ALFREDO'S - a story in one hundred words

ALFREDO’S

There’s a secret hidden in the side streets of our town, known only to the locals. Tourists are directed to promenade restaurants with music, free entertainment and lights reflected in the night-dark sea.

On rare occasions some will venture further and discover Alfredo’s, where they will be shown to a table outside – only the kitchen is indoors – and given a carafe of local wine. There is no menu. Alfredo serves whatever his sons caught that day – sardines, swordfish, octopus – with salty potatoes, salsa picante and tomato salad.

The alley breeze keeps the diners cool, and if it rains there are Alfredo’s famous umbrellas.

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This week's image - thank you, Dale Rogerson - took me straight back to Tenerife, where there is a restaurant much as I describe here. It is in Los Cristianos, called El Cine, and has been in the same family since the 1970s. We spent many a happy evening there, usually with family or friends. 
Thanks to https://rochellewisoff.com/  for hosting Friday Fictioneers. If you follow the links from her blog you can read how other writers interpreted the image.

I have been busy these past few weeks with a house move, and apart from a prodigious amount of painting still to do, we are settled in comfortably for the duration. ie - until they carry us out! See my previous post for a photo.

EATING IN THE STREET

We were just in time before Carlos closed for his two-week holiday - an evening out with the youngsters - his son, my daughter, two in-laws and two Polish friends.
We ate at El Cine, a restaurant in Los Cristianos that consists of a kitchen/bar and a couple of wind-out blinds that cover tables and chairs for about thirty.
They need the blinds to keep the afternoon sun off their customers, because they are all sitting in a narrow street - Calle Juan Banajo. The blinds are even fitted with "misters" that can deliver a fine spray to cool you down.

If you arrive after 8pm you have to queue up the steep approach alleyway, that you can just see behind us in the second photo, and sit on the windowsill of the Farmacia with a drink while you wait for a table.

 They serve pescado and marisco - fish and seafood - with fat crisp chips or Canarian potatoes, and tomato and onion salad with squeezy bottles of mojo verde and mojo rojo - green and red sauce.

We had 3 plates of hake, two of sardines, one of swordfish, one of prawns and one of cuttlefish, a glass of something each, some bread and coffees. We couldn't quite finish it all, and the bill with a tip came to fifteen euros a head.
Look it up - www.barelcine.com

Then we walked along the seafront and bought Italian ice-cream for pudding, which we ate watching a young man make enormous bubbles that drifted overhead in their wobbly fashion and exploded softly.

There were children kicking sand on the beach, girls on roller-blades weaving in and out, African women plaiting hair under a lamp-post, African men hawking watches, a Chinese girl throwing neon lit whirlygigs into the night sky, a man with a keyboard at one restaurant vying with a Canarian group further along.

And no, we didn't bring the dog home.