Arriving in Santiago de Compostela and Heading South to Sanxenxo
When we arrived late Friday evening into Santiago de Compostela airport, we were exhausted and hungry. And, we still had an hour drive ahead of us to get to Sanxenxo, the sleepy little beach town where our friend had apartments waiting for us (her family’s summer vacation home).
We didn’t make it out to dinner until half past 11 but this was not a concern for any of the Spaniards in our group even though 11:30 is late even by Spanish standards.
We walked down to the harbor area and snagged the last patio table for our group just as another group was leaving. Though late, we had no problem finding restaurants still serving and even luckier for us, we got the last patio table at one of the best restaurants in town, La Goleta.
La Goleta
The mussels and clams (tiny clams called berberechos and bigger ones called navajas aka razor clams) were the most perfectly cooked and some of the freshest I’ve ever eaten. The raw beef that we cooked ourselves on a sizzling plate was melt-in-your mouth delicious (a welcome surprise after the quality of beef elsewhere in Spain). The fried potatoes and pimiento padrones (green peppers blistered and served with sea salt and oil) were, though drowned in a lot of oil (typical), also perfectly cooked.
For wine, we opted to try a couple of the 2015 Ribeira Sacra Godellos on the list since we knew we’d be drinking primarily Albariño for the rest of the weekend. Both wines were delicious: fresh, crisp and perfectly acidic but my favorite was the Alguiera Brandan Godello (lucky me I’ll be visiting the Alguiera winery next week in when I come back to visit a different area of Galicia).
‘Expensive’ by Galician standards (according to my Galician friends) at 25 Euros/person this restaurant would be like striking gold, for a foreigner used to paying far more for heaping platters of fresh shellfish and seafood, locally raised organic beef, plenty of side dishes and wine.
We left full and happy and ready for bed. Though, on the way back to our apartment we were convinced by our Spanish hostess to stop for one, and then another drink and didn’t actually end up in bed until about 4am…