La Bodeguilla casa de comidas Arenal

La Bodeguilla casa de comidas Arenal stands on Carrer Berga in S'Arenal, a few streets back from the waterfront and on the Llucmajor side of the Playa de Palma. The name already tells you what to expect: casa de comidas, an eating house in the old sense. That is exactly how the house describes itself — eating house, a menu, and, in its own words, paellas that its guests say come out right. On this stretch of coast that is a deliberate counter-position. Around the Playa de Palma a great many places work for passing trade and for the season. La Bodeguilla sits off the promenade in the S'Arenal street grid, the big rice dishes are only started from two people up, and the menu is built so that one table shares several plates. This is a kitchen that assumes you come with company and with time. What La Bodeguilla puts in the paellera Rice is the core of the menu, and in its full range. There is the paella mixta, the paella de marisco and the paella de verdura, plus a paella mixta ciega in which everything is boned and peeled, so nobody at the table has to work through shells and bones. It turns dark with the paella negra de sepia, which takes its colour from cuttlefish ink, and elaborate with the paella de bogavante and its lobster. Alongside the rice stand the fideuàs, mixta and de mariscos, where short noodles take the place of the grains and stand upright in the stock. All of these pans are started from two people up. And if you take one away with you, it comes in the paellera it was cooked in — a detail that says more about the place than any description. The Mallorcan side of the menu Next to the rice sits the island kitchen, and this is where it gets particular. The house cooks arròs brut, the Mallorcan braised rice, and makes no secret of how much work goes into the stock: boiling fowl, quail, partridge, pork ribs and mushrooms draw together before the rice goes in. In the same line are the caracoles, snails done the traditional way, the sort of dish that belongs in exactly this kind of Mallorcan house and genuinely sits on the menu here. Frito comes in three readings: frito de matanzas after the recipe of the home slaughter, from pork and potato; frito de marisco in the Balearic manner; and frito de cordero from lamb. Equally Mallorcan is the tumbet that arrives with the lomo — potato, aubergine, pepper and tomato, layered and slowly cooked. Tapas, seafood and meat The front of the menu is tapa and ración. Patatas bravas with a house-made sauce, croquetas in three kinds — chicken and veal, Ibérico ham, spinach —, calamares a la romana, gambas al ajillo, mejillones a la marinera and stuffed mussels in their own shells, plus almejas a la marinera. The huevos rotos, eggs broken over fried potatoes, come either with ham or with chorizo. The meat side is just as unshowy: entrecôte, cachopo and escalope of veal, cordon bleu of pork loin, chicken breast from the plancha with roasted vegetables, a burger made in house. For vegetarians the menu holds the paella de verdura, the spinach croquetas and the roasted vegetables. Who cooks here The house is a family business, and its story reaches back a good deal further than the present operation. La Bodeguilla was opened in 1967 by Tomeu and Francisca, the parents of today's landlord; a few years ago the next generation unlocked the doors again and has run the place as a casa de comidas ever since. The tone in the dining room is personal accordingly. And because the room is small and the rice dishes need their time, the house itself asks you to book a table in advance.