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El Vell Sarrià (Barcelona, Spain)
by koshkha ~Endless Eating~ I don't get to visit our Barcelona office as often as I should do but I know that when I do I will never go hungry. My colleague Soledad can always be depended upon to know lots of good restaurants, often ones that are well off the tourist radar screen, and she's always very hospitable. I was visiting our ... Barcelona office to interview candidates for a job and Sole invited me and another colleague for dinner. He couldn't make it - well it was a silly thing to even have asked him since Barcelona were playing Madrid that night and Eduardo had his priorities firmly set on the football. Sole picked me up from my hotel at quarter to nine and we headed to the restaurant. I don't really like eating quite so late but in Barcelona the restaurants have barely switched their ovens on if you go any earlier. El Vell Sarria is located in the Sarria district of Barcelona. Because the city runs south-west to north -east, it's always tricky to define where things are in the city. The best I can describe the area is north-west-ish, approximately 2 km off the Diagonal but inside the Ronda de Dalt. It's one of the suburbs of Barcelona which used to be a village in its own right but has - like so many others - been swallowed up by the city's expansion. We parked up on the street nearby and walked to the village square where there's a beautiful old church. The restaurant is nearby on a pedestrian side-street on the corner of a block. It's a pretty building that dates back to 1745 when it was a large country house. It has been a restaurant since 1975 and the place has a great reputation for seafood. ~Our Visit~ When we arrived the restaurant was almost empty and I assumed it was because it was only shortly after 9 o'clock. We were shown to a small table in a corridor that joined the front and back rooms of the downstairs. In retrospect I did wonder why they didn't offer us a better table since during the entire evening only two or three other tables were taken. I'm still not sure if it was due to the football or the economic crisis. I've never been in such an empty restaurant in Barcelona. The menu contains a lot of dishes - I might suggest too many especially on a night when the place was almost empty. There were about two dozen starters with a strong leaning towards fishy dishes which I suspect is why Sole had chosen it for me. The prices were high with the starters ranging from Euro8.50 for a salad up to more than twice that for Jamon Iberica (the traditional cured ham) or grilled lobster. Sole asked if I liked octopus (I do) and artichokes and picked a couple of dishes. The restaurant's speciality is 'arroz', a sort of cross between paella and risotto which is served in a traditional heavy metal pan at the table. Arroz dishes came with a restriction that they were for a minimum of two people so we had to pick something that we both fancied and went with a dish with mushrooms and shrimps or lobster. It wasn't clear whether the 'shrimps or lobster' meant we had to choose or whether we would get whatever they had in the kitchen. We ordered a bottle of white wine - a Bouza do Rey which was delicious - and some bottled water. Bread rolls and olives were supplied to distract us from the late evening hunger whilst we waited for our starters to arrive. Looking around the restaurant I particularly liked the traditional old blue and white tiling on the walls and the beamed ceilings. The walls were decorated with old photographs of the Sarria area, including some of the restaurant in earlier times. The tables were all a bit squeezed in and I can imagine that when the place is full I would get very noisy and crowded but thanks to the football that wasn't something we had to worry about. ~Food (not so) Glorious Food~ The starters arrived. The octopus dish was hot boiled potatoes with small pieces of octopus stirred into them. I had expected more octopus and less potato but the dish was pleasant. The artichoke dish consisted of very thinly sliced slithers of artichoke which had been deep fried to look like a plate full of fried cockroaches. Not so much starter but more like a vegetarian Bush Tucker trial. Luckily they tasted much nicer than they looked. When a restaurant is allegedly famous for a particular dish, you can't help but get a little bit excited. When the metal pan of arroz came to the table my spirits sunk rather fast. I'm not sure what I'd expected but the food just looked very drab and grey. The colour seemed to have seeped out of the mushrooms and stained all the rice an unattractive drab colour. The mystery of the shrimps or lobster was solved - it was actually prawns and langoustine. The prawns had their shells removed and had been stained black so that it was hard to tell at a quick glance which lumps were mushroom and which were prawn. The laungoustines had their shells on and were annoyingly tricky to get into. I didn't bother after a while because there's so little inside the shells that it barely seemed worth the effort. The rice itself was - to my uneducated and untrained foreign palate - much too hard to be pleasant. In fact the only thing that I really liked about the dish was the inclusion of large juicy lumps of roasted artichoke and they hadn't even been listed in the description of the dish. About half of the dish was served up to us by the waiter but once I'd soldiered through my portion I really couldn't face taking another serving. I was really disappointed. For dessert we shared a dish of some kind of variation on the traditional crema Catalan - the local alternative to crème brulee. It was OK, but nothing spectacular. And to finish off the evening Sole had a coffee and I had a peppermint tea. ~Recommendation~ The bill came to a rather shocking shade under Euro100 and I was really surprised that our rather modest choices had added up to such an expensive meal, though it's a pretty standard price for a meal in Barcelona. I'm baffled that in the middle of a major economic crisis people are still willing to pay such prices for rather average food. The restaurant was OK but not as special as I expected and the rice was absolutely dreadful. If for some strange reason you find yourself in the area, I can't say DON'T go, but I certainly wouldn't recommend to go out of your way to find El Vell Sarria. ~Details~ El Vell Sarria Major de Sarria, 93 08017 Barcelona www.elvellsarria.es Read the complete review |
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Cafe Mickey (Disneyland, Paris)
by samjibabe We took our 2 children to DisneyLand Paris in March this year. We booked for the breakfast at Cafe Mickey on our 3rd day and we wasnt dissapointed at all. It was everything that we was told over the phone. The selection of food was amazing and they was always topping it up. Food was cooked nicely and it tasted fresh and hot. The ... range of breakfast items were bacon, sausage, eggs, toast, tomatoes, beans pretty much everything you would have on a full cooked breakfast. There was also fresh fruits avaliable, cereals, pastries and smoked meats too. My 2 children at the time were ages 4 and 2 and they really enjoyed the food and were full at the end, they also liked the idea of being able to see what they could have and being able to choose for themselves. We loved the idea that it was an all you can eat buffet as my partner has a very big appertite and there was tea, coffee, fresh juice and milk. although the lines for the drinks would get quite long and you have a little bit of a wait. You can also toast your own bread to how you like it too, aswell of having a selection of jams, marmalades and chocolate spreads. The food kept us full until tea time (5pm) and we had our breakfast booked for 9am so it was very substantial and well worth the price. (not sure exactly how much because we booked it in with the holiday itself). The characters gave you enough time to go and get your food before they started making the rounds at the tables and greeting the children. We had so many characters at our table that we eventually lost count. They made you feel welcome and they interated with each of my 2 children at seperate times so it didnt feel like they was in a rush to make the rounds. They also signed both autograph books for the kids too which was great as we had a couple of characters in the park that would only sign one book. The plates were cleared quickly although some of the servers looked a little miserable. When a couple found out you were english they pulled faces and tried to stay clear of the table but there was only a couple like that, the rest of the staff were polite and smiled. we went back to Cafe Mickey that evening for a change of eating in the hotel restaurant. We didnt have a reservation but it didnt really matter because it wasnt as full as we thought it would be and we was seated quickly. The children were given their own menus which had pop out glasses in the colours that were situated around Cafe Mickey (red,blue and white). The seats were comfy and there was more than enough room on the table for me, my partner, 2 children (one in a high chair) and 2 other adults that came with us, we didnt feel squished or uncomfatable at all. The waiter we had was very polite, he interacted with the 2 children and was making them laugh, he took orders with a smile and brought the drinks over very quickly. To give you an idea of the menu the foods listed were starters fantasia mushrooms, tinkerbell tantalising tomato and mozzerella, sebastian shrimp and Mickeys garlic bread, ceaser salad. mains minnis classic carbonara, princess auroras choice ( turkey escalope), areals delight (seafood) and pinocchios pasta (chicken) plutos steak. deserts mary poppins gourmand ( coffee, biscuits and cake), snow whites apple pie, woodys campsite chocolate, captain hooks creme brulee and baloo's chocolate tutti fruiti. Myself and the 2 other adults who came with us ordered the mushrooms for starters and they was delicious. There were served as 4 giant mushrooms and they came with a full bulb of garlic. they were juicy and very nice. cooker perfectly and you could add the amount of garlic you wanted by simply taking it out of the garlic bulb. The were seasoned just right and were swimming in juice like many of the restaurants had served them. My partner had the ceaser salad and again he couldt pick fault at all, the amount of cheese and sauce was just right and wasnt over seasoned. They brought the childrens meals out when they brought out the adults starters so we were all eating together and the quality of the childrens burgers were outstanding. They cooked the burgers exactly how we asked and it wasnts rare like the other restaurants had cooked them like and insisted they was well done. Our mains were a little dissapointing, We all ordered plutos steak and it was a little tough, infact my brother in law nearly choked on a piece of steak that he simply couldnt swallow because of the toughness of it. the steaks wasnt that big either but everything else was lovely. The creme brulee was out of this world, we all ordered it and we all cleared the bowl. it was creamy with just the right amount of crunch ontop. although it was sickly. All in all the food was actually really nice and not too over priced. the starters ranged from around 6-10 euro, mains 16-25 euro and the deserts 7-10 euro. You are able to use the half and full board tokens there too which was great that we didnt have to pay for it out of our spending money and we could pay with the tokens instead, although your choice of menu is alot more limited if you choose to do that. The restuarant was clean, brightly painted with tv monitors around that played clips from all the different disney films, floors were clean and the service was great. The characters again did their rounds of the tables although there were alot of characters that we had met earlier in the morning eg mickey, goofy, pluto. There were also new ones too genie,friar tuck,smee and captain hook. There was a birthday on the next table to us and the characters made a huge effort with the table and made the whole restaurant sing and dance which was really nice. On a whole i would recommend anyone who visits disneyland paris to go to cafe mickey, my children loved it and they even brought home their own cups from there, (plasic with lids and bendy straws). Its entertaining for the whole family and great quality of food for the price. Read the complete review |
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Restaurant Mundenhamer (Salzburg, Austria)
by fizzywizzy As with most cities that rely on tourism, Salzburg's restaurant scene is predictably diverse. It's also fair to say that the restaurants are, on the whole, a tad over-priced. While Austria is in general not cheap, you do pay a premium on most things in Salzburg. With this in mind we tried to find a restaurant that had been recommended in ... our Lonely Planet guidebook as being good value but, in spite of traipsing up and down the street in question three times, we couldn't find it. Fortunately we found 'Mundenhamer Brau' nearby and, mistakenly believing it to be a restaurant with microbrewery attached, we decided that it looked like a good bet. Although the restaurant doesn't brew its own beer, it does serve beers from small breweries in Salzburg and the staff were very knowledgable about the beers available and they were a good accompaniment to the food on offer. Mundenhamer serves a mixture of Austrian dishes and international classics with an emphasis on good, filling fare which reflects the seasons. Although the restaurant is in the city centre, they've created quite a traditional interior that is evocative of a more rural setting so there's a lot of wood and plenty of 'olde worlde' knick-knacks and it's all very cosy. We visited in September and the place had been decorated with items to celebrate the harvest. It's a sizeable place with lots of tables but they aren't too close together and, inspite of the look of the little booth tables, it is very comfortable. The toilets, both male and female are downstairs which I feel is worth mentioning for anyone with mobility issues. One thing that was very clear was that this restaurant has quite a few regular customers and in a city like Salzburg it's reassuring to stumble on a place that is liked by the locals. The staff, however, treated everyone alike and came across as genuinely friendly, taking the time to chat about the beers with us and enquiring about the well-being of those customers they were familiar with. I wanted to practise my German and the staff were happily obliging, resorting to English only occasionally when my German vocabulary was lacking. For those whose German is not up to the job, the menu is also available in English. As is customary in this part of the world the restaurant has a daily special which is good value but we wanted to order from the menu. When they say 'international dishes' I presume they mean things like steak that feature on menus in all kinds of restaurant rather than, say 'chilli con carne' or 'lamb madras'. The menu is meat heavy but there are fish dishes and several vegetarian choices. Alternatively, vegetarians could easily take a meat free starter and add a side dish to make a good dinner. What I liked about the menu was that instead of just being 'Austrian' dishes, there were regional interpretation of dishes and it was a 'Salzburger Schnitzel' that caught my eye. If I was allowed I could eat Wiener Schnitzel every day for the rest of my life but I thought it was only right that I try the local version here in Salzburg. In this version the meat was not beaten out and it appeared to be coated in a light batter and served in a delicious creamy mushroom sauce. It was rich but there wasn't so much that it became an ordeal. It was served with spaetzle which I absolutely adore. Spaetzle means 'little sparrows' which doesn't really shed much light on the fact that these are, for want a of a better description, little noodles which are usually boiled then tossed in butter or added to soups. There were lots of them on my plate and they were as delicious as any I've eaten. Himself changed his mind half a dozen times and eventually plumped for the meat loaf, a well seasoned course meat mixture that had been wrapped in bacon prior to cooking. It really was excellent, the meat was tasty and the bacon had prevented it from drying out without adding too much saltiness that I sometimes find overpowers the flavour of the meat it's meant to keep moist. The two fat slices of meat loaf were served with a few well roasted potatoes and a lovely mound of delicious warm sauerkraut. I really couldn't fault the food we ate here and I certainly didn't see any food going back to the kitchen when the staff took plates past our table; the other customers appeared to have enjoyed their meals as much as we did ours. Mundenhamer is open Monday to Saturday from 10.00am until 2.00pm and again from 5.30pm until 11.30pm. It's closed on Sunday and public holidays. Fixed price lunches cost around Euro8 while from the menu, main courses cost between Euro7 and Euro16. We paid approximately Euro30 for two hefty mains and a couple of beers and soft drinks. Considering its proximity to the Mirabel Platz, this is pretty good value. Rainerstrasse 2 http://www.mundenhamer.at/ Read the complete review |
Europe Restaurant International |
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1 review Local. 7 Navarhou Apostoli Street, Psirri, Athens Greece. Tel: +30 1 3211 200 |
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Local.8 Paster Street, Mavili Square, Athens Greece. Tel: +30 1 6463 060 |
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International. 14 Anapafseos Street, Mets, Athens Greece. Tel: +30 1 9213 013 |
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International. 46 Erehthiou Street, Athens, Greece. Tel: +30 1 9225 321 |
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Restaurant International / 29, Apostolou Paylou Str.Thissio - Athens - Greece. TEL.: + 30 1 3461585 |
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Restaurant International / 10 ZISIMOPOULOU Str GLYFADA, ATHENS Greece. TEL:. +30 1 8949454 |
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It is located in Fuengirola. Excellent, slightly French style cuisine, friendly staff, very popular - best to book. For reservations tel. +34 952 47 77 01 |
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It is one of the oldest Spanish owned restaurants in the village and is located in the centre of Mijas in Calle Los Canos. Closed on Wednesdays. For reservations tel. +34 952 48 51 11 |
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Restaurant International / Catalan. Nou 10, Sant Pol de Mar, Barcelona, Spain. Tel: +34 93 760 0662 |
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Restaurant International / Local. Passeig de Maragall 402, Barcelona, Spain. Tel: +34 93 429 1017 |
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