Meson la Mezquita

Most restaurants in Benalmadena are small – usually about a dozen tables inside the premises. If they have a patio or a terrace, then there will be another dozen tables or so outside.

Meson la Mezquita is one such local Spanish restaurant. For the Meson la Mezquita, they have the advantage of the alley way, where they can put up another half a dozen tables, or more if there is a big group of customers.

I had dined with them before - during my previous visits. Two days ago, I was there with my friend Roger, and another friend. When we arrived at eight in the evening, they were still setting the tables.

The locals dine late. Most restaurants open at 8:00 pm, and they usually get busy only from 9:00 pm on-wards. We were their first customers. The advantage is that there is always a table for us and we do not have to wait too long for our orders.

The food was good, the service was good. All in all we had a very pleasant evening.

I had the fried pork fillet rolled with ham. It was quite nice.

Gambas Pil pil - prawns cooked in olive oil, garlic and chilli. This is a popular Spanish dish.

Croquetas de Carrillada - their house specials of the day. It's pork cheek Croquets

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Sun Set

A series of pictures of the sun setting behind the mountains. These were taken from the balcony of Roger’s apartment. I have the pleasure of watching the sun set everyday. I hope that some day, I could catch some dramatic sunsets.

Arroyo de la Miel

"Arroyo de la Miel is a town belonging to the municipality of Benalmadena, province of Malaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia (Spain). It is one of the three urban centers and districts that make up the municipality of Benalmadena, along with Benalmádena Pueblo and Benalmádena Costa. Although urban growth makes the distinction between them almost imperceptible, they still have signs of identity in their orography, architecture, location and urban uses that differentiate them." - Wikipedia

This is the view from the balcony of my friend, Roger’s apartment. I do not know enough of the place to add more information to the pictures. So, I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

The balcony is where we take our meals, and after that, we sit out and have our drinks. It is here that we hatch our evil schemes to take over the world.

As the sun set behind the mountain, the place takes on a different look. Due to the limitation of a phone camera, the pictures do not do the scenary justice. It is quite a view at night with all the lights.

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Second Day In Arroyo

So, here I am in Arroyo, Malaga, Spain. I arrived midday yesterday. The flight was uneventful. Everything went smoothly at the immigration.

I will be here for the next ten weeks. It’s a home-stay holiday, meaning I will be staying with my friend, Roger. I have been doing that since 2017, but had to take a two year break because of the pandemic. Now that it is safe/free to travel again, I am back.

However, Roger has moved to another part of town. But it is not too far away from the old place. So, although it is a new place, I am not unfamiliar with the surroundings.

Roger was kind enough to loan me his laptop and set up a workstation for me. That is great. From here, I can post about my stay in Arroyo.

Since my arrival, I have been taking it easy – familiarizing myself with the apartment, the surroundings, getting used to the language which I know nothing of except maybe for a couple of words. It is a strange feeling hearing people talking around you but you haven’t a clue what they are saying.

As we get older and more set in our ways, it takes a longer time to settle in and get used to changes. And there are many – from simple things like the laptop I am using to the apartment, kitchen, to the weather, culture, environment… This will take a while for me to adapt, since I am the kind who is more comfortable with routine and familiar surroundings.

We didn’t feel like cooking yesterday, so we went to this Tandoori Indian restaurant for dinner. It’s only five a minutes walk from Roger’s place, so that was very convenient.

After a lovely dinner of lamb Rogan Josh washed down with two pints of beer, the previous day’s travel, and not sleeping on the plane was getting to me. I was walking on air by the time I left the restaurant. So I had an early night to catch up on my sleep.

More later...

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Vacation

Source

Off to Spain, Malaga this evening for ten weeks. It will be a home-stay vacation. I hope to have lots of interesting material to post. In any case, the posts will be a bit different from my daily posts in Singapore. Stay tuned.

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Bus-stop Shadow

Taking my walk in the afternoon offers many opportunities for finding shadows. Most notable are the shadows of trees. They are more prominent. Other shadows may not be as prominent, and we saw without seeing them.

This is one such shadow. I was waiting for the traffic to pass when I noticed this beautiful shadow of the bus-stop. The bus stop has always been there, but I hadn't notice the shadow because I was more concentrated on crossing the road.

Seeing the shadow, I delayed crossing the road to snap a few pictures of the beautiful shadow.

“The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow.” - Jay Kristoff

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Meeting Of Friends

It was another pleasant day at Ernest’s yesterday. Followers of my blog will know by now that Ernest is an artist friend of mine who loves to cook and entertain. Our group of friends meet once a month, or more, if there is a special occasion at his place. Due to commitments, twelve of us rarely make it together at the same weekend. Usually, there were only five or six of us who could make it.

Yesterday, there were five of us including Ernest. As per our habit, we arranged to meet at half past three. We had afternoon tea – with pastries and whatever we bought on the way. We then catch up on what’s been happening in our lives since we last met. We shared our views on what’s happening around us, and in the world.

With five adults chatting and sharing anecdotes, time slipped by very quickly. At some point, the host will excuse himself to prepare dinner. All food preparations were done, he just needed to cook them. Some of us will help lay the table while some wandered into the kitchen to see Ernest cook, and hoped to pick up some pointers on cooking.

After dinner, there were fruits – whatever fruits that are in season, or whatever looks good from the supermarket. Last night there was jack fruit, strawberries, dragon fruit, mangoes and one of the girls made some jellies. We were all stuffed by the end of the meal.

We continued with our drinks and chatting until it was time to go. Some left at about nine, and some left at half past ten. For me, it was a great day spent with friends. It must be what people call the simple pleasures in life – catching up with friends, eating, drinking leisurely, laughing, having fun with friends.

The following were what Ernest whipped up yesterday.

Chinese Salad

Pork chop with a lovely creamy mushroom sauce

Ernest's first try at butter chicken. It's a bit different from the butter chicken I am used to. But it was still very nice.

A simple potato dish stir-fried with onions and lots of herbs and spices.

And finally our staple rice - fragrant rice with ginger.

For tea, we had these delicious cakes from 'Chalk Farm'. Very, very nice! There were also some curry puff. They were gobbled before I remembered to take pictures of them.

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