CAFFEINE, RUINS & CHOCOLAT

This is a barraquito.
I don't know if they make it anywhere else in the world - it might be a Canarian speciality - but if you come to Tenerife you must try one. My stepson and his girlfriend spent one happy holiday searching for the best one.

The layers are - bottom to top - condensed milk, a liquor known as '43', hot milk, strong coffee and milky froth, the whole thing finished off with cinnamon and a sliver of lemon zest.

The most experienced restauranteurs present it still in layers which, after admiring briefly, you stir together and then drink. It is wonderful after dinner - sweet and strong and alcoholic - and full of caffeine which I have been advised to avoid.

But because I cannot enjoy one of these during my shopping trips, I now frequent a little place in Las Galletas called Cafela, where the green tea is the best I have tasted. A bonus is the view in the pedestrianised street behind the tiny cafe - this is an elderly couple's way of creating a garden outside their two-room apartment.






What a shame that someone can't renovate this little gem of a ruin that sits abandoned a few yards away.
If I had the money - and could track down probably a couple of dozen absentee heirs - I'd do it myself. It's fifty yards from the sea, ditto from the shops - what more could you want?










And, returning like an addict to the caffeine theme, this shop opened its doors just beside the car park this week.
"Chocolat!" I gasped, probably aloud, but it was not so - the damn place is yet another shoe shop.