Dinner at Pepe's

Today we drove to Murcia, Spain. Murcia is a fairly big city located about 45 km northwest of El Algar. We are planning to take a trip to Madrid for 3-4 days later in the month. Instead of driving, we decided that we'll take the train from Murcia to Madrid and rent a hotel or vacation condo for 3-4 nights to see the sights of Madrid. We can get reasonably priced train tickets, can leave our car parked at the train station, and enjoy a relaxing, comfortable ride to Madrid. So we drove to Murcia today to find the train station--dry run. After locating the train station, we decided to have lunch. On the strength of a recommendation from Trip Advisor, we walked a couple of blocks and down a little alley to a restaurant called "Pepe."

Bravo, Trip Advisor! This was the best meal we have had since arriving in Spain. And it was a really fun experience. The restaurant is a little hole-in-the-wall down an alley. It is very small, with maybe six tables down each side of a narrow room--formica tables with paper tablecloths, very close together so we were "intimate" with our neighboring diners. We were greeted by an aproned water who did not speak a word of English. We communicated that we needed a table for 4 by holding up fingers and saying "quatro". He seated us and provided us the menu verbally (no printed menus--just the dishes of the day). He began rattling off the menu, but we did not understand a word. We got the impression he was telling us the three specialties of the day, a consume', a ham and cheese platter, (the Spanish are obsessed with Jamon), ensalad, and what we presumed was a description of another dish. We decided to be adventurous and told him to bring us one of each--that is, "uno de cada uno" per our Google Translate app! He had only told us about three dishes (we thought), so we expected to get three dishes and the four of us would share. Ends up we were slightly mistaken. I believe he understood us to mean "one of everything!" He soon brought us a lovely large basket of bread, which is the best bread I have eaten in Spain. Next we brought a small cup of "consomme'" with a large meatball in it, that was quite savory. Soon after that he brought a nice bowl of a potato, bean, ham, and sausage stew that was very flavorful and yummy. The girls were luke-warm on the consomme', and everyone liked the stew, so we told him to bring another (uno mas) bowl of the stew, thinking that would be our dinner. We were all enjoying the stew when he brought out a large plate of marinated, sauteed mushroom and onions. Yum, they were good, but we were getting full. Oh, well, we thought, that's surely going to be it! He shortly came out with a large tuna salad (ensalada atun), that is lettuce, tomato, tuna, boiled eggs, olives, and peppers dressed with oil and vinegar (we have yet to see any other choice for salad dressing). Kat and Ellie don't eat much salad, so this was left to me and John.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the forethought to photograph all the food before we ate. Above is the aftermath of most of it. You can see the cup containing the consomme', the large tuna salad, and the plate which formerly was filled with mushrooms. You can also see the two bowls of bean stew. We were pretty full and thinking of asking for the check. But what's in the foreground, you ask? Well, we were then surprised by the main dish! Turns out the earlier plates were the "tapas", hors devours!

Had I taken this picture before we ate most of it, you would have seen a large platter covered with fries and roasted peppers of some sort. Atop the potatoes the platter had four lovely pork cutlets and four lovely long sausages. Best sausage I've ever eaten! We were full, but we were embarrassed to leave the food, so we all ate a bit (actually most, because it was really good). We were afraid they were preparing more food, so I walked back to the kitchen and told our waiter "no mas!" He was surprised, but pleasantly agreed to refrain from bringing any more food. The food was outstanding, very authentic local fare, and our total bill came to 40 euros (10 each), delivered verbally (no printed bill or receipt). Perfecto!

If you're ever in Murcia, Spain, and want a lot of really excellent food, go to Pepe's!