A Culinary Journey through Spain
Friday, December 14th, 2007Filed Under Restaurant Reviews, Spain, Travel
Here it is, the post I have been promising to write for about two weeks now. I finally got around to sorting through all the pictures, a lot of them unusable, especially the ones that were taken after a few glasses of Sangria. But I do have quite a lot, to give you some idea about the diverse cuisine that we didn’t know much about before this trip, except for everyone’s favorite Spanish food -Tapas.
Tapas
Spain is not just about Tapas, though if you just want to survive on Tapas, you could do that too. The Spanish food schedule is so different from the normal American eating times. Lunch normally starts at 1:00 PM and goes on till 4:00 pm, dinner starts around 9:00 pm. This worked so perfectly for our schedule, sometimes we used to have a heavy lunch and just some light dinner. Tapas work perfect for these light dinners.
The Tapas menu is normally divided into different sections according to the size of the portions. Pinchitos (tiny), Pinchos (bite-sized), Tapas (Snack), Racion (larger portion) etc. Some Tapas-only bars even have a section of the menu called To Share, where the portions are significantly larger, and is meant for groups. Two is not a good number for sharing a Tapas meal. Siv and I ended up ordering much more than we actually needed, just for the variety. The racion is too big a portion, so after the first two days we learned our lesson and stuck with the first two parts of the menu.
Here are some of the tapas that we really enjoyed during our stay.
Pimientos de Padrón (Fried Peppers) - How can something so simple taste so heavenly? These are just young Padrón peppers deep fried in olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt. These are not spicy peppers, they are so mild and slightly bitter tasting, but supposedly once in a while you will bite into a spicy one, never happened to us. We loved this so much that when we rented the condo in Barcelona, we went to the market and bought some fresh Padrón peppers and made our own little tapa. I don’t know if we can find these peppers here in the US, if we can, I could have this every day! 
Gambas all Cremat (Prawns in Sauce) - When we ordered this, we were expecting a dish where the prawns are floating in some sauce. But instead, we got this incredible dish where the prawns and some cream were baked onto a piece of bread. So different and so tasty! I am not sure if it is a common Tapa, or a speciality at that restaurant. 
Patatas Alioli con erizo de mar (Potatoes with garlic sauce and seafood) - This was another surprise, something we would have never ordered if we had seen it, but again a simple baked potato topped with a garlicky cream sauce and caviar and sprinkled with paprika turned out to be a winner. 
Mc. Kenji (Hamburguesa de lomo de atun rojo) (Burger of red tuna sirloin) - Yep, it is a mouthful, but tasted great. Slightly spiced tuna patties in a soft bread, with a side of some pickled veggies. Picture doesn’t do much justice, but still a great tasting burger. 
Fried Marinated Shark fish - This was a very lemony fried white fish, which tasted so fresh and juicy while hot, but kind of lost the flavor after it got cold. This dish is a great example of a tapa that must be shared with a larger group. The taste was heavenly while it was hot though, hence I am listing it here. 
Chicken Wings Fried with Paprika - A simple dish, very mild deep fried chicken wings, but you know how much I love chicken wings… We thoroughly enjoyed this. 
Fried baby squids (calamari) - Well, need I say anything, who doesn’t like baby calamari. These were deliciously spiced, and with a little bit of lemon squeezed over, there is nothing like it. Again, a little too big a portion for two. 
Sole Stuffed Red Peppers - The gravy was too rich and creamy, but the dish tasted great.
Fried Fish - Yes, these are just simple deep fried fish we had at an ocean side restaurant in Barcelona. We were waiting for so long in that crowded restaurant, we jumped for it as soon as the dish appeared on the table. The camera came out after. The two oil marks in the picture shows how hungry we were! These were the most amazing fried fish I’ve had, the fish was so fresh from ocean, it didn’t need any spices. Absolutely loved this one.
Prawns in garlic sauce - Another simple dish, which scored big points for the freshness of the ingredients.
Now off to some disappointments. There were just two that we absolutely didn’t like from all the tapas that we had.
Tortitas de Camerons (Shrimp Cake) - These are deep fried shrimp breads, kind of like the Indian poori, it was way too oily for our taste. 
Potato and Black Sausage Millefeuilles with Mushroom Sauce - Black sausage was just too strong, we couldn’t even eat this dish! We have had blood sausage dishes from Spanish restaurants in the US, and loved it. But I guess this one is the real deal, and we couldn’t enjoy it. I think I’ll avoid blood sausage in Spain. 
Jamon Serrano (Cured Ham)
How can I write about Spanish cuisine without mentioning the national obsession, cured ham? The thin Iberian ham is the greatest delicacy in Spain, there are so many shops dedicated to selling the cured meat. You can buy it by the slice, by kilo, or even the whole leg. The picture below is a common sight everywhere in Spain. I loved these thinly sliced ham with my breakfast, but didn’t get the whole obsession.
Even though we didn’t visit the Basque region, Basque cuisine is abundantly available all over Barcelona. Even in the regular menus in Catalan restaurants, you can find one or two Basque style dishes.
Pintxos
Basque version of Tapas are called pintxos, these are small open faced sandwiches topped with a wide variety of stuff. The pintxos are normally less than €2 each, and are displayed along the counter. All you need to do is to get an empty plate from the waiter and help yourself to the munchies. Once in a while they bring out new hot pintxos to you, you can grab one if you like. At the end, they count the number of toothpicks leftover on your plate, that is how the tab is calculated. It works on a total honor system, and is a very fun experience. We discovered this only the last day of our trip, so we could only do this once!
Here are the few pintxos we sampled. Chicken croquettes, bacon wrapped seafood, Olives wrapped with an anchovy, a seafood mousse topped with walnuts and anchovies, a piece of Spanish Omlette, and some other ones I can’t remember now. At this place, it was €1.80 per piece, and we had a very filling meal for less than €25 including beer.
Hake
All over Spain, we kept seeing Hake in the menu, other than the fact that it was a fish, we didn’t know much about it, and we never bothered to order. Till we went to one restaurant and saw a delicious looking plate on the table next to us. We told the waiter “I’ll have what she is having” , a phrase we used on multiple occasions across Spain. That turned out to be Basque style Hake dish, and we both decided to order the same dish. Both the orders came out together in a large pot, which our waitress skillfully divided into each plate. Apart from two large pieces of breaded fried hake pieces, each of us got a piece of boiled egg, and some assorted shellfish varieties. The sauce was very mild, but the fish was so darn tasty. I’ve never had anything like this before!
Suckling Pig and Roasted Lamb
These two dishes are a major part of Spanish cuisine that you have to try both once in Spain.
Suckling Pig is a young pig that is killed when it is about three weeks old. The quality of the meat depends on what it was fed, and normally these are fed just the breast milk.
Lamb meat is very common in Spain, we found the whole lamb legs hanging in the meat section of all the stores we went to. Traditionally the lamb is served roasted, we had it from multiple places, and all were delicious.
Paella
No Spanish cuisine post is complete without mentioning Paella. We only had it once, mainly because the dish is so huge, you won’t be able to have anything else that day. Also, the first time we had it, we were not too happy with it, I’ve had better versions here in the US. Here is the mixed seafood Paella that we had. It is always served in the pan in which it is prepared. 
Notable Restaurants
We didn’t have a single bad meal in Spain, sometimes we were too full to fully appreciate the meal, but we never went to a place we thought were really bad. I don’t know if we got lucky, or the food is good everywhere. But some places did stand out from the crowd, here are the ones we thought were really good.
Madrid Restaurants
Taberneros - Tapas and wine bar, recommended by the hotel concierge, one of the best we had
Tapasbar - We just wandered in here, and it was great, very crowded, full of locals.
Chic Gastronomia Iberica - This was directly opposite to our hotel, and was recommended by the concierge. Food was really good, but it was empty for some reason! I had Grilled Sea bass over a crunnchy tomato and parmesan risotto and Siv had Stuffed Chicken with mozzarella, tomato and bacon with a Roquefort sauce. Both were excellent.
Toledo Restaurants
Restaurante El Cobertizo is a Michelin restaurant in Toledo, where unfortunately we ended up for a lunch hour when nobody was around. The menu was in Spanish, but with the little English that the owner had, we ended up ordering Grilled Lamb and Grilled Salmon, which I don’t think were in the menu, but was easy for them to make. Both dishes were delicious, we wished we could stay back for dinner!
Barcelona Restaurants
Taverna Basca Irati - This is the place where we had the pintxos I talked about. It is a block from La Rambla in a small alley. We found it since it was recommended by Rick Steves.
Cerveceria is a Catalan restaurant write on Ramblas with a tapas bar on the ground floor and a sit down restaurant on top. I think it is a bit touristy, the owner spoke English and was too eager to make conversation with us. There were pictures along the wall of celebrities eating at the restaurant pausing with the owners. But the food was really good, so who cares if it is touristy right?
La Mar De Bo is from where we had the fried fish and the Basque style Hake. There were too many restaurants along the harbor, we went to the least crowded one. Does that mean this is the worst place there? Then you are in luck, because they set some great standard, go into any of the ocean front restaurants along the harbor.
La Boqueria Market
I mentioned this market in my Barcelona post. There are a bunch of small tapas bars and cafes in there. And the stores sell some fresh fruit salads and fruit juices too. Here are some more pictures from the market that I thought were interesting.
An egg store in the market, selling ostrich eggs along with regular eggs.
Only Kerallites will get why I like this picture. These are sardines (mathi as we call it), reminded me so much of the fish markets in Kerala.
This one is sad, but funny. Look at the happy Bugs Bunny face on the price card indicating that the meat is in fact Rabbit meat.
And finally, remember how I told you that you must know at least some Spanish words to survive, since most restaurants don’t have an English menu? Well, even the ones that does, the translation is really bad. Here is a funny translation that we came across in a wine menu.
With that folks, we are done. Thank you for reading. This became much longer than I expected, but I wanted to get this one out of the way, so I can get some closure on this vacation, and move on to accept the cold, dark Seattle weather.
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28 Responses to “A Culinary Journey through Spain”
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Lovely! The food looks great! and your pictures, as usual, are splendid! Fried peppers, now i’d love to have that
he he, pics after the sangria, you are pardoned, thats one of the things you went there fore, right 
Oh, and your chicken recipe really looked great, and i too cudn’t help but notice the similarity with desi food!
hugs,
musical.
wow, that is indeed a great culinary journey!!! delishhhhhhhh pics.
Oh my! That is so good.. thanks for taking all the effort in compiling this for us. Sweetie, you rock *clink*
*hic*
Looks like simple things are more tasty. Was so happy to see mathi
wow..so many sig…great pictures…and this means no spanish vacation for me…
..I see only non-veg everywhere…
I loved the eggs pic the best. Lovely post, Sig! The Bugs Bunny is rather macabre, esp to someone like me who often struggles with being non-vegetarian
Great post! You managed to take quite a few good pics of the food. That’s always the tricky part for me; there are times when I just forget I needed pics until I am halfway thru a meal…life was simpler when I wasn’t blogging.
Spain seems to be a must-visit for food lovers.
Sig, pray why are you doing this to me….?? The pics are incredible, n each one looks so very appetizing. I hope you’ve not put on too much weight?? I have surely added a 500 gms just by looking at the pics!!
Sig what are you trying to do to us. I should name you spanish torture
Seeing all the foos is a real torture as i would also love to taste them especially the tapas oh and the chicken wings delicious
phew. i got tired by just looking at all of those!!!
wow! what an exhaustive yummy post and you have done TOTAL justice to it, loved it
the fried peppers in the pic, are they the ones u tried in ur condo kitchen or from the restaurant ?
the pintxos look so good, am ready to grab a bite of those, err i mean more than a bite
These pictures are a gastronomical delight Sigma! If we do a trip to Spain, your blog is going to be a one stop shop. And I love the “mathi” picture
Everything looks so great Sig. I would have loved the potato and also the baked prawn sauce. They look great.
That rabbit picture is bit too much to take :(.
Now I want to go to all these places…
oh, those fried peppers look so damn good!!!! Wouldlove to try them out… and the eng translation was funny
those fried peppers did get me drooling….
I must get to Spain one day.
Sig i am back again tp drool on the pic. If you ever find a recipe for the chicken wings you should post it
Lovely post Sig… and you seem to have sampled quite a variety of food. The counting toothpicks for your tab is so cute…
But of course the translation takes the cake - Amazing! The paella looks good.. it’s a pity it didn’t taste excellent.
Atlast
The wait was definitely worth it Sig, Gosh wonderful dishes!!
Spain was never my list of places to visit but I gotta include it in my list dear as we are planning a road trip next summer with my friends.
Oh my I have never seen so much food in one post. I think I am having a coronary! This looks great. Spain does offer some great cuisine and glad to see you literally ate your way through the country!
Wow! Great pictures. What a great place to visit.
Wowww that is a whole lot of fooddd. Its takes a great deal of planning before going on a vacation !!! Welcome back to US.
OMG!!! You have had some fun girl!! Great array of food here. Yum Yum!! I love the chicken wings too, looks great!:)
This was such a gastromic pleasure. Thank you and thank Siv for taking us on this culinary journey.
I am sooo jealous, everything looks so delicious!!!
gravy is my fav part in any chicken dish your looks sooo yummyyyyyyyyy lovely recipe sig and thanks for stopping at my blog
Sig ~ You have inspired me to document my food trips properly. Eric and I just stuff our faces and forget to photograph the food. We write down what we order, of course, but that is the extent of it. So much better to have photographed memories. The fried peppers sound divine. Glad you and Siv ate to your hearts’ content.
[…] restaurants in town and we love Spanish food. Then I came to know that Txori is a pintxos bar. Pintxos are the Basque version of Tapas, a culinary delight we discovered during our recent trip to Spain. […]