�0 FOREIGN LANGUAGE NEWS 037

By John

Just once in a while, the wind-ing unknown road less travelled leads you to a little gem.one such is restaurante el Bodegón in the tiny sleepy vil-lage of Santa Catalina which lies just off the main road between Puerto de la Cruz and icod de los Vinos. nearer to icod than Puerto, you can find the excellent weekend market, packed with people and the freshest of fresh produce.it was after leaving the market one weekend that we turned off into Santa Catalina looking for a bar to have a quick coffee. we passed by this restaurant, firmly closed at that time of day, but there was something about it that intrigued me (per-haps the new windows in an old Canarian house, perhaps the rather upmarket signage?) and i put it on my list for a future visit.recently, we did just that and it was a complete revelation! Maybe i should be keeping this one to myself? Through the windows we could see candles already lit on the tables, nice napery and glassware, a rather attractive bar area, and profes-sionally dressed staff flitting hither and thither. in we went, admired the bar and kitchen, and were asked if we wanted to dine outside on the covered rear terrace, or in the bar area, or in one of the three small rooms converted from meld-ing two Canarian cottages into one attractive whole. a lot of money has been spent on doing all of that.Blimey! we were not expect-ing this sort of place out here in the boondocks!warm bread and a fantastic plate of fine ribbons of butter were put before us. would we like wine? of course! The house red wine is from the ribera del duero on the Peninsula and the three of us settled on a litre. it far exceeded our expectations as a house wine. we could have

chosen local red or white wines from around icod (starting at €11 for a Viñátigo) or many more expensive ones from fur-ther afield.our starters were three dishes as follows: one of perfectly ripe beef tomato flavoured with thyme and oregano and dressed with olive oil (€2.75), one of homemade croquettes garnished with crispy ser-rano ham shards (75 centi-

mos each), and one of baca-lao (cod), rice and vegetables sitting on discs of sliced potato (€3 each).This place offers their house speciality of various different types of rice-based dishes, starting from €8 per per-son, and all looked interest-ing and slightly different. My friend Peter and i shared one of those specialities, a large bowl of arroz caldoso but served with

a twist for €11. The seafood (calamari, clams and lang-oustines) had been put into the rice, the whole had been covered with a cheesy top-ping, and then popped into the oven to bake, so finishing with a drier caldoso than nor-mal, much like a paella with a crusty topping added. none of us had seen the like of it before, but really good it was, with a rich and deep flavour.

My wife chose more conserva-tively and took the fillet of pork with apples, sauté potatoes and vegetables, for €10, and pro-nounced it superb.Service was attentive with-out being overpowering. once again, we pondered just how and why this place had come about off the beaten track. we saw no signs towards it from the main road, so it must flourish through repeat business, and no wonder. it has now been open for two years, so they have obviously

hit a sweet spot. Could i fault it? well, you can always find something if you try hard enough. in this case, after much deliberation, we could only come up with the com-ment that the chef likes to sprinkle paprika powder over the edge of every plate. next time, hold the paprika! and the bill? only €61 for three of us. i say “only” because, for what we had and the serv-ice we received in such a nice place, it was extremely good value for money. n

FOOD

reSTauranTe el BodegÓn

What a revelation!

La VinotecaRestaurante El Bodegónavenida 25 de noviembre, 21, Santa Catalina. la guancha, Tenerife. Tel: 922 350 236Closed: Sunday evening, Monday & Tuesday.Kitchen open: 1pm to 3.30pm and 8pm to 10.30pmloo Score: 6/10