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Photo by Tara Stevens
Different fried fish
A real fry-up2 of 2
Photo by Tara Stevens
El Pescadito Frito
Make mine a beerIt’s a bit embarrassing when you’ve spent the last eight years eyeing the place on the corner, but never quite got around to going only to discover, much to your shame, that it's every bit as good as you always suspected it to be. Oh, the time wasted.
And so it was at El Pescadito Frito (C/Villarroel 110, 93 454 4313, Tue-Sun 1-4pm, 8pm-1am, Sat 8pm-1.30am), which isn't quite around the corner, but almost, on the night of Sant Joan as I picked my way across the streets of flying firecrackers with a friend who’d just arrived from Berlin. Think bottle green and blinding white tile work set off by fluorescent lighting that forgives nothing and no one—somehow, I don’t think the experience would be the same out on the terrace—but what an operation.
One gal mans a portable gas stove for the rarely ordered grilled sardine, and a double fryer for the pescado de playa—a point in their favour on the sustainable fish front—which are dredged in seasoned flour and thrown straight into hot oil, emerging in the wink of an eye hot, fragrant and crisp, just as fried fish should be and more fool you if you’ve ordered something off the grill. That is not why God invented freidurias.
A couple of waiters keep it coming. On those natty little wicker plates incidentally, that cleverly stop a slick of oil from forming. For our €25 a head we feasted, and I mean gorged like half-starved wolves, on juicy boquerones, creamy and tender patas de calamar (the tentacle end of the squid), plump little salmonetes and the sweetest little gambitas (little prawns) from Huelva (pop them in whole, skins, heads and all). I found the chipirones a bit gritty, and the steamed clams and mussels good, but not a patch on the cheaper, fried things. With the possible exception of La Plata on C/Merce, it’s got to be one of the tastiest, most eco-friendly fish joints around.