If you take a stroll through Muelle Uno, the port area of Malaga, you are spoilt for choice when it comes to restaurants and bars.
Unfortunately, most of them are nothing better than a tourist trap. The food quality is average if you’re lucky, or just downright bad.
On my last weekend stay in Malaga, I happened to stop over for a drink that dragged into lunch hours, so I decided to give this place a try.
La Bella Lola looked like one of the better places to try, an upgrade from the usual establishment set up with plastic chairs and tables. It felt very inviting and cosy, with boho style lamps swinging in the breeze and modern wooden furniture all around.
Me and my husband went for a safe bet – a salad. I mean, how hard could it be to make a good salad?
It turns out, it’s pretty difficult.
My salad was with shrimp and avocado. The shrimps were the transparent kind you get straight out of a freezer bag, with absolutely zero taste. There were just a few slices of avocado and the rest was salad leaves from a bag, finished with a salad sauce from a tube.
My husband had a caesar salad – which by the way was listed in the vegetarian section, along with a caption of ‘crispy chicken’. That enough should have been a warning sign.
The salad was again less than average, with no culinary imagination or attempt to add some flavour.
Well, at least the serving plates were pretty, I give them that.
The salads were also a bit on the pricey side, so I was surprised they were so disappointing.
I normally don’t include bad reviews of places I visited because I thought there was no point – that’s why my restaurant posts from Malaga are pretty limited. But I always get annoyed by the positive reviews these places get on Tripadvisor, which is only because they are in popular tourist locations and reviewed by tourists, not locals.
So here we are, posting about a place I’m only sharing so you can avoid it =)
Your wallet and taste buds are welcome!
La Bella Lola, Malaga
Location: Muelle Uno, Malaga
Menu: the restaurant doesn’t have any website, only social channels where menu hasn’t been published.
