Fresh Grilled Meats & Vegetables:
In very touristy Ibiza it is not easy to find an authentic experience. Just outside the town in the beach hamlet of Talamanca one can get a slight reprieve from the tourist madness. Along the promenade of Talamanca Beach there are a few restaurants. El Pulpo is one, and the fact that you can pick out fresh meat for them to grill to perfection, at a reasonable price, lends this place an air of authenticity. After getting turned down at a nearby restaurant because I was only a party of one (annoyingly common in Ibiza), I went to this place on the recommendation of a local I met. It almost looked like a butcher shop that you can eat at upon first glance. I walked up to the counter where the man ahead of me was ordering meats for his clients. There was quite a variety of beef and pork, many sausages, and even rabbit. The only thing they don’t sell is fish (which is funny since the restaurant’s name literally means The Octopus). There was also a variety of vegetables that you can get grilled with the meat as sides. Despite the other customer’s recommendation to order the steak, I had to have the whole, but skinned, rabbit. That is something different that I would not get easily in America, besides beef just does not interest me. (It’s not a philosophical or health choice, just not a fan. Wild Boar however, but I digress) I ordered a glass of house wine and some mushrooms and other veggies and was brought to a table. The plate I got was a little graphic, I definitely wasn’t in the USA anymore, but that is what I travel for. The rabbit was grilled to perfection and lightly seasoned. Mouthwatering! I ordered a chicken sausage too, just to sample, which was kind of bland. The vegetables were delicious but my eyes were bigger than my stomach. I was definitely finishing the rabbit and mushrooms but I could not finish the sausage, potatoes and aubergine. I returned a couple of days later for a grilled pork loin and blood sausage, mushrooms and asparagus. Also delicious. The blood sausage was the richest I had ever tasted, a little too irony for my taste though. It was nice to enjoy a fresh meal, from meat that I chose, in a friendly place that felt down to earth in plastic and flashy Ibiza. (The picture below is not for the faint of heart)
