restaurante Don Canape (Avda. del Lido, 20), when I asked for a place that did not cater to the tourist crowd. Only one table was occupied at the late time I arrived and by an English speaking couple. The menu was unimpressive as it contained much of the same options being served at the ocean front restaurants. It worried me that the menu was decorated with a wide selection of pictures and written in five different languages. To make it worse, it seemed that most of the dishes were served with french fries. In any case, I was sitting down and tired from a long trip across the ocean and a first excursion on foot around town. Just as I started convincing myself that one can have a sad meal for the sake of survival once in a while, I noticed the handwritten page with the daily specials. "Rabo de toro a la malaguena" caught my eye and being a fan of the Brazilian "rabada", the choice became obvious. It turned out to be comfort food for me. Nice flavors, even if I can't quite determine what ingredients distinguish it from the Brazilian dish. The canapes served as appetizer were visually impressive, even if they didn't taste as good as they looked. I passed on dessert counting on picking up a helado on the way back to the hotel. A nice surprise was ultra-chilled, alcohol free apple liquor that came with the bill. All in all, this it not a great find for a restaurant, but it was just about adequate and almost half-honest.



The rocking place in town was indicated to me by another Brazilian who was attending the conference (it turned out that she had been my cousin's thesis adviser in Brazil; talk about a small world). We tried to hit Marisqueria La Chacha (Avda. Palma de Mallorca, 3) for lunch on a Monday only to discover that it starts its work week only on Wednesday. Not having anything to lose, I came back two days later to have my mind blown to smithereens. The two best meals I had at Torremolinos were at this more casual than casual little place. (Yep, I came back for more after the first time.) Get this: no place to sit. The tables are tall and there are no stools. If you're pretty lucky, you can get a table close to the "window" that faces the street. I walked by the place several times in the course of four days and never saw any free seating space there! One could say that La Chacha is similar to a Brazilian botequim, in the sense that seating down is never a requirement to enjoy good food and a drink.



The menu is very simple and consist mostly of grilled seafood, with the exception of an "ensalada de polpo" (octopus, onions, and tomatoes in a simple vinaigrette). The seafood is placed on the very hot grill and quickly seasoned with coarse salt, olive oil, and nothing else. The flavor was as stunning as the preparation was simple. I had shrimp and "cigalas", a kind of langostine. There's a counter for ordering and picking up your food and another for buying your beverages, where they sell simple wines and beer on the tap. I didn't hear anything but Spanish being spoken at the place, what made it clear it was a locals' hang out. The guy in the picture was as about as friendly as an injured wild animal, but to his credit, he probably has to deal with a few annoying, clueless tourists now and then. After you order a second plate, though, he starts to warm up a little.



Perhaps my only screw up in the whole visit to Torremolinos happened the first time I went in search of breakfast. Not knowing that there was free breakfast at the hotel, I went around the ocean front at 7am and didn't find any single place to feed me anything. I'm sure that sleeping late every night, the town refuses to wake up terribly early. I finally learned that breakfast could be had at the hotel and not in the overpriced cafeteria that charged 8 euro for croissant and coffee. Thanks again to Brazilian connections. My wife is tired of hearing me talk about how awesome the breakfast was! Churros, a wide assortment of pastries, breads, and fruit, cava, juices, coffee, two or three hot entrees every morning, which don't include that sausage, bacon, and egg kind of thing. My morning meal was so substantial that I didn't need to eat until dinner, those late Spanish dinners.



I am almost embarrassed by the beatific look on my face in this picture at Calle San Miguel. It was shot after a lot of walking around looking for pimenton dulce de la Vera and not finding it. Wrong region of Spain for that, I guess. I was walking down the street, heading toward the beach for an hour of R&R reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - that accounts for the blissful state of mind. Since I wasn't presenting at this conference, I wasn't under any stress, but still, I managed to get very much into the talks and even to get started on a small project. As we wait for the end of winter in Pennsylvania, I have been dreaming of these warm days in Spain, of the beach, of the fantastic grilled seafood drizzled with excellent olive oil. I would go back to this hotel any day, as long as it is in a warm season.



There were a couple other restaurants I visited, which deserve some kind of mention. At the Playa del Bajondillo, Bar Freiduria Los Pescaitos and Bar Playa El Velero serve decent fried seafood, even though the prices are slightly inflated. It was interesting to walk by El Velero after 5pm to see and to smell sardines being grilled on charcoals. It was a mouthwatering experience, but since I am hightly prejudiced by against places with multi-language menus and throngs of tourists, I decided to pass. One unusual day, when I was actually hungry for lunch, I tried it out and ordered a mixed seafood platter with baby octopus, calamari, sole, and shrimp. It wasn't bad, specially washed down by sips of lager, but I never tried their crazy sardines.



There was this really casual place, called El Mexicano, where I had dinner with Bruno and Dudu, two Brazilians I met at the conference. I remember it was at a square all the way up Calle San Miguel, where the train station is. It was really cheap and decent, but nothing to remember. We had several meals together without having to plan much; it seemed that we had nearly synchronized dinner schedules and met by happenstance at the hotel lobby two or three nights. We followed almost every dinner with a beer at an outside cafè. Only once I was able to keep up with them and stay out late enough so that the only open bar was this fun, hole in the wall called Bar Amsterdam. Although we had all just met at the conference, we hit it off and in those few days we exchanged many stories and laughed our heads off.