The Dinner Question / Mash-up

The dinner question. In Olón, you have limited choices each with its own spin on the evening. There’s Leila’s BBQ shack on the central square – you pick out a hunk of meat and they grill it then and there and serve it up with rice and menestra (beans in sauce). Leila’s is good. It’s – usually – pretty quick, it’s cheap and it is a hunk o’ meat with beans! By that I mean, it’s plenty good filling. But it does only offer a limited palate. Twice a week is pushing it. So where else... Sometimes by the time you get to Leila’s they’re already finished – run out of one of their three key ingredients. Then they usher you down the street to the less-good version near the football pitch... this is very much an “only when Leila’s is done” kind of deal.

Then there’s the Argentinean couple who run a little pizza-grill on the side of the street. A nice alternative to mix it up but a little pricey – I say pricey, this is not literally true, but psychologically compared to anything else... and you always end up having to get two. Ojas bar also offers expensive pizza but it being primarily a bar, it’s hit and miss, and the beers you consume while you wait are the priciest in town.

Alternatives on the weekend are plentiful, all the cabañas on the beach offer any kind of seafood in any number of cooking methods. A fine thing indeed; complete with the fresh juices and coconuts on offer, your culinary weekend begins and ends on the beach. With one exception; Jenaro’s weekend chicken! Slow roasted in deliciousness it sits there spinning on its golden gauntlet luring you in from about noon. By seven or eight it hits peak condition; and served up with... rice and beans it makes a phenomenal dinner.

And ... that’s kind of it. With the exception of Rasimar that is. I don’t know why it took me two months to try it out. Maybe I was saving it, maybe I was put off by the fact that there’s no menu and they come and talk to you about what you want. That’s right, they just have a crack at whatever you’re hankering for. So on a Friday after a particularly exhausting couple of weeks and with Leila’s already ushering for the evening I decide the time is now.

The friendly matron approaches and asks if I’ve been before. I say no. She launches into a well-practised spiel of which I catch little. Then starts listing off the meat/fish options currently available. I pick out words in the spiel – pollo – pescado – pasta. I pick a word and offer it up for inspection. This little interchange is followed up by another three rounds by the end of which I am getting a meal based solely on words I recognise rather than any concept of what would be the appropriate use of say ... chicken. Concentrating as I am it’s only when the matron leaves off and sends a boy back with a beer before I tune into my surroundings. And the tune filling my surroundings is My Heart Will Go On. To complete the scene are a French Canadian couple at the other end of the veranda. Moments after this observation I auditorily scan further in the hope of combating death by Dion. And I come up with a win. Across the street on a concrete stage are four young guys – mid-teens – getting all b-boy to the sounds of Apache. Now we’re talking.

This delightful mash up continues with the unlikely combinations of Lady in Red and House of Pain, then Hotel California – complete with French-Canadian sing-a-long – combined with some generic electro-pop. The b-boys eventually tired of one-arm-hand-stands and one of their number starts leading them all in boyband routines complete with short-shorts and camp as you like arm gestures. Food is finally served to Total Eclipse of the Heart. (not the Hurrah Torpedo version)