Counting down the 4 months until departure. Ready for the white water ride that will be moving to Spain. Mouth watering for the tortillas and Pulpo. But the fries, oh, those ubiquitous, ridiculous patatas. I simply don’t care for them, even in the smallest doses, let alone with every meal. Is there hope? Has anyone ever had any luck substituting arroz, or ensalada?
I did once, but it felt high maintenance and rude, and shan’t do it again. Should I just accept my plate half empty as nothing more than a small price to pay for the luxury of such a place?
Any other nada patatas out there?
Warmly,
Laura

Agreed, I avoid the patatas as much as possible. A brazilian friend of mine and I were comparing the staple foods of UK and Spain last night in a contest to know which was worse (ie. fish and chips vs platos combinados); the UK won by the sheer nastiness of the batter on the fish.

But no, there’s not a lot of substituting of anything in restaurants except the nicest ones (where you won’t find patatas anyway). I suggest learning to enjoy bravas sauce or avoiding the sort of unremarkable restaurants that serve patatas with everything.

If you mean those dreadful spindly things that McDonalds introduced all those years ago I have to agree with you… BUT… being coeliac I have to avoid them anyway because they are flour coated.
Now the good old British Chip is something else… King Edward potatoes deep fried in pure beef dripping is something else!
Alas the Spanish have no idea how to cook them… they seem to use any old potato deep fried in corn oil or sunflower oilor worse still olive oil and instead of cooking at 180C they seem to cook them at 160C so the whole thing is just a disgusting copy.
As for ensalada… strictly for rabbits so far as I am concerned…
I get through loads of rice though!
My staples are home cooked Brit chips and ricey things oh and tortillas of course….
Again over here most Gluten Free Bread products are pretty tasteless being made from either rice flour or cornflour. Yeuch!

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Oh yes, I agree! If only some restaurants would take all that lovely olive oil and roast or saute the potatoes instead, it would be lovely. Alas, if the shoe doesn’t fit, the foot must adjust. Maybe I will just grow to love them….

I don’t dislike them to the extend of asking them to be removed, but if there was a choice of mash or even sauted I would definately rather them instead. Dont worry about them getting offended if you ask them to remove them, I have done a few times at my locals and they have been generous enough to substitue with extra portion of whatever I am ordering (usually no alternative tho, and definately no salad!)

Unlike you rich buggers I don’t eat out, but I do eat chips maybe once a week. I get them from Iceland you can get crinkle cut, steak cut etc €1.50 a bag 1.5KG and I get the chunky cod to go with them and some mushy peas… oh and some English vinegar and fresh home made bread with butter.

No complaints here but I do hate washing up.

I don’t particularly like “chips” (French fries), and I find they rarely come with the food I order (I suppose it depends where one eats!).  I love salads (and by salad I do not mean just a few pieces of lettuce and a slice or two of tomato, but proper exotic salads, correctly dresssed).  And no I am not given to eating at expensive restaurants.

In any Spanish restaurant (aside from fast food joints) you can request a guarnición de verdura, for example, if you don’t want salad. 

On the odd occasion when I have had patatas fritas in a Spanish restaurant, or when someone else at the table had them, the chips were done to perfection—light, non-greasy and even good to look at.

Just keep away from the “greasy spoon” establishments!!!