I keep it to myself, so you probably don’t know, but I’m fairly awesome. Well, very awesome. Let’s agree on awesomely awesome. I nurse the birds I break back to health. I help little old ladies into busy roads. And I’ve kicked virtually no puppies this financial year. You get the picture. So when a restaurant bathroom implores me to turn the lights off in the bathroom to preserve energy and save the environment, I want to pitch in and do my bit. But then I think the establishment should meet me half way by having a light switch I want to touch. How difficult it is to replace the light pull cords once the lower part of the cord becomes tar black with years of aggregated groin smear from thousands of evidently unclean man’s hands? They’re £4 on Amazon. In fact, I’m going to launch a campaign on kick-starter to fund some replacements.
That aside, El Rincon Quiteño (http://ww2.elrinconquiteno.co.uk/) is a lovely little restaurant as long as you assume that the staff preparing your food use a staff-only lavatory, pristine as that found in a Saudi’s Knightsbridge pied-à-terre, all gold taps and imported Italian marble and a shaved eunuch, doused in Dettol every 15 minutes whose sole function is to operate the light switch. (And it was thus that Del Monte learned never to google a word to check the spelling, as even the small images of eunuchs can be extremely disturbing).
After watching some football-soccer, myself and El Baristo popped into El Rincon Quiteño, well sat outside, and ordered ceviche, arepa and empanadas from the delightful Ecuadorian waitress who was duly impressed that I’d visited her homeland. While we waited we enjoyed a tall, cool Cusqueña beer, from Peru and watched a steaming drunk fail to progress along a rigidly unmoving pavement. Dinner and a show!? We’ve all been there. Though, it’s been a while since I was last too drunk to lie prone on the floor. The ceviche was excellent, though I would have preferred it to be more sour still and the arepa needed some cheese or sauce on it. All very filling and will go back. £30 for 2 people including 4 beers.
ECUADOR!
Tasty looking empanadas.
An Ecuadorian arepa. A bit more rice cakey than your Colombian arepa.
Ecuadorian ceviche – excellent stuff and plenty of it with cracked corn I think and a slice of plantain. I think there is a law in South America that every dish is accompanied by plantain. Hence the word Plantanistas to describe any Latin American rebels that I just made up.
Cusqueña beer. From Peru. Not Ecuador. They couldn’t get hold of some Pilsener?
The outside. Charming no? And the slowest pedestrian in the world. Hustle up buddy! Some of us are trying to take a mediocre photograph.
El meñu.
More el meñu. Didn’t even get to the mains. The starters are ginormous that’s why. Also, I’m violently allergic to the music of Michael Bublé, but surely your sous-chef doesn’t need to know that?
http://ww2.elrinconquiteno.co.uk/
El Rincon Quiteño
235 Holloway Rd
London
N7 8HG
Tel: 020 7700 3670
