Restaurante L'Almassera - Castellonet de la Conquesta

While doing something else entirely I met a lovely couple from Villalonga - Brig and Phil. Brig recommended L'Almassera to us, told us how to find it - not difficult, I think its the only restaurant in Castellonet - and told me we would not be disappointed. We were so taken by their enthusiasm that we went the very next day for lunch.

The restaurant is in an old olive press and is completely charming. It is what you would hope to find in an old building in an old village in Spain, the press has been retained and the restaurant is quaint and pleasing.

L'Almassera only opens on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the winter and does a weekend menu del dia for 12€ as well as a la carte.

There are loads of choices for the menu del dia - but we both could not resist the caldoso de conejo con patatas - a lovely rabbit stew in a tomato base with potatoes and delicious rabbit. Cooked to perfection, very tasty and just the thing for a cold but sunny day. Partner availed himself of  secreto de lomo con salsa roquefort (pork steak in roquefort sauce) and I had albondigas de pollo (chicken meatballs) con salsa curry! Partner was very pleased with his pork dish served interestingly with chopped onion and pepper, homemade coleslaw and homemade crisps. My chicken meatballs were also delicious, served simply with rice. Nobody ordering a curry sauce in Spain should expect to get a spicy sauce. This sauce did have a hint of curry about it - in a korma sort of a way - but was lovely. The Spaniards just don't do curry, or spicy hot dishes at all. I knew that when I ordered and so was not disappointed.

For dessert, partner had vanilla ice cream  and I had flan de turron. Turron is a sort of nougat and is widely eaten at Christmas in Spain.  I have had turron ice cream before - and really liked it - but this was the first time I had ever heard of it as flan. Flan - known as creme caramel outside of Spain - is not my favourite dessert but the turron transformed it for me. The turron did make it heavier, but not so heavy that it was leaden, for me it gave substance to the flan.

Accompanied by a glass of excellent house white wine,  and followed by a cortado, we liked it so much we have booked to go back to L'Almassera on Sunday - we only went last Saturday!

The above pictures were taken on our first visit. We went back on Sunday for lunch and it was very busy - clearly a favourite spot for local Spanish families! We were glad we had booked and booking on a Sunday is definitely advisable.

Our return visit reminded me of a couple of things I forgot to mention, the menu del dia does not - unusually - include wine, and this time we had a bottle of white instead of a glass each. It was an excellent Rueda Verdejo, well worth 9€ but more expensive than most house wines in this area.

The chef makes his own fresh pasta and indeed all of the dishes are freshly cooked. There is also a garden - but not as pretty as the restaurant!

On this occasion my starter was Alubias blancas con almejas - white beans with clams. Lovely, really just lovely. My main, Rabas - strips of Calamare in breadcrumbs was more ordinary. 

All in all a nice place for a relaxing and very reasonably priced Sunday lunch, still only 32€ with the wine for 3 courses and coffee, with enough buzz to make you feel you are somewhere good. We came away relaxed and contented.