“Sierra De Toix” And Two Visits To Restaurante Cantonet (Calpe)

With such lovely weather lately (that’s about to change later on today by the sound of things) all we fancy doing on our day off is getting out of the house to enjoy a spot of nature followed by something tasty in a bar or restaurant close by. We haven’t done too much in our “huerta” this past week and I won’t bore you with the progress of our fourteen lettuces (for now, at least!)

We were up slightly late on Sunday. By the time we’d done a couple of chores around the house it was too close to lunchtime to do one of our 19 kilometre treks. Pep had once mentioned about the walk up the “Sierra de Toix” in Calpe (the small mountain that’s home to the Maryvilla Urbanisation), saying that there is a “mirador” up there that offers great views in exchange for very little effort. So without hesitation and with picnic in hand, we drove 15 minutes down the road to the start of our mini hike.

You can drive almost to the “mirador”, although we parked just past Restaurante Oscar at the bottom of the urbanisation (good rice dishes there, paellas, etc), solely to give our legs a bit of a work out, there’s nothing much to see until you’re about half way up. We wound our way round the labyrinth of villas till we reached the top of the estate, with views of the Peñón de Ifach and the Montgó included.

Leaving the last of the houses behind, we come to a chain across the road. If you go in a car this is as far as you’d be able to drive. A hundred metres or so after the chain we arrive at the mirador. It was a bit of a hazy day but the views aren’t bad at all, especially considering you can virtually drive there.

Once we were fed up with the view (just kidding) we carried on along the camino which takes you to the other side of the mountain. The scenery changes and we can now admire the Altea bay, Sierra Helada, Benidorm, the Puig Campana mountain and also Sierra Bernia looking rather odd from this angle. It’s quite spectacular.

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Towards the end of the camino there are a load of antennas that spoil the surroundings a tad. They’ve got to put ’em somewhere I suppose. We wandered along towards them till we couldn’t go any further then retraced our steps, looking for somewhere appropriate to have our lunch.

Just off to the left of the “camino” there is a small track that takes you to a survey point (“vértice geodésico”, love those words 😊). It was a perfect spot to eat, there was just a slight breeze and we sat for over an hour relishing the moment. It might be a cliche but the best things in life are most definitely free.

We then wandered back down to the car and drove into Calpe. Our walk had been quite short so we parked at the Gabriel Miró end of the beach and walked to our second destination for pudding. Restaurante Cantonet (website here) is a relatively new restaurant (about 2-3 years old if I remember rightly). The proprietors used to be at the Cantal restaurant just a few metres down from there which is also very good. Whether they fell out with their partners I’m not sure, all I know is they’ve now opened a fantastic restaurant with marvellous rice dishes and delicious desserts.

Two days previous my dad had taken us there for lunch. We’d not been for over a year and I don’t know why. The food is wonderful. They have a daily menu for 20,95€ plus drinks. It includes three different starters to share then the choice of either meat, fish or one of five different rice dishes or fideuà (similar to a fish paella but with short noodles instead of rice). They update the “menú del día” daily on their website.

We’ve tried the “arroz del señoret” (rice made with fish stock and often small pieces of cuttlefish and different types of fish), “arroz negro” (black rice made with squid ink) and “arroz con bogavante” (rice with lobster). They’re all excellent but my favourite is the “arroz con bogavante”. I’m not bothered about the lobster, I rarely eat any of it, it’s the rice I love. The flavour is perfect, concentrated but not too strong and extreeeemely moreish. My dad said it was the best rice dish he’d ever had and he’s not a fishy person!

Also included in the menu is one of their homemade desserts or coffee. Forget the coffee, pay extra for it if you want one (their coffee is very good) but you MUST have one of their puddings. I don’t care how full you are. I get a load of my rice to take away just so I’ve got room to have one. They change them quite often although I think there are 2 or 3 that are regulars.

On our visit with dad I had the “tarta de limón con merengue” (their take on lemon meringue tart), June had the “tarta de zanahoria” (carrot cake), dad had “cheesecake de frutos rojos” (red fruit) and Pep had the “profiterole XL con crema de avellana” (a huge profiterole stuffed with hazelnut cream). They were all wonderful, the only sounds coming from our table were “mmmm”, “oh wow” and “this is the best one I’ve ever had”!!

Due to the deliciousness of these desserts we returned to the Cantonet on Sunday to sample another one, just to make sure I wouldn’t be lying to you about how excellent they are 😁. I chose the same one but Pep went for the “mousse de chocolate con leche y vainilla” (milk chocolate and vanilla mousse). Because we ordered from the à la carte menu the desserts were accompanied with vanilla ice cream (in Pep’s case) and lemon sorbet (in my case), along with various different sauces. Thank goodness we’d had a light lunch.

To finish off our day and to let the pudding go down we went for a stroll around the base of the Peñón. From here we could contemplate the “Sierra de Toix” and see how small it is compared to the “Sierra de Oltá”. It’s still worth a trip though.

The area around the Peñón is full of seagulls, there are hundreds of them. They even steal the cat biscuits that people feed to the stray cats that live there. The cats don’t get a look in. Cheeky devils! Me being me I shooed off a couple so the cats could eat some of their biscuits. The mad cat lady strikes again!!

Right, I’m off. Got to go and batten down the hatches, looks like there’s a “gota fría” on it’s way. Joy. Still, we need it and hopefully it will rain enough to fill the pool up a bit so I can hoover it to waste soon, it’s been neglected as of late.

As always, thanks very much for reading. I’ll be back on Valley FM this Saturday between 12pm and 2pm. Here’s the link to last week’s spot if you’d like to listen. I’m on just before the end. Save the best till last they say 😁.

Any questions or suggestions or you want to say hello please get in touch, we’d love to hear from you. Take care all of you. See you soon. Lots of love, Georgie and Pep xxx