Barcelona Restaurants~La Mar

One of our friends visited Spain back in June 2011, and recommended "La Mar," a seafood restaurant to us.  It was located between a bunch of restaurants and it was one of the few non-touristy places that did not have a staff member beckoning us to come in.  (FYI-The lack of someone trying to encourage us to dine at a restaurant is always a good sign that the restaurant might be good). 

Fried Calamari. Look at all those baby squid!

For those of you who have dined with me, I love fried calamari. All my co-workers who I have travelled with know that if calamari is on the list of appetizers, I'll usually order a plate.  These calamari were a bit different from the typical calamari we eat back in the States. These were tiny squid instead of squid rings. They kind of reminded me of the fried squid sold from the Rada's Piroshki on Fort Street Mall back in Hawaii. 

Seafood Paella. We figured that we should order paella at least once in Spain.  This restaurant serves a non-traditional paella without the saffron.  The two-person portion was huge and Mike and I were unable to finish all that rice!

This is my plate! The chef brought the paella pan to the table and portioned it out for us. 

Hazelnut Three Ways~

This dessert reminds me of the soy three ways dessert that I had at Morimoto's last year.  Hazelnuts were the feature of this dessert. Caramelized hazelnuts, a hazelnut cake, paste, gelato, and a mousse.  It was interesting concept, but not something I would rave about.

Barcelona, Spain~Boqueria Market Food

There was a huge crowd surrounding one of the made-to-order seafood food stands, so like lemmings, we decided to plop ourselves down on some seats and order some food.  We've found that when in doubt on restaurant choices-look for a busy restaurant. That usually means the food is good.  If the cooked food also smells delicious, that's also a plus.  When you are at said restaurant, look to see what most people are ordering-if it looks good, order that. 

So, with all our tips in mind, we settled on a plate of garlic fried razor clams.  Why? 1)A lot of people were ordering them; 2) The cooked garlic smell was calling my name. 

Yum yum yum. Mike let me eat most of it because I really like clams and we haven't seen razor clams on a lot of menus in the US.

Here's the little kitchen/food stand. It was such a tiny area, but these chefs cranked through tons of plates of food.

Pimentos de padron-Fried mini peppers

Tako (Octopus)

Mike ate this sausage kebab from another food stand. He enjoyed this while walking through the Boqueria.

Barcelona, Spain~ Boqueria Market

One of my favorite places in Barcelona was the Boqueria Market in the La Rambla area. This crowded open food market is filled with rows and rows of vendors selling all kinds of fresh food. There was a seafood section, fruit and vegetable section, meat section with various bakeries, food stands (think crepes, sit-down cook-to-order places, deli-type), and cheese vendors interspersed  between the sections.  I enjoyed looking at all the fresh food and buying unusual looking items. 

Preserved meats

Fresh figs!

Dried mushrooms and vegetables.

Beautiful heirloom tomatoes!

All different parts of animals were sold at this market.  Look brains!

I was grossed out when I saw all the goat heads staring at me, but I had to take a picture of it. 

I'm not sure what fruit this is, but I thought it looked interesting. Does anyone know what this is?

I had to take a picture of the assortment of gummy candies on display. 

Look at the assortment of fruit. I bought that tray of poha berries (ground cherries).

Freshly squeezed fruit juices! Look how colorful and pretty the juices look. I had to try one! I had a strawberry guava and Mike had a strawberry coconut.

Seville~Taberna de Alabardero

I really wanted to enjoy Taberna de Alabardero. It was supposed to be one of the fancy lunch meals in Spain that was a reasonable price of 17 Euros for a three course lunch.  Taberna de Alabardero is a fancy hotel in Seville and there are several restaurants that you can dine in.  The 3-course special is at the "cooking school" restaurant located in the hotel.  The online reviews and Rick Steves guidebook highly recommended this place, so I hyped this restaurant up in my mind.

Tripe Soup. The flavor was pretty good. We did not know it was tripe at the time, and I thought that the soup had a lot of fat globules in it.

Tripe. We were not sure what this was, so I took a picture of it and then did a google image search on soups served in Spain. 

Radish Ravioli filled with a tomato, feta, pesto filling.

Fish with cream sauce. The fish wasn't bad. It wasn't very good either and I did not finish it.  

Pork Tenderloin. It was tough and chewy. Mike thought that the meat was previously cooked and then reheated for our service.

Apple Tart. This dessert tasted like it was a couple of days old.

Chocolate Souffle with Orange Cream Sauce. The cake was a bit dry, but the flavors were good.

Boo.  We would not recommend seeking out this restaurant in Seville. We were extremely disappointed with the taste and flavor of the food.  We thought that maybe our palates were not familar with Spanish flavors, but after enjoying other restaurants, we think that maybe the restaurant was having an off day. 

Taberna de Alabardero
C/O Zaragoza
Sevilla, Spain

Seville, Spain~Cheap Bar Snacks

Mike and I found this "Bodega Santa Cruz" through Trip Advisor. We were trying to find a tapas bar to eat at prior to watching a Flamenco show and searched the area that we would be in. It was this small bustling little bar with an attentive staff and tasty home-cooked tapas.

I forgot what the name of this dish was, but it was a thick chunky vegetable stew.

"Huevos Fritas" (Fried Eggs???). Mike wanted to try a Spain speciality which included fried eggs, but was surprised when he received a plate of fried bull testicles.  Apparently "Huevos Fritas" is a slang term for testicles. Mike manned up and attempted to eat those spongy veined banana-looking things.  I tried a bite and then stopped. 

"Revuelto de verduras y Gambas." It's basically scrambled eggs with vegetables and shrimp.  It was a simple hearty dish.

"Anchoas Fritas" (Fried Anchovies).  This tapa was another dish that I wanted to try in Spain.  I expected to really enjoy this dish, but I think that the anchovies were bigger than what I had imagined, so I could not eat the bones and had to be careful when I chewed.

Paella. Mike really enjoyed this paella. I thought that this is what a authentic home-cooked paella would taste like. 

Spain Cheap Eats (This is why Mike liked Spain)

This post will attempt to provide you all an insight into how many sandwiches and cups of beer Mike ate and drank in Spain. 

Cerveceria 100 Monoditos.  I think the translation is Beer and Mini Sandwich Store.  Mike thought that this chain restaurant was probably Spain's equivalent to McDonald's. The menu includes over 100 types of small sandwiches ranging from 1-2.5 EurosThere were a couple of days that we would start our morning off at 10am and Mike would order a 1Euro (~$1.60 US) Beer and a couple of monoditos for about 1 Euro each for breakfast.  The quality was average, but I think Mike enjoyed this place even more because of the prices. 

Then Mike fell in love with Museo del Jamon, another cheap sandwich and beer place.

These stores were all over the place in Spain and all of them were always crowded. You had to slowly inch your way to the front counter so that you could order and have standing bar space. 

Free slices of chorizo sausage. 

Croissant with jamon serrano.

Chorizo on french bread.  Mike thought that the chorizo in Spain was much better than chorizo he has eaten in the US. 

And why did Mike like this place?  A mug of beer was 0.80 Euros and most of the sandwiches were 1 euro.  Did you have to ask?

Barcelona, Spain~Sagardi

My sister called me last night and was worried because she had not heard from me in a couple of weeks and I had not blogged in a while.  So here I am continuing with the Spain highlights.
I don't know where all the time went.  We did take a mini vacation to San Francisco one weekend, but other than that, I'm not sure where our free time goes.  Maybe it's Mike's new 2012 rule of "30 minutes of cleaning" every night. He figured that if we clean a little each night, we wouldn't spend a huge chunk of our weekend cleaning.  It's funny that he instituted the rule, yet I'm the one that's been following it...hmmmm....

Here's another bar that we went to for some pinchos.  This place was mentioned in Rick Steves' Spain guidebook.

All the pinchos cost the same, and at Sagardi it was about 1.70 Euros a piece.

The pincho on the top left corner is tuna salad topped with some onion strands. The one on the right is a potato pancake on top of bread.

Mike liked this pincho. It's green olives, anchovies, and green peppers.  This pincho is so much smaller than the other pinchos that I had a difficult time choosing anything that looked skimpy.

Salmon with grated onion

Seafood salad with shredded hard boiled egg.  I picked this one because I wondered what the shredded white ingredient on the top was.  I thought it was cheese, but when I found out it was egg, I thought that it was a neat garnish that could be used on other foods.