Eating is a daily pleasure

By Dereck Foster

Eating is a daily act of necessity that we all practice — well, almost all, unfortunately — to a greater or lesser degree. In the main, we try to make our meals a pleasurable affair, and one of the aims of this column — which has been going uninterruptedly for almost 37 years — has been to make eating out as enjoyable an experience as possible.

As is fairly obvious, pleasure comes with a few conditions attached, such as novelty, quality, price and convenience, among others. This inclines the choice of who to feature and who not rather in favour of the more expensive and sophisticated sites to the almost exclusion of the more modest, less expensive eateries. Not entirely, because looking back through my files I have noted that a number — not many, I will admit — of modest restaurants unlikely to ever receive a star rating have cropped up with a certain frequency. Indeed, one choice of mine, a truly down to earth, basic neighbourhood recommendation of mine was the cause of my becoming acquainted with whom is now my friend Harry.

Harry and then Herald editor Bob Cox visited La Cancha (in La Boca) and Harry declared it one of the worst experiences he had ever suffered. Bob Cox, however, published the column without comment — and against Harry’s will — demonstrating what a great editor he was (and how Harry can sometimes miss the mark).

Sometimes, I meet with people who tell me they read my column for pleasure (I appreciate that very much), but that I write about places too expensive for them to visit.

I tend to agree up to a certain point, and I must confess that there are in BA a number of simple, no-frills places that also offer better than expected meals. Today, I will scrape up a few which I think fit this description, hoping that some hungry readers maydiscover somethingmore inline with their concept of price and pleasure.

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