Albóndigas before they were pounced on

The week before Christmas we drove across to the south west of Tenerife to wish Merry Christmas to a few friends, including Shani and Heiko of the Katrin whale and dolphin watching boat in Los Gigantes. Whilst we were there we stopped off in Playa de San Juan to have lunch in a new attractive looking contemporary tapas bar, El Aljibe, on the seafront. It’s interesting to see how much San Juan has changed in the five years since we moved here. Then, British voices were relatively rare, but now nearly everyone we passed along the promenade were British. However, they seemed to be the sort of visitors who were enjoying what is still very much a Canarian town and El Aljibe’s tables were filled with people tucking into tapas and carafes of wine. It always pleases me to see people who are actually interested in the island, its culture and its food.
As for the restaurant itself, the quality of the food matched the attractiveness of the décor. Fried camembert melted in the mouth, the albóndigas (spicy meatballs) were clearly home made and had the tiniest hint of piquancy, but it was the incredibly tender and more-ish chopitos (tiny fried squid) which stole the show.
We might have had more exuberant Christmas lunches in the past, but sitting in San Juan with the sun on our faces, it was hard to remember one which was quite so pleasurably relaxing.