11 Thursday Jan 2024
Posted in birthdays, friends, restaurants, sevilla
Birthday Week is in full swing with a few nice meals planned with friends, but this one I must say was especially fabulous. I had seen a post on Instagram about Restaurante La Sal offering a new Tuna & Sherry tasting menu and I just knew I had to try it. And so did my friend Reyes! So we popped over this week and Charo took wonderful care of us. The menu is below, along with translations. But if you’d like to see close ups of the dishes have a look at my Instagram post.
10 Wednesday Jan 2024
Posted in sevilla, spain, tapas, tapas bars
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This week my pal Lucy and I met for our annual “birthday lunch” (hers is on the 8th, mine on the 7th) and this time I asked Lucy if she wanted to try somewhere new I’d been meaning to visit. And yeah, she was up for it. I had high hopes because this is a second location of a restaurant I’ve known for years, and this was supposed to be their “tapas bar” version. And well, it started off fine, we had a nice table and proceeded to order a couple of snacks to start. But things went a bit downhill after that. Our waiter was obsequious the point of being both fawning and rude at the same time (you know the type) and obviously thought we were tourists, so when we later made a couple of comments about the food he very rudely/politely put us in our place. I mean, in the end it was okay overall, nothing great but nothing awful. UNTIL THE BILL CAME.
You know me – SHAWN OF THE BREAD – I almost always send back bread that is immediately brought to the table because 1) I usually don’t want bread and 2) I don’t want to be charged some stupid amount for something I haven’t ordered. I do know a few places that offer amazing bread and I am very happy to order it when I actually want bread (they ask first) and pay the price on the menu. Fair enough.
To be clear… it isn’t legal to charge for any food brought to your table that you haven’t ordered. Things like bread and olives, etc need to be listed on the menu as a food item and, if you order it, you pay for it. Just like anything else on the menu. No problem. But if it shows up on your table when you sit down – and even if you eat it – you are not obliged to pay the charge because you didn’t order it. Fact.
Which brings me to fucking service charges. Most places these days do the sneaky BREAD/SERVICE CHARGE addition to their menu and so even if you send back the bread (like me) the bill will still show the charge and if you question it the waiter will often say it’s a service charge. ILLEGAL.
I mean FFS… bread is a fixed cost, like ice and napkins, all bars and restaurants know what they pay for bread each month, and it always used to be factored into the price of the overall bill. Until some greedy smart ass came up with the idea of using a “bread charge” like an entrance fee. And suddenly everyone was doing it. I mean, why not? You get people to pay an extra 1-3 euros per head just to walk into your bar or restaurant and FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING EXTRA.
That’s where the law comes in handy. Except so few people seem to know about it. And they also don’t know (especially tourists) that this “service charge” is not given to the hard-working staff, it goes straight into their pockets. So people come here going OH WOW, EVERYTHING IS SO CHEAP, except it’s not cheap for us, because we don’t make as much money as in other countries. Then they go AND YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO TIP IN SPAIN. Honestly, I despair sometimes. Anyhoodle, this rant is shooting off into a few directions here when the point is to let people know they do not have to pay for anything they haven’t ordered and especially not for a illegal service charge. Hope this helps.
09 Tuesday Jan 2024
Posted in coronavirus, covid, hope, sevilla, spain
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As of Wednesday this week there is a return of the national mandate requiring the use of masks in all hospitals and health centres in Spain. THANK FUCKING GOD (or what/whoever). And about time. Though of course once governments make these decisions it’s always way past the time they were actually needed. Still I guess… better late than never?
We are still not being given accurate information about recent rampant global Covid and Flu infections and deaths, let alone any recognition of Long Covid sufferers. The WHO and other such organisations started “recommending” the use of masks a few weeks ago which of course was a red flag for people who aren’t running around living their “normal lives” as if the pandemic never happened. THE WHO KNEW THEN that a huge Covid wave was coming and… oh look there it is.
From mid-December I have cut my tours to a bare minimum and would have stopped totally but, you know, financial suicide. I’ve also cancelled the two short research trips planned in January while I was “off work”. Though if there was still a mask mandate on public transport I would have considered doing them.
It was honestly killing me the last few times I had to go to various hospital appointments during the past couple of months and NOBODY had a mask on, not even cancer patients waiting for treatment in the waiting room. AND NONE OF THE DOCTORS. I mean…
Sometimes I’m a bit nostalgic for those lockdown days when it felt like, for a brief moment, we actually cared about each other. But as soon as the governments told us we were free to go back to our normal lives people doubled down on being selfish and uncaring. It was the death of empathy. Well, hopefully it was “just” the beating to a pulp of empathy and she still may recover. At least I hope so.
08 Monday Jan 2024
You all know how much I love living in Spain. I love the country, the people (well, mostly), the culture, the food and wine, the pretty much everything… except the bit about it being so casually racist. To the point where almost nobody will admit to it. And every year this becomes glaringly apparent during the festival of Los Reyes Magos – The Three Kings – on January 6th. This is traditionally when kids receive their presents over the holidays, just as the baby Jesus received gifts from the three wise men. On January 5th there are massive parades everywhere with floats and lights and music, culminating with the final float of the Kings. WITH BALTHAZAR INEVITABLY WEARING BLACK FACE.
Above you can see the usual depictions… Gaspar from India, Balthazar from Arabia and Melchior from Persia. Their gifts had special symbolic meanings: gold signified Jesus’ status as “King of the Jews;” frankincense represented the infant’s divinity and identity as the Son of God; and myrrh touched upon Jesus’ mortality. So far so good. EXCEPT that during the cabalgatas (parades) and other festivities Balthazar is always a white guy in black face. And somehow most Spanish people see absolutely no problem with this. Just like the people running the new 5 star hotel in Triana see nothing wrong with keeping racist tiles on their building. Why? Because IT’S TRADITION.
This caused a bit of a stir over the weekend on Twitter with both Spanish natives and non-Spanish residents (including me) posting comments and/or photos of black face Balthazars all over Spain. Mostly us non-Spanish were met with “go back to your own country” (those were the polite replies) as if somehow after 32 years I don’t understand Spanish culture. I’ve probably lived here longer than some of these commenters have been alive. Meanwhile, the thing about traditions is that they can evolve like anything else, otherwise we’d still be burning non-Christians on the stake here. I mean if Spain can embrace Santa Claus, Halloween and fucking Black Friday then I think there’s some wiggle room for removing racist “traditions” such as this. Of course, the obvious solution would be to just get a black guy to be Balthazar in the processions… except… there aren’t any. Or at least not many who are allowed to assimilate here in any meaningful way. And that is also racism, but you know what they say… the first step to solving a problem is admitting it exists. ✌️
07 Sunday Jan 2024
Posted in birthdays, casa azahar, sevilla
casa azahar 