Lunch from Airinos do Miño

Seafood and eat it
 Pro A vast meal, ready to take away in 10 minutes.
 Con Seafood dismantling skills - and kit - required.

This article's cover photo is not from Airiños do Miño and is for illustrative purposes only.

Pay
€€
Per Person €20 boiled seafood platter/marisquada; 6 croquettes; bottle of white wine. No dessert.

Practical
You need nutcrackers. Takeaway platter comes without serviettes, cutlery. Wine comes pre-chilled .

Find
Website Link
Access Stepfree.


In Short
Hopes? We're going to need a bigger table.
Reality? Even larger than expected. Easily enough for three.
First Impressions? The bar area's brown. And, seemingly, still in 1982.
A USP? Classic Galician near Pl España.
The food in three words? Prawns, crabs, barnacles.
Can they get the staff? Not busy on our visit.
Service with a smile? A bit of a grump, to be honest.
Friend friendly? For seafood and meat enthusiasts.
Rating for dating?I can't imagine it. Table manners not an option.
Tip? For a takeaway, no.
Change one thing? Buy a nutcracker in advance.
Going back? Yes.

Compare & Contrast
Ribera do Miño for a sit-down seafood extravanganza.

In Pictures
On Google Images

What's the story?
Old-school seafood restaurant, and this review includes photos and descriptions to match.

A takeaway of this entirely traditional Galician restaurant's specialities, there are boiled or grilled versions on offer. The latter is €50 and prawn-heavy. Boiled - photo here - offers a selection of crabs, prawns, barnacles/percebes, langoustines, and assorted other fauna.

Self-evidently not a dish to suit everyone's dietary choices or requirements, it's also not for the seafood novice or the faint-hearted. You'll be poking out pieces of white meat, crushing exoskeletons and doing, learning and at times probably failing to do all manner of things maybe best not shared with experienced seafood eaters, strangers. That said, it's a learning experience. If it's the kind of skill you want to learn. This is a messy job, so make sure you've got the full kit on hand;

• seafood forks (fondue ones would do at a push)
• nutcrackers
• finger wipes or some lemon-infused water
• mayonnaise

So; tasting notes.

Percebes are, defying their terrifying appearance, a serious delicacy, second only to navajas/razor clams.

By Msadp06 [CC0], from Wikimedia Commons

Judging by appearances is not on at a human level, of course, but you'd have to find an excuse to love these things, it's true. Your mission is to pull them off the stone they grew from, grab the meaty bit in your teeth, suck and pull. You should get a strong hit of fresh seawater flavour. That's the delicacy-making bit. AdM's are good, but not the largest going.

The selection of very pale pink prawns, darker langoustines and other arthropods on offer are best tried with a decent splodge of mayonnaise. Watch your fingers on some of the claws. The wildlife can sometimes try for revenge, even from the next life.

The accompanying - seafood, naturally - croquettes are soft, probably inevitably after a journey in a plastic bag, but they're a filling starter and feel like your mother-in-law might have made them. Here they are on Facebook.

Service in the bar is...straightforward. Order a caña as you wait and you'll likely score a decent aperitif, but don't expect much in the way of banter. Some chorizo and pimentos de padrón came our way. Very welcome. There's no dessert on offer. Fresh fruit's your wisest bet, we'd say.

It's Madrid. It's a Sunday. It's seafood. If it's within your options, you should plate up, at least the once. When in Rome...