Estepona Restaurants

Again, another Chnese restuarant. This one is situated more in the throng of things happening hence it being busier. I was actually having lunch in the restaurant next door to it so I thought I would take a photo!

If you like Chinese food and fancy something different when youre over in Spain, then I suggest you try this place. The food l;ooked quite tasty, and it seemed to have all the usual affair.

I haven't been here to eat I must admit because when you live in a country with Chinese food 24/7 right at your doorstep, you kind of steer away from it when you go on holiday! I just thought I would show this to let you know how very popular Chinese restaurants are in Spain. There are actually quite a lot of Chinese working up the coast, many of whom can only speak a little Spanish and who almost always find jobs in Chinese restaurants as chefs or waiters. I once had a job in Puerto Banus, a really expensive port another 30minute drive up from Estepona, and there were several Chinese there. I was working at a stall over the summer selling furniture from Asia and one guy always used to come by and say hello when he had time. He was a lovely Chinese man and we used to speak Chinese together which made him feel less homesick and helped me practice!

A somewhat useless piece of information for you, and slightly going off track from the main point....excuse me!

I was a little dubious about eating chinese food in Europe as I've had a few poor meals in the past.

Bankok however, was one of the nicest meals of the holiday.

The restaurant itself is too brightly lit but that's probably the only bad point I could make.

The staff were lovely but we weren't sure whether to speak spanish or english to them so we settled for english.

We had salt & pepper ribs and wantons to start with. The ribs were a little disappointing as they were just little knobbly bits of rib with not much meat on them, but the salt & pepper coating they were in was very tasty.

For mains we had Crispy Beef, which is strips of deep fried beef with chillis and spring onions - quite spicy but not uncomfortably hot. We also had chicken with cashew nuts which came cooked in a rich sauce with loads of cashew nuts.

We made the mistake of ordering boiled rice for me and fried rice for Chris and it was far too much - only 1 rice would have been sufficient.

It's worth mentioning they do takeaway as well! I'm not sure they'd delivery all the way to my house though!

The Vines is run by a lovely English couple who've run restaurants in France and Spain before they came to Estpona. They serve up a mixture of International dishes so you're sure to find something you like on the menu.

You can eat outside if you like but we went inside where the decor is heavily influenced by the owners love of wine. if you have a question about any of the wines on the menu they will be able to answer you.

We shared a garlic mushroom starter which was lovely. I had the chicken in a mushroon sauce for my main course. It was creamy without being sickly and very more-ish! Chris had pork in honey and mustard sauce which again was delicious. You get a generous serving of roast potatoes and vegetables as well.

I had the cheesecake for dessert mmmmmmmmmm I was fit to burst afterwards!!

The vines is on the left of the picture with the awning and the tables & chairs outside

We love Ibiza, but this year couldn't afford to go. We laughed when we found this bar as we were walking through the town.

There seemed to be some old person's special going on as the bar was full of elderly people lapping up the Cruzcampo and getting loads of seafood bought to their tables. We stuck out like sore thumbs being the youngest people there.

Strangely we never saw the bar open again apart from that Sunday morning fish frenzy!

Eating Tapas is an absolute must. I love these little plates of food which enables you to try many different things and esp at lunch time it is nice as you never want to eat a big lunch due to the heat. I especially liked the small little malaga fishes that were pickled on a piece of french loaf.

Another view of the same restaurant. Mary is enjoying a cool lager, or was it orange? Haha.

Favorite Dish: We paid 8 Euros for a very good Pizza. With our drinks and whatever else it was we had, our bill for the three of us was 36 Euros (or US Dollars).

There were several nice-looking restaurants along the seafront, by the Marina. As we were there in the late afternoon, in early March, most of them seemed quite empty of customers.

We chose tht Bistro del Puerto because it looked somewhat 'fresher' in appearance to some of the others, but I'm sure they were all very good places to eat.