[Playa de las Americas, Tenerife] Meson las Lanzas

[Harters (John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)]

Las Lanzas has long been a favourite of ours. Back in the day when we first started coming, it was very much a “locals place” and it was rare to hear other than Spanish voices. But, over the years, other tourists have discovered it and this shift in emphasis may account for the last paragraph of this review.

We’d had a big lunch so were restrained in our ordering, sharing a salad as a starter - one of those big mixed salads that the Spanish do so well. This one combines leaf, cucumber, onion and peppers, along with tomato, sweetcorn and slices of avocado.

My companion in life ordered a classic sole meuniere as a main. A whole fish, on the bone, simply grilled with butter. Its perfectly cooked and is delicious (they always do good fish here). There’s some fried diced mixed veg counting towards the “five a day”.

I’ve seen “Secreto Iberico” on menus in Spain in recent years but had never ordered it. I knew it was a pork dish with the meat being taken from the shoulder but that was about it. This was the place to try it. It’s cooked as a thinnish steak to medium and then sliced into strips for presentation. Very flavoursome with a nice chew to it – certainly something to order again. There was the same mixed veg as the other plate. We didn’t go short of carbs – there was a plate of chips, another of Canarian potatoes (very salty even for how they usually are) and we’d already got thick slices of a crusty bread.

We didn’t fancy dessert (which are never great here) but coffee was good.

We got the bill and that was things left a nasty taste in the mouth. We were short-changed to the tune of €10. Of course as soon as I mentioned it to the server, there was an apology and another €10 was brought. Now, of course, this may have been an entirely genuine mistake but the nature and tone of the apology left us in some doubt about that. I can only advise other customers to check their change.

[Harters (John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)]

We gave it another chance

When we first started to go to Las Lanzas, the customers were virtually all local Spaniards. Now, it’s more touristy, so they have staff who are likely to speak a bit of English but it’s certainly the place to try out whatever Spanish you have. They’ve retained the important bits of traditional Spanish cooking – take good ingredients, cook them simply and serve them up in very generous portions.

Bread is served, of course. Here, it’s big chunks of a crusty wholemeal loaf, delicious in itself

There’s prawn croquettes to start for one of us. Crisp coating, tasty béchamel and chopped prawns. And a really zingy alioli for dunking – deffo one to keep the vampires away. Revuelto across the table – scrambled egg mixed with chopped prawns and mushroom. We’d ordered them as individual starters but they were served in the middle of the table for sharing. And one or the other would have easily been sufficient for both of us – although that’s not to say that we didn’t do our best to demolish both.

For mains, there was an entrecote steak, accurately cooked as requested. It came with mixed veg and really good fries. Fish on the other plate – two whole Dorada (bream), butterflied, cooked on the plancha and served with their heads still on. Nothing fancy here, so the delicate flavour wasn’t masked. It came with the mixed veg, a bowl of Canarian potatoes and the usual two mojo sauces.

Desserts here have never been great here, so we just had very good café solo – strong without being bitter.