n. A large
hotel, with a good restaurant and all the latest improvements, is
projected, and no doubt San Sebastian will soon be as well catered for
as any French watering-place; but in the meantime it is as well for the
casual seeker for a meal to go to the Continental, which overlooks the
bay, and where a very fair breakfast is to be obtained for 4 francs in
the verandah whence all the life of the place can be watched.

The Casino has a restaurant with a wide verandah which should be a
delightful place at which to take dinner. I had been warned that I
should not be well served there, but one day I thought that the view of
the town and the garden, with its picturesque crowd, would make amends
for any dilatoriness. This was the menu of the dinner that I partook of,
and, though wine was included in the repast, to conciliate the haughty
Spaniard in dress-clothes who came and looked at me as though I were an
"earth-man," I ordered a pint of Diamante:--

Hors-d'oeuvre.

POTAGES.

Creme de volaille. Consomme Riche.

POISSON.

Langouste. Sauce Tartare.

ENTREE.

Salmis de Perdreaux au Jerez.

LEGUMES.

Tomates farcies Provencale.

ROTI.

Filet de Boeuf Pique Broche. Salade.

ENTREMETS.

Arlequin. Dessert.

I do not think that I ever had a worse-served 7 francs worth of food.
Once in my life, at a Chicago hotel, I saw a negro waiter shaking up the
bottle of Burgundy I had ordered, just to amuse his brother "coons," and
I felt a helpless exasperation as I watched him. The same feeling of
voiceless anger was upon me as I watched the gentleman who was supposed
at the San Sebastian Casino to keep me supplied with hot food, bring a
dish from the interior of the cafe and then put it down on somebody
else's table to cool while he strolled across the terrace to ask the
military guardian at the gate how many people had paid for admission, or
at what hour the band played, or what number had won the lottery.

Bourdette and the Urbana, both with French cookery, are the restaurants
patronised by the Englishmen in San Sebastian who talk Spanish, and both
are said to be fairly good.

Bilbao

It is curious that at the great northern town of Spain there should be
no first-class restaurants. The two best in the town are the Antiguo,
in the Calle de Bide