June 10th, 2004 | The lowdown by Jara Gatti

One Instance Where LP was Wrong!

So throughout my 8-weeks of backpacking, I relied pretty heavily on Lonely Planet...their tiny, incomplete maps got me to my hostels before my back could give out; their quoted prices were almost always right; their reconmmendations for fun things to do usually turned out pretty darn fun. Without LP, I'd probably still be totally lost in Napoli, trying to decide whether *this* was the dark tunnel full of scary men I was supposed to be entering. But in Alicante, LP unexpectedly and totally let me down.
Their recommendation for good local food at fair prices was the Cerrado los Lunes. Well, as far as the "good"ness of the food goes, I guess you can't blame LP for the fact that everything there was greasy, shiny and sticky (my friends could not bear to finish their meals, but we also didn't want to offend the large waiter hovering in the doorway) and when I asked them to bring me something without meat in it, I was given a large, dry salad topped with...tuna. But hey, maybe some people like tough, crunchy and spicy sausage drowning in its own neon-orange juices (the chorizo) or chewy, fatty fried bodies with legs still attached (the squid). I for one lost my appetite the moment that plate full of lovely was plunked down in front of my hapless friend. But to add insult (to our intelligence) to injury (on our stomachs), the prices were totally outrageous. Do NOT eat here, no matter what LP says! 96.83% of the time they're right, but believe me when I tell you that this time, they were terribly wrong!

Plaza Ayuntamiento 7
(I'm not giving you their number, for your own good!)