Ramiro

The Food

Instead of littering this review with literary ambitions and a greedy use of metaphors: the table is steady and covered in beer sponsored paper. I walk back towards the front entrance and down a flight of stairs to wash my hands. This meal was during Covid, but before that had happened and to this day before my meal I wash my hands. In the mirror I see myself as when I’ve eaten magic mushrooms or lsd I look into the pupils and see the future. The future is a lunch during an escape from the Paris lockdown. On the right of the staircase leading up is a room that fits about ten people. It hasn’t happened yet but one day that will be a table I will share. Apart from the hand dryer the downstairs is quiet. Back at the table the room hums: voices, pots getting thrown, glasses clinking, sizzles. Our waiter brings toasted bread with butter. Hyperbole: I swear to Laura that I will open a place where everything is served with bread and melted butter. We order beers. From this point on the waiter will keep an eye on our beers and bring another each time we’ve almost finished. This sounds as if they want you to get drunk but helps me focus on the meal. Don’t fret about the tab either, a beer is €1. Very unromantically we order from a QR code scan : Clams à Bulhão Pato - at least five cloves of garlic had been chopped with a rough hand and cooked in olive oil. The clams are steamed in this and their liquor blends into green and garlic infused oil. The cooks add lemon juice, chopped coriander. Dishes like this, when the waiter lifts the lid off the pot the aroma makes you woozy. You hold onto the table. This reminds you of Ketamine and a time when you couldn’t get out of your chair. The clams get sucked, the shells get thrown into a bowl and then you add the bread to the sauce to soak. This poet named sauce is too rich to drink so you dip bread in until there is no sauce left. A sapateira recheada is placed in front of us. We had eaten two the day before at Ribadoura on Avenida da Liberdade which paled in comparison. The difference between a supermarket pastrami sandwich and Katz Deli. This was laden with beer, port, boiled eggs, pickles, mustard, mayo, lemon and spice. Not one piece of shell in the mix, unlike the other one. The crab is stuffed. We were getting there. Getting closer to filling up and going back to the hotel for love. The buttered bread, beer, plates and napkins kept coming and going - the table was uncluttered and clean. This type of service suits me and is more attentive than the hovering waiter who forgets the essentials when you ask. We’ve all been to a restaurant where there are more waiters than customers where they forget your water or wine but do not forget to charge. They think they deserve the tip but these waiters get the tip for the keen eyed professionalism, their way to please customers, get them to leave and to come back.

Last for lunch: grilled carabineros. The prawns I’d ogled through the window years back and had given me deep FOMO from years of other chefs pictures on Instagram. Here I was sucking the head in a sweet umami rush. Someone was shooting green tea, butter and the ocean into my veins. The head was sucked crunched and chewed. I pulled the tail flesh out of the shell with my fingers. The room smelled of butter and garlic, the last beer arrived on top of the bill. Sounds of crabs getting cracked, pots, glasses and bottles and cutlery dropping rose up in the air.