After the visit to the Bullfight Museum, we walked to Parque de Maria Luisa. It was a long walk mind you and in hot sun.

Parque de Maria Luisa is a very large park. This is the site of the 1929 Expo. The grand building above is the Plaza de Espana which is built as the Spanish pavilion.

The Plaza de Espana is a large semi-circle of buildings lining a moat with numerous beautiful bridges. In the centre is a large fountain. Well, it was supposed to be a fountain. The moat and the fountain was completely dry because they were doing some work in it. It would have been much cooler if the moat if filled with water. Instead, the entire place was hot and dusty.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVQyW1n5ECY]
One cool thing to note though … The Plaza de Espana is used as a setting for Naboo in Star Wars. The above is the extended scene from Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Cool huh?

There was really nothing to do here except for the War Museum. Actually I don’t really remember the name of the museum anymore. It could be the Military Museum or Arms Museum. These sort of museums are for boys. Suanne was kind of bored. I can see it in her eyes but she tried to pretend to pay attention. I dig these type of museums. It is a small museum unlike the Imperial War Museum and Cabinet War Rooms in London.

Time to eat.  After the visit to the Bullfighting Museum in the morning, it just occurred to me that there is one thing that we had not eaten yet in Spain … Rabo de Toro! I remember reading somewhere that the bull killed in the bullfight is sold in the market for its meat. The meat is not prime meat but the best part is the Rabo de Toro.

So we went scouring for a place for Rabo de Toro. We went to a few places asking if they have Rabo de Toro. That drew smiles from a number of places we went to. We finally found one restaurant which turned out to be pretty good which has that.

He he he … you know which part of the bull that the Rabo de Toro is made of?

We sat at the patio and was immediately served olives and water. The olives was salty and sour. For the life of me, I can never learn to appreciate olives. Yet it is so popular around the Mediterranean.

We like our waiter who was superb and speaks English. I asked for Sherry, it being THE drink in southern Spain. Instead, our waiter recommended Vino de Pasas (Raisin Wine). He said it is digestive and is appreciated for its sweet flavour. We had a glass which is only €1.80.

The bread was alright if not too dry for my liking. We ended up ordering two favourite dishes from the Andalusian region. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, here it is … Rabo de Toro!

Rabo de Toro is oxtail. It is boney and has gelatinous meat — very tender! It is chunks of bull’s tail slowly braised with carrot, bay leaf and sherry.

It came served with fries which by itself was pretty good. We like the sauce of this dish. This is where the dryish bread came in useful.

We asked for Pescaito Frito but they don’t have it for lunch. We accepted the alternative Boquerones Frito (Fried Anchovies). This is a platter of small fish tossed in batter and fried in olive oil.

So I ate it like Smelt right? I thought it was just like the Smelt we find a lot of in the Richmond Public Market. I picked it up with my fingers and bite through the fish. I think ours is better because Richmond’s had roe in the smelt.

Anyway, our friendly waiter stopped me and showed me how to eat this with dignity. He nimbly carved the fish on the plate to remove the head and the bones. For me it was too much work. But he was right, this is not smelt and this has a lot more bones.

The bill was €25. Not too bad.

One of the few rare pictures of both of us together in Spain. Our waiter offered to take our pictures without us asking. Nice chap … he will make it big in life.