Cafeteria Restaurante Juandi

Juandi sits directly opposite the big mall and rail terminal of Maria Zambrano. Its a simple cafeteria offering the essential menu del día, the lunchtime menu for a fixed price. The range of choice of dishes, three courses, bread and a drink for under a tenner is why the menu del día is the backbone of the country. Here you'll get one of the very best menus around. The cooking here is proper home style. A first course will invariably offer a stew or soup of the day, rice dish or a salad. The stews will for sure have a stock rich enough to be memorable, probably with sausage, chorizo, or maybe fish based, and pulses or pasta or both. Most foreigners would consider it a meal in itself, but this is workers' food, designed to be the main meal of the day and economic. The main course will be some kind of fish or meat with a side, usually of chips, but you could change for a salad or 'pisto', a kind of Spanish ratatouille. Desserts are simple but will include such delights as homemade caramel pudding, 'flan', or cinnamon flavoured cold rice pudding, or 'natillas', cold custard topped with biscuit and cinnamon. This isn't haute cuisine, but it's so rewarding because of its basic richness, great stocks, simple cooking techniques and there's lots of it for not much money! There's also a la carte if you want to splash out though, and there is a great range of fish, meat and stews to choose from. Cafeterias are ten a penny in southern Spain, but they are not all equal. Juandi raises the ordinary to great-ish heights and you'll not be unsatisfied.