Saturday, March 28, 2009

Plus ... Tubular Bells

It is reassuring, in these economic straitened times, that a restaurant, a not insubstantial one in terms of size and reputation, is reopened, especially when that restaurant happens to be in a resort suffering death by a thousand cuts (all-inclusives, Poles, cranes at the water's edge, forgetting to put the sunbeds out, an ever-shortening season), namely Cala San Vicente.

The Vora Mar restaurant had been closed since ... since when? 2004, 2005? Anyway, a few years. Despite its name, the Vora Mar is not one of the Cala's quaint on-top-of-the-sea eateries, like those tucked onto the steps leading down to the Cala Barques by Hotel Niu. The name does actually mean sea shore, but the restaurant stands atop and overlooks the resort as you come into it along the twisting, dry-stone-wall-lined road from the Puerto Pollensa-Pollensa main road.

For many years at L'Aup, the place on the corner of that road as it leaves the main road, Jose quit the finca and size of L'Aup to work in the kitchen at the Cala San Vicente hotel, but now he has returned in order to re-open the Vora Mar. As often with Jose, he has things to show you; things that you have maybe seen before and others may be not. I confess that I don't remember the contribution to "glasnost", but there it is - there they are - Gorbachev's signature from L'Aup days. Apparently, the former Soviet president used to divide his eating loyalties between L'Aup and La Terraza in Alcanada.

I have been asked to do the sunny terrace-with-people photos at Vora Mar, the type of photos that can be virtually unattainable at this time of the year. I'm due to cut along tomorrow, but rain is forecast, so the photos may have to wait, and therefore any examples of them to be shown on the blog will also have to wait.


I don't know if he ever ate at L'Aup or indeed the Vora Mar, but Mike Oldfield is unlikely to be eating at either in the near future. He has left the island. Not that you would know it. Of course not. Only a whole page devoted to the gaff he now wants to get shot of. The strange thing is that, protestations that he will miss the island notwithstanding, I have this recollection that not so long ago he was saying how wonderful it was here and that this was his home, and all that. Or maybe it was someone completely different. In the world of celebs I'm afraid I pay little attention, except when their entries in Wikipedia are used as newspaper copy. "Plus, Tubular Balls."


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Simon Dupree and The Big Sound (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUHTLQ8UnnM). Today's title - who narrated Tubular Bells?

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