The dinner-hour at Seville is seven o'clock. There is a Restaurant Suizo in the Calle de las Sierpes, and a little restaurant, the Eritana, with a pleasant garden, is to be found near the turning point of the drive that the beauty and fashion of Seville take on fine afternoons down the Paseo de las Delicias by the river. If you are tempted to try the Manzanilla wine with its proper accompaniment of snails or langostinos, visit the Taberna, opposite the Madrid Hotel; and if you are a bachelor, do not mind an atmosphere of smoke, can make yourself understood in Spanish, and like local colour, take your café au lait of an evening in the Café Cantante of the Calle Sterpes. You will recognise the house by the little dancing-girl on the lamp.
Bobadilla
The junction of the lines to Seville, Granada, and Algeciras is Bobadilla, and there all trains wait for half an hour that the passengers may feed. The meal is a very fair sample of Spanish cookery, and you are given soup or eggs, according to the time of day, an entrée, a joint, and fish. I can still recall a Bobadillian meal, with the taste of garlic acting as a sort of Leitmotiv in all the dishes, of omelette, stewed beef and beans, a ragout of veal, fried fish in butter, and cheese. Do not omit to cast an eye on the fair damsel behind the bar. She is a typical Andalusian beauty and is used to admiration.
Grenada
The hotels Siete Suclos and Washington Irving are the two principal hotels near the Alhambra, and are crowded with tourist-trippers of all nations, Americans and Germans predominating, during the tourist season. At the Siete Suclos the cookery is said to be Spanish in character. My personal experience is confined to the Washington Irving, and on the first day of my stay, when I tried to order breakfast and the waiter, in answer to my query as to what dishes were ready, rolled out with great rapidity, "Beefsteeake, colfolanam, baconnegs, mutton-chops, mutton cotolettes," I thought that the local Spanish dishes sounded something like English ones. Englishmen who live in Spain tell me that they generally go to the Alhambra, which I take to be the Casa de Huespedes, 3 Alhambra, a lodging-house where I fancy only Spanish is spoken.
Cadiz and Jerez
At Cadiz the cooking at the Grand Hôtel de Paris is Spanish and good of its kind. At Jerez the cooking at the Fondas de Los Cisnes and La Victoria is Spanish also. This is the menu of a dinner at the Hôtel Los Cisnos:—
Consommé de Quenelles á la Royal.
Filetes de Tenguados á la Tutus.
Chuletas de Cordero á la Inglesa.
Pechugas de Pollos á la Suprema.
Perdices al jugo.
Ensalada Rusa.
Espárragos de Aranjuez, salsa blanca.
Mantecados de Vainilla y Fresa.
Postres variados.
Algeciras
The town on the Spanish side of the bay has redeemed Gibraltar from its ill fame as a place of entertainment. The late Ignacio Lersundi, under whose rule the Bristol in London—now converted into a ladies' club—gave one of the best, if not the best, table-d'hôte dinners obtainable in the English capital, supervised the arrangements of the Hôtel Reina Christina, and the table-d'hôte dinner there still is an excellent one.