Many thanks to Joan and Peter for organising the event.

Berenguel is a simple restaurant in Las Norias about 20 minutes drive from Almerimar. Drive out of Almerimar towards Copo and join the motorway towards Almeria. Take the first turn off, exit km 411, to Las Norias. Go down the slip road and turn right at the bottom. Then follow the road for a few kilometres though greenhouses and plastic waste areas etc. Not a very pretty journey!

When you get to Las Norias keep going through the town until you reach the first roundabout and go straight on. After about 20 metres turn left across the oncoming traffic into the ´rustic´car park. Berenguel is the building on the main road just past the entrance to the car park.

Be warned, Las Norias is not the nicest looking town and the restaurant building doesn´t look like much but it is worth the trip.

The restaurant is buffet style and opens 7 days a week from 1.00pm to 4.00pm. It is not open in the evening. As you enter you are in a small bar area with separate toilets for men and women on your right (note: these are better than the one shared toilet in the main restaurant area).

To reach the restaurant area you go through some doors on the right close to the toilets. The cash register area is on your right as you go in. Wait there until the waitress asks you how many people are in your party (in Spanish of course) and gives you a piece of paper with your table number on it. This is your bill. If you buy any drinks the waitress adds the information to your bill. When you are finished you take the bill to the cash desk and pay there.

The format is buffet style and you can eat as much as you want, returning to different parts of the buffet to pick up clean plates. The waitresses collect your dirty plates. However, you keep the cutlery and use it again for each course that you have (apart from dessert where there are small spoons available by the dessert counter).

Our advice is to go for many courses with a little each time especially if you are not sure you will like something. You can always go back for more. This is because the restaurant has a notice saying that they reserve the right to charge a la carte prices if people leave a lot of uneaten food on the plate.

There is a large salad counter, gazpacho, soup, stews or sometimes paella, plus a number of meat and fish dishes together with fresh bread. There is also a dessert counter and a reasonable selection of ice creams. All items are in relatively small dishes which are refilled as they get low. This means that the food is always reasonably fresh.

One thing to watch out for is that if the tray of food (e.g. chips) is relatively low then the temperature of the food may not be as warm as you want. So it is worth timing you trips to the buffet area for when you see the catering staff bringing in fresh items that you fancy.

During the week the restaurant is a bit like a workmans cafe with a lot of the customers coming from the local greenhouses and food processing factories. They tend to have a siesta period at some point between 1pm and 4pm and pop along to the restaurant. At the weekend and on festival days there tends to be more of a family atmosphere.

The cost of the buffet is 8 euros per head (6 for children) on weekdays and 12 euros a head (7 for children) on weekends and festivals. Still water is included within the price. A bottle of house red is 5 euros and house white can be 6-7 euros (or a bit cheaper if you don’t want the wine reasonably dry). Beers are around 1.5 euros each or you can buy a jug of beer (at around 5-6 euros I think).

Although the surroundings are not great and the journey isn’t a pretty one, the restaurant is well worth a visit because of the good simple food at a very reasonable price. It is a favourite place for a number of our friends and family that come over to visit us from time to time.