Mid-afternoon, entonada on vermouth and sleepy from sunshine, it’s time to placate my growling belly and seek out some local fare. Marla leads the way back towards el Rastro to Cervecería Cruz – La Casa de las Navajas, a boisterous, harshly-lit tapas bar heaving with Sunday market-goers and garrulous Spaniards.
Squeezing past the bar, it’s hard not to slip on the paper napkin-strewn floor, nor to rub shoulders with sweaty patrons bellowing out orders over one another as they fight for prime real estate at the metal countertop. By a stroke of luck, we manage to nab a little table in the back corner, naturally without chairs, as eating on your feet, packed in like sardines, is the Spanish way.
A bedraggled waiter wipes his brow before brashly taking our order. He turns towards the bar and regurgitates at the top of his lungs a procession of plates: “Navajas a la plancha; pimientos de Padrón; gambas a la plancha; patatas bravas; berberechos a la plancha … y quarto vermuts!”
Getting a smile (smirk) out of our waiter
A little dish of briny green olives and pickled onions keeps our hunger pangs at bay, before a substantial dish of grilled razor clams doused in garlic and parsley butter arrives. Letting the fine white flesh slither down my throat, I’m surprised to discover how tender and succulent it is, quite the contrary to an industrial strength rubber band I had imagined.
Pimientos de Padrón (fried green peppers); green olives & pickled onions; & vermouth
Next arrive plates of fried green peppers; grilled juicy prawns; fried potatoes in a spicy sauce and some kind of bloody tasty grilled cockles that I don’t recognize. I dive in to devour the delectable morsels. With oil dripping down my chin and forearm, I too find myself partaking in the incessant finger wiping game, as I tear the first of many paper napkins from the metal dispenser. However, unlike my Spanish companions, I can’t quite bring myself to tossing it on the ground.
Tapas aftermath & the ubiquitous white paper napkins
As tapas is no static game, we slug back the last of our vermouth and march on to the next spot…
