The Andalucia Tapas Trail

Tapa is a small lid on the top of a drink. The bartender would traditionally place something complimentary, like olives or fried seafood (mariscoes), on top of it. This is the story about the origin of tapas that I knew until I read the entry on Wikipedia. It suggests so many possible alternatives that instead of being confused, I stick to my initial understanding – it helps that most people in Seville believe it as well.

I have eaten tapas in London, in Chennai and in Krakow with varying qualities and interpretations of tapas. Even within Spain, while Taller de Tapas chain is an easy way to introduce oneself to tapas in Barcelona with tasty food and efficient service, it is too sanitized for a real tapa experience. The picture completely changes in Andalucia. You realize that it is not really about the food and that nothing can come close to experience of tapas-hopping in Seville, Granada or cities of the southern Spain.

It is unlikely that a bartender in a bar in Madrid or Barcelona can so endearingly have a laugh at a tourists’ expense as they routinely do at Las Columnas (officially called Bodega Santa Cruz, cheapest tapas bar in the Santa Cruz district of Seville), a place full of character. You may not be offered an English Menu, but you will still find places where tapas are free with a drink (though unlikely in Seville). What Las Columnas is to the tourist heartland of Seville, Bodega Castaneda is to Granada. In both these places you will be lucky to have standing space in busy hours, and even luckier to have a waiter’s attention for more than a few seconds. But the waiters or the bartenders will always be nice to you while they take their order, even though it is a very brief interaction! The walls of Sol y Sombra reflect its great bullfighting tradition as does the menu (famous for its cola de toro or oxtail)! Continuing with bars that offer more than food, another interesting place is El Faro de Triana, a former lighthouse on the banks of Guadalquivir in Seville. It is more of a friduria (fried fish and seafood), but you are here for the view.

While jamon (cured ham), sausages and other pork and seafood items are integral to a bar menu, vegetarians need not lose heart. And I am not talking of surviving on queso manchego (cheese from La Mancha), patatas bravas (somewhere between chips and potato wedges) and tortilla (omlette with potatoes).

Though sceptical after reading the description, we fell in love with berenjas con miel (fried eggplant with honey). There was another cream and spinach tapas (can someone help me with the name?) at Las Columnas which was always an item for a repeat order. Espinacas con garbanzos (stew of chickpeas and spinach) is anyway popular even outside Spain. Something else that is popular beyond Spanish shores is Gazpacho. While Gazpacho is a nice cool drink for Spanish summer, its thicker form, Salmorejo (tomato

soup thickened with bread giving it a creamier texture) should be a not-to-miss item for vegetarians and carnivores alike. Better still if you try it at La Giganta on Plaza de los Terceros in Seville. Next door to La Giganta is Rinconcillo, arguably, the oldes tapas bar in Seville; also inarguably the one with grumpiest staff!

Each bar is famous for a few tapas, so sampling different things at different bars is the best idea. And if you are tired of walking, and want to make a meal of you tapas at a bar, then order a ración (plate) or media ración (half-plate) of the same dish. The best thing we did is that we shed our inhibitions, and in our completely inappropriate pronunciations started ordering from the items listed on the blackboard.

Chipirones (baby squid), gambas al ajillo (prawns sautéed withgarlic) and such items were figured out from the guide book, but the rest was a raffle – one in which you always won! Anyway with 2 – 4 Euros for a tapas, you cannot go wrong. While talking about the price of tapas, it is fun figuring out if the bartender at Las Columnas has got your bill right.(he tries recollecting all that you had ordered while he writes the amounts on bar counter using chalk, adds it up and you know the total amount – would you still want to crosscheck?)

For a detailed listing of tapas bars in Seville, visit http://www.exploreseville.com/


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Paella on the beach and sweets at Convent: Spain Food Yatra (2)

For this second part of the Spanish Food Yatra, I would cover my experiences across Andalucia. Essentially three cities/towns – Seville and Granada from Moorish Spain and Nerja on Costa del Sol. Tapas bar hopping (Ir de tapas in Spanish) deserves a dedicated post so I will leave out tapas bars of Seville here.

Breakfast

We had heard so much about Churros that we had to have them for breakfast at least once during our trip. Now that we found a friendly and knowledgeable manager at our hotel, Hotel Alcantara (highly recommended), we asked him for a suggestion. On his recommendation we landed at the Churoria on Can y Ceutro at 8:00 in the morning. God bless the local ahead of us in the Q who told us not to go for the small ones on the counter but get fresh ones fried, which are then sold by weight. The Churoria has a symbiotic relationship (presumably due to common ownership) with Bar Modesto, next door. So we took our Churros, seated ourselves at Bar Modesto and ordered hot chocolate.



Lunch

The best lunch we had in the region was a couple of hundred kilometers to the east of Seville on Costa del Sol. On the Burriana beach, in the famous resort of Nerja, a legend lives. This is pony-tailed man and his institution Chirnguito de Ayo (Ayo’s Snack Bar). Any eatery with such a wonderful location would be successful just serving fries and sangria, but what has made this place famous is its paella, cooking in (what else?) huge paellas on wood-fire under thatched roof. It is not best paella you would have in Spain, and locals say it isn’t even authentic – huge jar of paprika powder kept beside the paellas used to give some of the color which otherwise should come from more expensive saffron would obviously compromise authenticity and taste. But it is about the institution rather than food. Unlimited helpings of paella for six Euros is a bargain to begin with, the picture postcard frying of chicken and bubbling of stock in various paellas at different stages of cooking, and the fact that the chef in front of you had the company of Padma Lakshmi (see the youtube video of the travel show) not so long ago, all adds up to the legend (not to mention various other food and travel shows, a gold medal from the local mayor for promoting tourism, the privilege of firing the pistol to start the race in local athletics championship and more). To a not so discerning visitor like me, the paella tasted good as well – it skimps on seafood but then how many places are serving tiger prawns for six Euros?

Evening Snack

There are not many places in the world which have been in the business of food since 1385, and this is reason enough for Horno de San Buenaventura (Avenida de la Constitución 16, Seville), in Seville to be one’s itinerary. It is a busy café, full of both locals and tourists, but you are served by rude and indifferent waiters. Remind yourself that people having been coming here for 600 years, grin and bear!

Chastened by our experience, our next evening’s coffee was at a more lowbrow Los Angeles cafe around the Plaza de Toro (Bull Ring) on the junction of Arfe and Antonio Diaz. We were so pleased with the friendly staff that we came back again for breakfast the next day. If you are not delighted with the Sevillian specialty Tocino de cielo (literally ‘heavenly bacon’ but more like a heavier version of flan) at this café, then try the same at El Buzo across the road. El Buzo is also very famous tapas bar, but I would remember it for the brilliant Tocino

For a more unique experience, go to El Torno on Plaza Cabildo. The shop sells the famous sweets made by nuns at Seville’s many convents. Each convent specializes in one or more sweets. We picked the Yemas (sugar coated egg yolks) from the Dominicas convent. You can also buy jams and marmalades here. We bought a plum jam which did not survive even three days on our return to Krakow. Let me digress to mention that the shop also sells lacework from the convent and, I presume, these clothes are considered auspicious by the local people one of whom there to buy infant’s clothes for his yet-to-be-born child.

Dinner

If you are a vegetarian or long for a veggie meal after all the carnivorous excesses in Spain, head to La Habanita (Calle Golfo 3, Seville) a Cuban restaurant which has the widest varity of vegetarian dishes among all tapas bars and restaurants in Seville. Try the frijoles con arroz (beans and rice), or aubergines with arepas (corn bread). The place is also serves, arguably, city’s best mojito. If you are in Granada, one not-to-be-missed place is Cunini on Plaza Pescadería 14. Amazing array of seafood with the option of al freco dining on the plaza make a very good choice.

But my dinner pick in Andalucia would be Seville, next to the Royal Chapel in Granada (yes, a restaurant named Seville in the city of Granada). Ava Gardner, Marlon Brando, Salvador Dalí, André Segovia, Gene Kelly, and Ingrid Bergman and others who have visited this place since 1930 cant be wrong! It claims to be loyal to family recipes of ‘La Tita’ Ana Casteneda, who started the restaurant along with her husband. We started with a superb fish soup ‘La Tita’, and had paella for main course. While I would still rate the paella at Can Majo in Barcelona slightly higher, this was really good as well. By the time we finished with our dessert and coffee, we could hardly walk. The restaurant had shuttered doors, but not once did the staff make us feel that we needed to hurry. A restaurant with a history, great food, and extremely friendly staff, situated ideally for a visitor – what else can you ask for?





Horno de San Buenavetura http://www.hornosanbuenaventura.com/

Ayo's at Nerja http://www.ayonerja.com/ayo.en.htm


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