Sometimes the seedy looking places turn out to be greatest. When walking along a Spanish seafront a good tip is to choose the place that has the most punters irrespective of decor or appearance. Xe Que Bó, Alicante Marina is just one of those places. It looks tackier than a Leeds nightclub carpet, but the food is fab.
Marketing null points! The sign makes it look like a Hungry Hippo All-U-Can-Eat Sunday lunch with foam balls and cheap beer. But step inside and nothing could be further from the truth. Fine seafood, fine wine list, fine (but relaxed) service and with just enough quirkiness and kitsch to make you smile.
When in dining mode, I am a grazer. I like to sample a range of flavours, and try new things as often as possible. Chinese banquets are great.  I like my Indian food to be served on as many plates as possible so I can play culinary Russian roulette with my taste buds. A spot of lime pickle on a spoonful of Vindaloo is like walking your tongue across hot coals, but this is far superior to pavement slabs of bland meat.
The ultimate grazer’s delight is a combination of three words: Spain, seafood and tapas. I think I may have found my mecca, ironically just to the west of the railway station in Fuengirola, Costa del Sol. This place is one of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten in and almost certainly the best value.
If Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, named this his favourite restaurant, and Adrian Gill, erstwhile restaurant critic of the Sunday Times, also raves about the place (albeit that he is presumably on a retainer for writing about the history of most of the major restos in Caprice Holdings Ltd), then any self respecting wino has to visit. Sunday lunch is just the perfect time to eat oysters, and my rocks were from Malden. I am embarrassed, though, to admit I had to ask the waiter to explain that Essex is where these crustacea were reared. I am such a northern oik!
The service at Scott’s is obviously superb, highly professional and (unusually) English. However, our waiter was having an off day. I had to ask three times for my wine to be topped up. You may be thinking “lazy so and so” but I would have had to walk about 300 yards to get to my bottle of Pouilly Fumé from where they parked it. Talking of which can you spot our car in the photo below?
No I can’t see it either.
In theory Dublin should be one of the best places in the world to eat shellfish, since Dublin Bay prawns and oysters are shipped far and wide. Intrigued to see if the Irish kept any for themselves, I tracked down Ivan’s in Howth (pronounced as in “hoe” not “how”), an offshoot from legendary fish and chip emporium Beshoff’s that has been clogging Dubliners’ arteries since 1913.
Stumble It!
