. In celebration of food and dining experiences .

Monday, December 15, 2008

Spain: The Hit List

The unfinished La Sagrada Familia

Sunflower gates: Gaudi's design

La Boqueria market, Barcelona
***

You should have seen me planning for my Spain trip. Naturally, the food bit came first which obviously reflects my biasness. But, as you probably would have guessed, most of my travels are centered on food. When it comes to Spain, you can’t help but feel so much heat from the anticipation and excitement.
For the land that lends its grounds to the best restaurant of the world, El Bulli, which is only opened for a few months a year and reservations at this restaurant is so coveted. Out of the top 10 restaurants in the Year 2008 as named by S. Pellegrino, 3 of them are from the land that bore flamenco and bull-fighting. So, you must pardon me for all that raving.

My dad’s friend just got back from 2 weeks in Barcelona and Madrid and being a fellow food-lover, he helped me compile a list of restaurants to visit which greatly helped me in my planning. SY, who will be in Spain in a few days, told me about the hot chocolate that is “to die for” before I left which left me hungry for some.

When I left on the 28 November, I was all ready to feast on the Jamón ibérico (A type of Spanish cured ham made mainly from the black pig that feeds on acorns), decadent hot chocolate with churros, tapas and oranges (YES! My facination with Seville oranges).

Here’s a quick rundown of my favourites:

1. Jamón ibérico


Love it! And feasted on it whenever we could.
They only allowed the import of this to Singapore this year and it’s still confined to the restaurants. Imagine being in a place where you can just eat it all, whenever. So we did. Especially me. It made cold bread rolls ( I wonder why the Spainairds love their rolls cold. It’s weird) taste good.

2. Hot chocolate (at certain places)


If you manage to find the right place, you would be rewarded with really chocolatey, thick chocolate that you don’t want to put down. Not the type made from syrup or worse, cornstarch. The smell of the rich cocoa tells you that it’s right. It’s so good during cold weather and it serves as the perfect dip for your warm churros.

3. Churros filled with chocolate


We chanced upon this hole-in-the wall store while getting lost after visiting the La Sagrada Familia. See, all is not lost for those who wander. This little store has the best churros that I’ve tasted. I saw a sign that read “since 1929”. Ah traditional little bakeries are always so good. A stick of churro filled with chocolate (you can also choose the one with custard) cost 1.8 Euros. It is warm and thick, with dark chocolate oozing out from its center. Pretty neat, don’t you think?

4. Green olives


Seemingly insignificant but we had these stuffed with tomatoes or cheese whenever we had tapas. Olives are like kimchi is to the Koreans and pickled ginger is to the Japanese.
Oh, and we saw plenty of olive trees too at Parc Guell, the Alhambra and even trees along the road. I was really excited but it must have been very silly to expect any less from the world’s leading olive and olive oil producer and exporter.

5. Cacao Sampaka


The brainchild of Albert Adria (the elder brother of El Bulli’s top chef, Ferran Adria). We had headed to the pastry shop and café after our visit to Casa Batllo. However, it is closed on a Sunday!! Imagine my disappointment (Actually, disappointment is too mild a word).

But, we chanced upon its chocolate concept store while walking back from Museo de Picasso. We were walking along the shops-lined streets when at the corner of my eye, I spied a minamalist, modernistic shop which fonts on the shop signage looked vaguely familiar. On closer look, I actually exclaimed (!), “that’s the shop that I wanted to go to the day before!” and then I took hurrid steps into a newly transformed magical world where the rows and rows of chocolate bars overwhelmed me. The bon bons were crying out for me to eat them.

We got away with just a three bars of chocolate.

The chocolate were great. Love the milk chocolate praline which was made from Madagascar cocoa beans. Well, it wasn’t the best chocolate but the amount of gratification that I got from that particular bar was tremendous. It must also be due to the mounting anticipation.

Just like the time when I sunk my teeth in the Pierre Herme chocolate macaron at Tokyo.

Well, that’s about all the barrage of words that I have for now.
I’m trying to start early and keep to my new year’s resolution to be less long-winded.

Labels: Spain, travel

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