Ventorilla La Perra

As we wound down our time in Spain in the Spring of 1976, one of our last official acts was to throw an anniversary party for ourselves. It was our twentieth anniversary. In the States we had entertained by inviting other people into our homes. In Guam extended families either attended fiestas or gave them. But in Spain the custom was to invite each other out to restaurants.

For example, we knew of a fish place in The Calvario, a village sparated from Torremolinos by a protrusion of land that swept into the Med. The little fish place had no menu because they didn’t know what was going to be caught that day. Each time we ate there, we’d have to go through a little ritual.

“Hay calamari?” (Squid)

“No, no hay calamari?”

“Hay boquerones?” (Deep fat fried fingerling fish, eaten bones and all. Full of transfats. Yum.)

And so we would proceed through the same litany every time we went there. But we could always depend on fresh fish, salad, bread and wine for about $2.00 a head.

Our multlilingual neighbor, Claude deBretteville, always solved most of our problems, whether it came to procuring entry stamps for passports, finding a hotel room during Romería, or, in this case, finding a suitable restaurant for our party. She found a very small restaurant on the outskirts of town that had been used as a stage coach house in the early 17th century and had stayed in constant operation since. Ventorilla La Perra.

The restaurant was small but had an ambiance a Stateside business would kill for. It was actually built 300 years ago, not two years ago and made to look old. White stucco exterior, tile floors, wrought iron. Our 22 guests dined outdoors that evening on paella, salad, and bread. The paella contained shellfish, lobster, fresh asparagus. Gourmet magazine could have featured this dish. We also had an open bar. Our guests could have as much beer, wine or soft drinks as they wanted. I suppose tea and coffee as well.

It was a wonderful party. To employ the old cliché, a good time was had by all. I especially had a good time when I got the check. It was about $80 U.S., generous tip included. And we didn’t even have to clean up. We just went home. Now that’s the way to celebrate an anniversary.

Dining Out in Torremolinos

As we walked into Torremolinos from our home on a more or less daily basis, we passed by a Danish restaurant. I noticed they offered a five-course meal free to anyone who could eat the whole thing. “The whole thing” was the key. If you passed out halfway through the meal, you still had to pay for the whole dinner, even though you had only eaten half. No doggie bags. Joanne and I let this temptation go for a year, but eventually succumbed.

We ordered the meal with some wine and prepared ourselves for the inevitable food fest. Salad first, right? Wrong. Salad did not appear on the menu. A little bread, but no salad.

The first course was a fish course. Pickled herring in sour cream, fish fillets served with rich sauces, bacalao, lobster, salmon, shrimp, eat, you fools, eat.

` The second course was a hot meat course. Hot roast beef, hot roast pork, ham, meat loaves, enjoy, enjoy.

The third course was a cold meat course, more beef, more ham, meat rolls stuffed with pimientos. Having a little difficulty? There are two more courses to come.

I wonder what Circle of Hell we’re in?

The fourth course was the cheese course. If there is one thing the Danes do well, it is cheese. And the French, the Spanish, the Italians, the British. And all the countries had representatives in the cheese course. It was a regular cheesy United Nations.

There was no way we could make any serious indentures into the cheese course. To this day, we have no idea what the fifth course might have been. Nuts? Peanuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts, cocoanuts? As it was, we walked home and didn’t have to eat again for a long time.

If the Danish dinner was an experiment in applied misery, my favorite fish restaurant was a joy forever. Torremolinos extends to the beach as does it’s neighboring area, the Calvario. The two places are separated by a finger of land jutting into the sea that happens to be devoid of vegetation. Hence the name “Calvario”, which means something like “finger of land devoid of vegetation” or “bald place.” The Calvario had no beach to speak of, but hundreds of little stores and restaurants stacked on top of each other.

I don’t even know if my favorite fish restaurant had a name. Certainly it did not blazon into the night with the aid of neon. Nor did I ever see a menu, for there were none. They didn’t know what was going to be caught that day, and therefore didn’t know what they would have to sell that night. You had to learn the names of the fish.

We could take our friends there and each order a fish dish in which we could all share. They served deep fat fried elver eels by the basket. Their little eyeballs looked like flakes of black pepper. Most of our guests ate them without asking. They may have suspected, but they didn’t ask. They served deep fat fried herrings that we ate bones and all. Don’t ask, don’t tell dining. Instead of onion rings we had squid tentacles fried a la Romana.

We also had individual salads, bread and wine. Usually people ate and enjoyed. They especially enjoyed when it was time to pay up because the cost was around $2.00 per head.