For a restaurant that isn’t Italian, there’s quite a lot of Italian and Italianesque dishes on the menu. I suppose it’s the nature of the tourist restaurants that they want to appeal to a wide range of customers and Italian does seem to be Europe’s favourite food.
That said, there was a very Mallorcan seafood “frit” to start. Potatoes & peppers diced finely and fried. Prawns,clams, octopus and squid rings for the seafood. Not greasy as a frit can sometimes be. In fact, it was all very well made. The other starter was a very simple salad of lettuce, lambs lettuce, tomato and carrot and was given a nice cheffy twist by being served up in a Parmesan “basket”.
There was something of a cock-up with one of the main courses. Hake with salsa verde had been ordered but what came was hake with a cream sauce. Do you send it back and a have a situation where she watches me eat and then I watch her eat? Nah. Not if you want to be enjoying dinner together on the first night of your hols. In fact, it was a good dish but, probably not as good as what was ordered. Hake was perfectly cooked – just flaking – served with rice and, perhaps the star of the plate, a selection of roasted vegetables – carrot, courgette, mushroom and aubergine. These were really good – roasted to be almost burnt, there was a intensity to the flavours.
I’m normally fussy about ordering veal in countries where I know there isn’t as high a standard of animal welfare for the calves as in the UK. But, truth be told, I just fancied this. Two thickish slices of calves liver – another bit of faultless cooking with there still being a hint of pink in the meat. The balsamic sauce was lovely – rich, powerful and with just a backnote hint of sweetness. Dauphinoise potatoes and some of the roasted veg to accompany.
As often the case, desserts weren’t anything like as good as the savoury courses. Ice cream felt sort of powdery in the mouth but there was a good cherry sauce to go over it. The restaurant’s take on Sachertorte was OK, but only OK (and, yes, I have eaten the original). There was really excellent coffee to finish.