Barcelona, Figueres etc.

When we were planning our holiday I was very optimistic regarding local trips like Barcelona, Montserrat, other seaside towns etc. Unfortunately it wasn't that easy. We only visited Barcelona, Reus (which was not really interesting because we had no map or guide) and Figueres on our way back. Figueres houses the Salvador Dali museum which is part of the Dali triangle. Everyone who visits the area should take the time and visit this place. It's unbelievable. I'm sure I will try to explore the whole Dali triangle in next few years because I was amazed by this museum.

We also took a one day trip to Barcelona. I have been to Barcelona once before but also for one day and I loved the place. But this time I was a bit confused. It's huge and very crowded. The town centre is enormous, with wide and long boulevards and big squares. One needs at least 3 days to explore this city, there are just too many things to see and visit. I do not recommend one day trips. we felt like we were lost in a huge megapolis and even though we had a guidebook we haven't managed to see even a fraction of what we intended to see.

BUT there are still some pictures of food! :)

Boqueria Market -

The photos didn't turn out too well. What can I say? Boqueria is beautiful, but to me it looked more like a tourist attraction than a real place where the locals shop. They do their shopping in different markets like Mercat san Antoni or Mercat del Ninot or others. I wanted to go there but alas...

Still, Boqueria was an amazing place! Beautiful stalls, incredible variety of all kinds of things, a few fully occupied tapas bars. Everything there is so pretty and perfectly arranged and at least the fruit stalls really do seem a little artificial. I always look out for seafood, here the array was unbeatable and hands down the best I have ever seen in my life.

We sat down to have lunch in a Japanese style noodle restaurant called Udon. It's very popular among travellers and is featured in many tourist guides.

This is the Nabeyaki udon. It was a nice change after all the grilled seafood and fish we had in the previous week. I know that sounds nasty :)))

This is it from our Spain trip :)

Great thanks to my inlaws for inviting and taking us on that beautiful holiday!!!

More and more goodies

The day when we arrived in Cambrils was the final day of a series of religous holidays dedicated to San Joan (St. John). This holiday is very popular in Catalonia and celebrations last for several days. During these days people party in the streets, fire fireworks, dance and of course eat eat eat. There was a local produce market in the port of Cambrils set up for the holidays and selling traditional foods and crafts.

This couple is baking traditional bread. They made the dough on the spot and baked the loaves in a traditional stone oven. It tasted heavenly.

There was also a stall selling dozens of varieties of pickled vegetables and olives.

Fuet and cured meat.

We bought a loaf of bread, some olives, some of the cured meat shown above, 1 fuet and lots of wine and had a very pleasant late night snack.

Paella

Paella is served in all restaurants. It's not possible to order it for one though, only for 2 people or more. I would love to learn how to cook paella, I'm not good at cooking rice though.

Grilled baby squid

Mussels mariniere

Fried small fish. A perfect snack to go along with beer.

We sat down in a bar serving vermouth and were served 2 tapas like this. It's a pitted olive, anchovy fillet and pickled oyster with some hot sauce. It was salty, sourish, hot and briny at the same time. Vermouth is quite popular in Cambrils and many bars serve it in a peculiar way. There are buckets with ice with a bottle of vermouth and water inside and a bottle of hot sauce on the table. You order vermouth and they bring you big glasses with ice, pieces of orange, olives and a small plastic syringe. If I got it right you should mix yourself a drink with the vermouth and water and use the syringe to pour some hot sauce into the glass. Another interesting thing is that it's not charged by glasses. You are charged by the bottle and by the person. That means that if there are two of you you pay 4,5 euros per person as long as the first bottle lasts and no matter if you drink 1 or 5 glasses. In other words for 2 people a bottle of vermouth costs 9 euros, for 3 people 13,5 euros. If you start another bottle it's 4,5 per every person on the table again. I'm not sure if I got it right though :)

Lobster and seafood combo. The photo is blurred because the photographer's hands were shaking with fear. The people by the table were threatening to eat him if he pursues to hold them back in order to take pictures. Yes, it did look that appetizing and it was divine.

Husband posing as the background of this spectacular looking prawn/calamari "spear". Fried baby octopus are served along with it, it's the plate on the right. We love prawns and found this place to serve the best prawns in terms of price/quality because prawns are really quite expensive in Cambrils. This "spear" costs 21 euros and has 10 very big and juicy prawns, 10 big calamari rings and this plate of freshly deep fried baby octopus. We have had prawns in more expensive places but somehow they weren's that good. These ones were perfect.

Grilled baby octopus.

Hake with prawn and wild mushroom sauce. At first this looked ridiculous to me. A cream sauce with mushrooms on fish on the seaside in summer? But the waiter explained to us that wild mushrooms are very popular in Catalonia, even by the seaside. Apparently lots of mushrooms grow in the surrounding mountains. And indeed I have seen porcini mushrooms being sold on a market later as well as canned wild mushrooms in supermarkets. Surprisingly, Catalan cooks add nuts to almost all cream sauces, I'll have to do some research on this. This dish was fabolous. Hake is considered a somewhat low quality fish in Europe, but it's a favourite in Spain and I can see why now. Here in Prague it's sold in the form of frozen fillets that are full of water and taste very dry and fishy. This freshly caught fish was moist and delicate. Another interesting thing is that no sidedishes or garnishes are served with cream sauces. Nothing to mop up the sauce with, except bread.

Cambrils - the seafood paradise

Cambrils is known as the town with the best seafood in all Costa Daurada and maybe even Catalonia. The food there is superb and we have not had a bad meal during our holiday. There are 2 restaurants here that received a Michelin star. We have not visited them though and it was not because they were expensive, they were just slightly more expensive than the rest, but because they were always booked.
Miramar restaurant:

We went there for my mom in law's birthday and it was the place everyone liked the most. Great service, great wine, superb food.

Tuna carpaccio in a cava jelly.

Grilled prawns.

Grilled razor clams and scallops. I have never eaten razor mussels before. They look gross, like big fat white worms but they are really tasty. The essence of the sea. The scallops were incredibly fresh and perfectly grilled.

Vongole clams and scallops.

Pulpo a la Gallega, a famous Spanish dish. Octopus is boiled with spices and then served with olive oil, salt and paprika.

Steamed mussels. Nothing added except lemon and these mussels didn't need any seasoning anyway, they were delicious.

Grilled calamari and cuttlefish. Again, these were grilled to perfect softness without being dry.

Grilled angler with escalivada and a potatoe. Angler is one of the most common fishes in Cabrils, along with seabass, hake, sea bream and sole. Escalivada is a mix of grilled or baked vegetables flavoured with olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Here eggplant, pepper and tomatoe were used, but sometimes oinion and garlic are added.

Grilled halibut with the same sidedishes as above.

Grilled seabass.

Moments in Spain...

Back home from Spain!

We are back home form a 2 week holiday in Spain. We are lazy tourists actually and spent the whole holiday in one town called Cambrils, we went on a couple of trips though.
To start off here are some things I brought home. I would have loved to buy more things if only there was some more space in our car, but it was totally cramped.

From left to right -

1. Torres Esmeralda white wine - I liked this wine a lot. It's fairly local, it's light and refreshing. Torres is a big multinational company and I never liked its wines until I tried Esmeralda.

2. Pinord La Nansa sparkling white wine (blue bottle) - also fairly local and very light.

3. 3 kinds of infused olive oils by Borges (Ferran Adria line) - 3 peppers, rosemary, soy sauce and ginger. Those are available in the Czech republic (with the exception of the soy sauce ginger variety) but cost about 3-4 times as much. Borges is a very mainstream olive oil producer but has managed to get Ferran Adria to design a product line for them.

4. Baro de l'Albi olive oil - reccomended by the staff of the De'Gusto gourmet shop in Cambrils. Haven't tried it yet.

5. Mestral olive oil produced by the Cooperativa Cambrils - This oil is apparently unique, it's being made exclusively from arbequina olives. It has been been named the best olive oil of Spain of 2006 and 2008 by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and has collected numerous awards on fairs all over the world.

6. Walmer salsas - Olivada (tapenade), Alli olli (garlic sauce), Salsa Brava (spicy hot sauce used for Patatas Bravas). Bought on a food market in Cambrils on the first day of our stay and not seen anywhere afterwards.

7. Arbequina olives - in brine. Arbequinas are small and look unexciting, but they are a favourite among the locals. In the previous post there is a pic of a pickle stand at the local market with dozens of different olive sizes and flavours. Tourists were buying the big fat spectacular looking ones while the locals stuck to small and humble arbequinas. The best Spanish olive oils are made from arbequina olives.

8. Local honey

9. Tuna fillets in olive (glass jar) - very high quality tuna. Delicious and impossible to buy in Prague, for a fair price at least.

10. 1 pork sausage of some kind - bought in a butcher shop

11. 1 fuet salami - bought in a butcher shop

12. another can of my beloved tuna.