Restaurant reviews Mallorca 2006

La Fonda, Pollenca 

This was another restaurant that I have always wanted to try, but somehow it always got shoved to the end of the queue and we never quite made it.

But this summer I was determined to try some new restaurants and hubby was happy to go along with my ideas, even more so after I'd heard good things about the rabbit dish from my dad, who is a real rabbit fan.

So I made sure and booked a table before our drink at Cafe Espanyol. The staff wouldn't book an outside table for me, but we were assured of one inside and we'd be able to change it to an outside table if there was one available.

As it happened all the tables on the narrow street outside were taken and we were shown to a table at the very back of the restaurant. This was my first grumble as I love to people watch and we had no one to stare at. But anyway, we settled into our seats and I managed to pin my son to his chair and get him to decide what he was eating before he rushed back to the square to carry on his game of football.

In all honesty, this is not really a restaurant to take young children, although it would have been easier if we'd eaten outside. The inside is very elegant with pale yellow walls, stone floors and huge oil paintings. There is no children's menu so we chose veal escalope and pork chops for the kids.

I went for the house salad to start while hubby chose leek and cream soup. For our mains, we ordered lamb in a honey sauce and rabbit (hubby).

My salad was large and very good. It included tuna, prawns, sliced egg and almost all the salad items you could think of. Hubby's leek soup was "like leek soup" when I asked him how it was... hmm!

By now we had been joined by some other couples but I still felt a little isolated. I noticed one couple order a paella between them but didn't hear any groans of appreciation coming from their table.

My main course was ordinary. It was a shoulder of lamb and the portion was large and covered in a thick honey glaze. It reminded me of the sickly sauce you get in a Chinese takeaway when you order sweet and sour chicken, but it had very little taste. I gamely plugged away at it, but after a little while gave up and tried to sneak some onto hubby's plate as his rabbit had obviously been on a diet...

The children's meals were awful - my son's veal was dry and tasteless, and both meals were served with chips which looked like they had been hanging around for a few days. The pork chops were dry and salty, and I had the annoying thought that not much care had been taken over them at all.

To make up for their meals, the children were desperate to have chocolate profiteroles for dessert, but they were "off" so we called for the bill and left, the ice-cream kiosk in the square fulfilling their craving for a sweet.

The bill was 82 euros which included the star of the evening - a delicious bottle of the new local wine - the Mortitx Merlot.