Pepa y Pepe II

A group of us came here on our first night in Málaga. As this is our last night here, I have to say, this was my favorite place that we ate at. We ordered several foods, including pinchos (marinated meat on a stick), croquetas (like cheese sticks, but tastier and with ham), patatas bravas, and more. The cost was great, and we had ordered so much! My only complaint? Everything was fried. Oh well, fried stuff tastes so good!

I spent some time in Malaga years ago and this used to be my favorite place — good value, and decent renditions of the usual stuff you get in most tapas places in that part of Spain. I was a bit disappointed on my last visit… Pepa y Pepe seems to have expanded into a chain and the quality had gone down a little. Really I’d like to give 2.5 stars. My favorite «Adobo» (cubes of dogfish marinated in a tangy marinade and then fried) was as good as ever, and I’d recommend a visit just for that. However, I was disappointed by the less than fresh tasting Rosada (also a kind of fried fish… used to be delicious but this time I left most of it because it had that funny too fishy taste fish gets when it’s not fresh enough). The menu had also expanded to include items that are less common in Andalusian tapas bars, and more in line with the kind of items tourists expect to see on tapas menus (e.g. patatas bravas, which I have never found in Andalucia before — I think they are a Northern Spain thing?). At first I was excited to see mushrooms, but then they turned up deep fried rather than garlicky (to be fair they were listed as fried so I was silly to order them). The service was pretty dreadful, and not so much in the kind of relaxed laissez faire manner that is typical of Spain compared to the US, but in terms of grumpy and taking about 30 mins to give change after paying the bill. So… all in all, I agree it’s okay here in terms of good value, but I wouldn’t want to send anyone here with high hopes for anything special. It seems almost like a McDonalds version of tapas nowadays.

This might be the best tapas bar we found in malaga. Food is not expensive but very, very tasty. If you get the chance try the calamares… or just anything else from the menu. and never order ½ racion if you want to eat anything else. They give you a lot of food! It is nice to sit outside when the streets are crowded!

This place is one reason why the Spanish food in Malaga is so much better than the Spanish food in Boston. If I was comparing this place to other places in Spain I may have given this place 4 Stars out of 5, but since I had a fun time eating at this place, was introduced to some tasty new dishes, and got my stomach really full, I am going to give this place an excellent rating.
I was introduced to this restaurant by a friend who is originally from Cazorla, but currently studying in Malaga. He said to me, in English something like this:
«We can go to a place that serves really good tapas, but is really expensive, or we can go to place that serves inexpensive tapas, but the quality is okay and they give big amounts,»
I wanted to go to the place that would serve inexpensive tapas, so we ended up here. We discussed on what dishes we would get, and I asked him what he would recommend. He suggested a sausage dish that has some spice in the flavour and it was called «morcilla». We decided to get the following:
Patatas bravas (fried potatoes in a spiced tomato sauce) — ½ ración, € 2.90
Calamares fritos (fried calamari) — ½ ración, € 2.90
Chorizo frito (fried pork sausage) — Tapa, € 1.30
Morcilla frita (fried blood sausage) — Tapa, € 1.30
They will serve a large basket filled with bread, and these four dishes should be enough to fill the stomachs of two people. «Tapa» would be a small dish, enough for one person as a snack, while a «ración» should be a large plate designed for probably 4 people. The patatas bravas were tasty, loved the soft texture of the potatoes, and were addicting to eat. The fried calamari was excellently tasty, not overly fried, and the texture was nice and chewy. The chorizo and morcilla were also tasty and flavourful. I really liked the spiced flavour of the morcilla.
We kept eating, drinking beer, and talked a lot about Spanish culture. Another fun part was that I was randomly entertained while eating here. My friend and I were sitting outside, enjoying the great weather and there were a few Spanish girls inside that were sitting next to us, separated by the glass window. There was also a large group of middle aged tourists inside as well, and they were asking one of the Spanish girls to sing. The Spanish girl clapped her hands, stomped her feet, and began to passionately sing as loud as possible which sounded a little like opera. My friend said to me,
«She’s singing flamenco, and she’s really good!»
The tourists kept begging her to sing more songs, and she reluctantly agreed, although with a smile. I thought the singing was decent, needed the sound and passion of the Spanish guitar in the background. After she finished singing, everyone that was sitting or working applauded. She blushed a little, looked to her right, and her and her friends saw me and my friend sitting next to them, looking through the window and they laughed. We smiled and said hi to them. I guess I was really lucky to see a talented singer while eating some tasty tapas.
Overall, I thought I had some of the best value tapas in Malaga so far, and shows that food in Spain can be really tasty and cheap in Europe. I probably would never forget this experience as I was introduced to Morcilla frita and had a great time here.