| The number 1 on its kind |
| Don’t you know “Casa Consuelo”? Haven’t you ever eaten at “Casa Consuelo”? What a mistake and how dreadful! But do not panic; that has an easy solution! Book a table, start the car, leave your family, your work, and your commitments and hit the road! Responsibilities? Do not worry and blame on me! I answer for you. |
| -And how is that place that you praise, darling? Asks the beautiful woman who comes with me with that characteristic sweetness that Slavs and Hungarian aristocrats have. |
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| -It is a road restaurant, but the best in its kind. It is an oasis for the pilgrim, a parking for exquisite lorry drivers, a pleasure for gluttons with judgement, a shelter for snobs who are tired of wandering about the exotic gastronomy. The cooking is classic and good-quality. Whatever they do, they do it supremely well. They have an awesome cellar with 30.000 bottles exquisitely ordered and lovely paintings on the walls, since they organize, sponsor and grant the only national contest about gastronomy related to painting. |
| The García López brothers are the owners of this invention. Mr. Álvaro is the one who calls the tune, but Mr. Roberto and Mr. José Ramón join and support him, agree with him and emphasize what the family captain says. They are hospitable and affectionate people, used to welcoming travellers and giving shelter to the pilgrims. We sit at a table in a corner of the restaurant, just below a painting of my friend Carlos Sierra, we are asked if we are ready, we are asked to fasten our seat belts and, without delay, we start our gastronomic tour: we start with a home made “foie-gras” and a “Tokaj” from 1981, we go on with some exquisite “Small green beans with sea food”, we get to the summit with “Have a lo pobre” (Hake with little potatoes and high-quality clams) and a delicious “Sirloin in Cabrales cheese sauce” and we land with an splendid “Fritter” and a creamy and definite “Rice Pudding”. |
| Finally, my beautiful companion, filled with enthusiasm and patriotism, exclaims something in Hungarian and this strict says to him: “I have stuffed myself”. And after one coffee, one cigar and a bottle of “Erebo” from 1999, we paid 79,74 €. Perfect! All perfect! |
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| -“You don’t stop working, Mr. José. How busy you are! What a bustle! I am not surprised at the fact that you are so fat and healthy-looking. I am afraid that you are getting a “priest belly” and “the chubby cheeks of a trumpet player in difficulty”- says the curious reader, who has a malevolent day. |
| We say goodbye to the García brothers, who wave their white handkerchiefs at the door and we go on with our tour because the gastronome’s destiny is to be here today and who knows where tomorrow. And while my beautiful companion writes this criticism, I note down “Casa Consuelo” in my Register book as the number one of restaurants that know how to serve the traveller and “give shelter to the pilgrim”, and I authorize them to show a label for a period of 50 years saying: “You can eat very well here between a hello and a goodbye”. |
| Revista "Sobremesa" - José Manuel Vilabella - May 2001 |
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