I should have known better as soon as I saw the menu, but the group I was with had been looking forward to checking out the new restaurant everyone was talking about all week so I went with the flow.
I shall not name it because, apart from not wanting a lawsuit, restaurants are rather like books, film, music and theatre - each to their own, everyone has different tastes. What I shall say is that the restaurant is supposed to be Mexican and also specialising in food from Baja California.
Now, that did get my juices flowing because when I was aged nine and ten, we spent Christmas and New Year with my cousins in Los Angeles, and Joe, the boss man, was from Mexico and would regularly head down to Ensenada or Tijuana for the food and we went with him. In fact the second time, we stayed in the coastal resort of Ensenada and loved it so much that my late father nearly bought a condominium there. I even spent the New Year celebrations in the local village with the mates I had made, enjoying it in true Mexican style. Well, if I had wanted an Angus burger, I would not have gone to a Mexican for example. Baja is, or at least was, famous for its wealth of seafood, but that was seriously lacking. Yes a few tacos, but that’s pretty dull and old school and it’s more fun to make them at home. Then there was the bill, the hottest and spiciest thing on the menu. Mallorca can fool all the people some of the time...