Casa Rural "Bidean" - Puente la Reina (Navarra)
They offer a room for €70= for one person, including a menu (without drinks) and a breakfast. It's not cheap, but the other hotels in Puente la Reina hold similar price-tags. The rooms are very small indeed, and one constantly has to move the bed (on wheels) to be able to reach the bathroom. Copper taps are everywhere of course, but the tiles are very dirty indeed. However, maybe one should expect that in a Casa Rural? The view consists of a small patio with a yellow wall only, at 2 meters distance. Not very "rural". There is only one, plastic glass in the bathroom. Not very "rural" either!
A very rustic (or: rusty?) showerhead, and a murky bath. Copper Oxide is poisonous.
Stickers everywhere in the bathroom: "Save water!", "Do not use bathtowels!" Again, this does not sound very "rural", and also very unhygienic in a room which isn't cleaned properly on a regular basis. (In reality they intend to say: "Save hot water, so that we get lower electricity bills!")
I was told that dinner would only be served between 2000 and 2100 hours. Be on time or you will not be served! A plate of 6 tapas in the bar costs €10=, not cheap for a few snacks. Breakfast is not served before 900 am. The dining room downstairs is quite nice, with repairs being done to the air conditioning. Unfortunately the waitress drops just about everything she holds in her hands on the floor. She continuously utters in Spanish: "¡Qué desastre!", and probably hopes that the Law of Gravity will cease to exist soon. The menu is not the same as the one which features on the sandwich board in the street. Lots of tomatoes and capsicums feature on this current menu; they are seasonal, and cost next to nothing in Puente la Reina. A few hours ago I visited the market nearby and payed 45 cents for a big bag of green "pimientos de Padrón ("tapas").
Market Day in Puente la Reina
Restaurants welcome!
Extra discount!
Beat the crisis!
Tomatoes: 35 cents per kilo!
Bell peppers: 50 cents per kilo!
No half-bottles of wine are available, and the prices of whole bottles range from €11 to €25. Water costs €1,50. Bread is served in a basket which is litterally thrown down on the table. Although this restaurant pretends to be first class, the waitress seems to have been trained in a gastro-pub.
The seafood mousse is blend, and has been obtained from a supermarket or wholesaler. It is accompanied by a mayonnaise to which a dollup of tomato ketchup has been added. This was trendy in the 1970s: a "1000-Island dressing" for prawn coctails. No slices of lemon are present though, no lettuce leafs, no sprig of parsley. Just one halved cherry tomato (from the market!)
Beefsteak served in the shape of a rat?
The "aged" beef is tough, accompanied by soft, sloppy French fries. Not very classy either, and no vegetables come ever in sight. The steak has not properly been rested, so blood flows everywhere. The yogurt mousse comes from a supermarket, and has been scooped out of the plastic container with a spoon to form three small "quenelles". The accompanying dark-red sauce (a "wild-forest fruit coulis" on the menu!) comes from a bottle.
A young couple close to me is not very happy either: "The fish is defrosted but what can you expect in Puente la Reina?" the lady says. It is topped with fried capsicum rings, a rather "nouvelle" combination. The couple also complains about the room temperature upstairs: "it's very cold!"
The waitress asks for my room number and I go up to my room. The heating system now seems to have been switched on.
Twenty minutes later - I lie in bed - the phone rings, and the waitress says: "Sir, come down please to pay your bill". The lady owner has arrived and has decided not to take any financial risks. (Apparently there is "economic panic" in some catering establishments in Spain.) Downstairs I wait nearly 10 minutes because the printer does not work and other customers are paying in advance as well. "I should have replaced this printer already years ago," the owner says. Well, printers obviously cost money, at least €40 !
During the night the nearby church bells sound every fifteen minutes ...
The next morning the breakfast is less than reasonable, with coffee from a boiler with a tap, not from the espresso machine behind the counter. Customers toast their own bread, and serve themselves cake and a fruit cocktail from a tin. Obviously this restaurant / bar / hotel isn't yet employing a chef. When I give the waitress my business card she smiles as if she wants to say: "Are we the best?" "Mala suerte" I say. Bad luck. But, it's not her fault; the manager is always responsible. This manager has taken hundreds of customers for a ride, but one bad day a journalist/foodwriter arrives! (Jack de Groot has been the owner / head-chef of a licensed restaurant in Adelaide for 6 years).
Not exactly a rural view!
The conclusion: The owner arrives only late at night to empty the till. One or two waitresses do the work, and no cooking is being done ever. Stickers in the bathroom tell the customers to use as little water and clean towels as possible to save "the environment" (and to keep the "overhead expenses" down). The costs of dinner would have been: steak €1,50, chips 0,05, mousse 0,55, yogurt mousse, 0,20, wine 3,00, bread 0,10. A total of: €5,40. (I payed 20,00 and 11,00 and 1,50 for the water, a total of €32,50. Their mark-up is 601%, not as good as Restaurante Genesis II, but still OK!
Save water? Or, save hot water?
Both of course, but: why waste thousands of plastic glasses!
Plastic glasses, and dirt everywhere you look.
