A nice Christmas tradition

I don't know if in other parts of the world it is traditional or not, but in Spain there are more and more Christmas lunches or dinners where bosses and employees share tablecloth, food and lots of laughter.

Last Friday, we were able to celebrate this beautiful tradition in which Julio (Manager) who is on the left in the first photo and Ruben (CEO) who is with me in the second photo, organized a meal in what I consider to be the best beef restaurant in the region.

The restaurant and its menu

The restaurant they selected is the Asador de Vega, located on the outskirts of Oviedo where there is a large room with tables far apart from each other and especially one begins to salivate when you see the display of beef chops.

And when you go to the bar to have an appetizer before sitting down to eat, you can see a striking decoration with cow bells and you can also see how the griller is cooking some of the big pieces of meat.

After a few minutes waiting for all the employees and partners of the company to arrive, we were taken to our table and were offered the menu of the restaurant with a 100% beef design on its cover and inside red meats abounded along with an impressive list of white, red and rosé wines with more than 50 brands.

After a minute of deliberation, as we all had the menu in mind, we asked the waiter to take notes and asked him to calculate beef chops for 10 people and some tapas before starting with the main course.

And to prepare the palate they also brought us the wine. A delicious red wine denomination of origin Ribera del Duero that I had never tasted and that was divine glory.

Some starters

As starters, so that it wasn't all meat, we ordered leeks in extra virgin olive oil and tomatoes. I want to point out that getting good tomatoes in winter is complicated, but this restaurant is also famous for getting tomatoes of impressive size and flavor even in December.

It was during the period in which we were eating the tomato when the waiter approached us with our chops before cooking them, indicating that there were 7 kilos of meat.

Returning to the subject of the starters, as the time needed to cook those big pieces of meat is long, we ordered a couple of plates of cecina. The cecina is cured beef ham that with a few drops of extra virgin olive oil had an intense but tasty flavor.

The T-bone steaks

After about 15-20 minutes of waiting, the big moment arrived at our table.

Impressive the smell they gave off and how everyone's face lit up when the premium steaks arrived.When I put the first piece of meat in my mouth, I can only tell you that it was like putting butter in my mouth because it was so soft. You can't tell at all that they are chops from a cow.

As you can see, we don't cook the meat much compared to other countries and we usually look for the point of the meat where you can see three colors in the cut. A brown color on the outside, a fainter one, a few millimeters inside, and on the inside a pinkish color, but not bleeding.

Predatory carnivores

After leaving the three chops on the bone, there were still diners hungry for more.

In fact, Javier attacked to the bone to scrape off what little meat he already had.

So the management ordered one more steak for a total of 8.8 kilos of meat.

Dessert

I didn't want dessert. I was completely satisfied with the meat. But some of my companions ordered a rice pudding which is a very traditional dessert here in Asturias.

The bill

As I told you, this meal is a very traditional company meal organized by the company.In many companies in Spain each attendee pays his part of the bill. But in the company where I work the bosses of the company pay directly for the meal and in this case the bill was close to 700 euros.

A drink?

After the meal, many of the employees retired to their homes because they had responsibilities to their children, partners, etc. However, I stayed with the Manager and another of the partners to have a couple of Gin and Tonic in the city of Oviedo.

Finally, at 9:30 p.m. I arrived home with a little more alcohol in my veins, but very happy to have been sharing a great day with my co-workers and bosses.

Best regards and I hope you like my post.

Own photograph taken with my iPhone 13.

Cover, separators and banner created with www.canva.com (free version).

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version).