Taberna Doña Casta, Zaragoza

€15 each and we were transported to another dimensi..., er I mean region of Spain. We took the bus from Barcelona Nord bus station to Zaragoza. The trip in total took just on 4 hours, which of course included a little road side stop for snacks and drinks along the way. We both had a bacon & roasted green chili bocadillo from the said road side stop that was cheap yet truly delicious.

We are both exhausted from the trip, so once we arrive to this beautiful Northern region of Spain, the first thing on the cards is siesta. We wake around 6pm and are ready for food. The kind young gentleman at our guesthouse starts talking to us ... nothing opens until 9pm to eat? What?? nothing? We head out to investigate.

We make it to the centre of town, turn the corner into the main square, and both gasp in awe. The sky is an electric blue, the sun slowly disappearing, and the San Pablo church is aglow.



We just gaze at this monstrous & beautiful structure before us, and before we know it 8pm has struck. We head off in search of food. Things are just starting to open up, lucky if you could find somewhere just to have a drink. We spot a little Taberna which has just opened it's doors. Within minutes the place is full. We squeeze on it, the counter full of tapas and people drinking, talking, lauging & eating.



There are sets scribbled all over the wall in chalk, involving bottles of wine and varieties of food. We take the 6 tapas with a bottle of Red Wine for €26 option. It's just a point or nod at the 6 things we would like from the counter. A few croquettas, some random deep fried things and some grilled bread with toppings.



Value for money local wine & tasty food combo. We're off to a good start in Zaragoza.

Taberna Doña Casta
Calle Estébanes, 6
(El Tubo)
Zaragoza, 50003 Spain

Granja viader - Milk Bar, Barcelona

Quite close to the La Boqueria Granja M Viader is located, Barcelonas oldest milk bar. Started around 1870 and now with the forth generation of the same family running it, it's also famous as being the birthplace of Cacaolat, the popular skim milk and chocolate drink . It's located off Las Ramblas and then down a side ally so narrow that if your not standing in front of the shop you'll blink and miss it.



Wandering in and looking around the place was full but not packed, waiters in black waistcoats glide through the room delivering chocolaty goodness.



Don't wait to be seated, rather seat yourself at the first available table. Little menus on the tables are in Spanish though they have a variety of menus in a variety of other languages if you ask. The aroma of chocolate fills the air and soon it's all we can think about. We both order a suis, which is a chocolate topped with a healthy spoon of whipped cream. Being our first milk bar chocolate experience we had no idea what to expect. The cups are quickly brought to the table - wow, a healthy spoon of cream is right, there's a small mountain of cream preached on the top of each cup.



The danger of it overflowing as it melts prompts swift photos and we dive in with our spoons. Under the cream the chocolate is closer to a thick ganache than a drink. As the cream melts we mix it in to the rich chocolate slightly lightening it. After one cup we are done, so very done, this is about as much as chocolate as one can handle in one go. A few days later we return with our friends Ioanna and Hisashi and this time a Majorcan milk is also in order. The tall glass of milk is mixed with lemon, cinnamon and sugar to create a really refreshing drink.



Funnily enough we never ended up trying the cacaolat. Oh well if Granja M Viader has been around for 140 years we sure it will still be there next time.

Granja M Viader
Carrer d'En Xuclá 4, Barri Gòtic
Telephone 93 318 34 86
Open 5-8.30pm Mon; 9am-1.30pm, 5-8.30pm Tue-Sat. Closed 2wks Aug

Boqueria breakfasts.

Our usual stop in Barcelona for a morning coffee Bar Pinotxo in the La Boquria also ran a mighty fine line of lunchy items. One morning after a little run in with a Dry Martini we felt the need for a little more than just a coffee and croissant. We still started off with the usual caputxi's and pastry's, but then it was on to the substance.



A plate of the famed garbanzos, this little plate of legumes has sparked intense discussion on what gives this dish the intense robustness and depth. Some intense interwebs trawling brought forth many theories and recipes but this one from the Salty Olive looks the winner. Well be giving that a go shortly.



How bout a plate of pigs cheek braised with tomatoes,pine nuts and raisins? Oh hell yeah!!
The meat apologetically layered with unctuous pieces of fat, so rich and so hard to share. One of the stand out dishs of the trip.



A delicious omlette with eggplant and pan con tomate rounds us off. I think you could eat anything at Bar Pinotxo and it would be delicious.



We get the trademark thumbs up from the charismatic Juanito and reassure him we'll be back next time we're in Barcelona.



Bar Pinotxo
La Boqueria 466-467
Barcelona, Spain

Putting down a Hāngi at the Brick

Last night the community was treated to a traditional style Maori hangi at the Brick. People trickled in all afternoon, inspecting the coals and pile of mud in anticipation.

Games of frisbee and cricket were played on the street and many beers were drunk. Until there was movement ... shovels ... and the unveiling began.

This was my first experience of a Hangi ... I wasn't too sure what to expect as they were shoveling away the dirt, but then came sheets of cloth ...

Followed by layers of heshen sacks.

Then wire baskets were removed from the steaming pit. The top one containing potatoes and cabbage. As the next baskets were being removed, it was as if they were holding little treasures. Each one clearly containing something different, but everything was wrapped in Fuku leaves, which are a type of wild plant that has a stem like rhubarb and giant lilly like leaves.

The first basket to be attacked contained the potatoes and cabbage.

I did manage to take a plate and chopsticks from the pile, but somehow completely failed to get any salad at all ... must have consciously been saving more room for meat!

Oh, the meat. Whole chickens with stuffing, roast lamb with rosemary and roast pork with pumpkin, cinnamon, thyme & sugar.

Lucky I saved all that room with no salad, as the first plate disappeared in a flash, and seconds ... then thirds, soon followed.

The roast chicken was so moist, steamed under the earth with so much natural flavor. The pork and pumpkin combo just perfect. The roast lamb, ahhhh, reminds me of home. The potatoes, would have like to have some sour cream and chives to slather on top, they were just lacking any character - possibly due to the fact they are last seasons harvest ... We are eagerly awaiting delicious new season Kutchan potatoes. But the cabbage, oh ... my ... goodness. This humble little vegetable was the standout amongst the crowd for the whole night. The core was removed and filled with butter and Mae Ploy Thai Green Curry Paste. The cabbage was meltingly tender, oh-so-buttery and with a nice hint of spice. Genius!

When Waza - Niseko's resident Kiwi - is on point, he has some moments of sheer genius. Take his bagels for instance .... don't even get me started on the Jalapeno popper bagels.

Let's hope we can convince Waza to make this a regular thing during Summer.

the Brick

Open Tuesday nights in Summer for darts and burgers

Open late Winter, serving kebabs, burgers and 500yen drinks

& sporadically throughout the year for random dance parties and Hangi

El Tropezón, Barri Gotic, Barcelona

After a few drinks over at Dry Martini bar, we quickly realize just how hungry we all are ... We wanted to eat at the little restaurant/bar our the back, aptly named Speakeasy, but being that it's Easter Weekend we have no such luck. The chefs are enjoying a little break. We have another place on the radar, so cab back to the port where we all don some warmer clothes and head off in hopes .... It to is closed, shame.

We start wandering aimlessly around Barri Gotic and discover there is very little open. We stumble across a little 2 storey, homely looking place on a corner. It is absolutely packed to the rafters. Initially we weren't sure whether this was because they were any good, or simply the fact that not much else was open.



We head on in and are ushered up to the last remaining vacant table on the 2nd floor. Our young waiter sorts us out with drinks in no time and we work our way through the giant Spanish menu placed on the table.



First up, potatas bravas - little chunks of potato are fried and blanketed by a garlic mayonnaise and a good sprinkle of paprika.



Grilled sardines are just that, lightly grilled with salt & fresh herbs with some crisp ice-berg lettuce and a wedge of lemon on the side.



The smell of garlic wafting through the place was intoxicating, so spotting Gambas al Ajillo - garlic prawns - on the menu was a no-brainer. They come out in a sizzling terracotta pot with thick slices of garlic sitting in a pool of olive oil. The prawns still have their heads and tail on, but their body's have been peeled for easy eating ...



Next up, our vegetable intake for the evening, which comes in the form of mushrooms fried in oil with garlic, and battered and deep-fried eggplant fritters. Oh-so-healthy, oh-so-delicious!



Flamin chorizo was a visual spectacle. Slices of chorizo in a terracotta pot that was doused with some sort of sherry and set on fire. We all sat there for a while in awe, as the blue flames just kept on burning. Occasionally one of us would dive in for a piece of sausage, but it was just so hot! Our young waiter walks by minutes later, with blue flame still burning, and laughs at us. Apparantly we were supposed to blow it out hahaha he does that for us, and after a few minutes of cooling down, we all chow down on our slightly charred chorizo. Still yummy!



Various other goodies hit the table throughout the night, including tortilla, salad, boqerones, pork with potato & an empanada.



It was just like being invited into a locals home. A loud, dingy locals home with the feel of family & friends sharing good times over good food. I think this place would have been busy even if everything else around town was open had it not been Easter weekend. A good find indeed.


El Tropezón
Carrer del Regomir, 26
Barrio Gótico
Barcelona - Spain
Open every day except Wenesday from 12noon - 2am
T: +34 93 310 18 64

One of the best in the world.......I think.

Can you write a post about a place you can barely remember? I'm going to give it a go. It's not like I can't remember - more like frequenting this place can cause memory lapses. The place in question is the Dry Martini bar in Barcelona. The bar is beautifully decked out in brass and dark wooden walls, the walls lined with hundreds of old gin bottles. Behind the very well stocked bar, they have any gin you can think of, the bartenders deftly practice their craft dressed in white pharmacist coats.







I remember they have a cryptic martini menu as well as a mojito menu and the drinks are delicious and huge. There was a fire and ice martini (chilli infused gin super chilled) and a ximz (pedro ximeniz and orange infused martini) to start and after that it all gets a little fuzzy.



There was a jimlet foxtrot and a dry and sour to follow but what was in them was instantly forgotten in the haze.



We fared a only a fraction better when we returned a few nights later with our friends from Niseko. There were bloody Mary's, a fine saffron infused gin swimming with the heady aroma of the spice (or was that my head swimming).



And mojitos....so many mojitos, Shiso, kumquat and passionfruit. (the photos don't lie.)



Dry Martini is lauded as one of the best bars in the world, it feels classy yet is totally unpretentious and while the service is polished and precise it's very relaxed. It was great to be in a bar where the art is the crafting of an elegant drink. The next time we return (yes, there will be many next times), we plan to check out the reverse speakeasy, a restaurant out the back through a hidden door in the bar, unfortunatly closed for easter while we were there. But still tre cool.

Dry Martini
Carrer Aribau 162, Eixample , Barcelona
Telephone: 93 217 50 72
Mon-Fri 13.00-2.30
Sat-Sun 18.30- 3.00

Whipping up breakfast in Barcelona

We were very lucky to have a little apartment in Barcelona with a well equiped kitchen, and even a teeny-tiny little balcony that opened up and looked out onto Las Ramblas. When we arrived, it was coming into Easter weekend ... We were fortunate enough to think that through, and ventured out on Saturday to stock the fridge. What we hauled home you'd think the easter holidays ran for a whole week, and that we were feeding 7 people, but that's beside the point.

We barely make it through the afternoon before we crack into the stash. Chickpeas that are in a rich tomato & herb liquid, pepperdews filled with cheese & some baby chorizos along with a slab of pure honeycomb and an artesian goat's cheese.

Sunday is for sleeping in, as well as big hearty home-cooked breakfasts! We fry a few eggs and place them on some toasted sliced bread, along with some trompet & morel mushrooms which we have simply sauteed in butter and some little fried pork sausages. Oh, what a surprise these were! Tiny little chipolata's that were specked with fresh black truffle. A very decadent breakfast indeed ...

Fresh fruit juices at La Boqueria

After a traditional breakfast of coffee & croissant at Pinotxo bar, it was hard to not walk through the markets and find room for a delicious fresh fruit juice.



They ranged from €1-€2 and included orange & mango and blueberry & coconut, with everything else in between.

Easily accessible, with astonishing variety, this is something I miss about fruit in Japan ...

Tapac 24, part 2; the lost hours

You can't visit Barcelona without running into some of Gaudi's prolific works somewhere. The most famous being the still epic Sangria Familia church, but having skipped that (epic church = epic ques) and kinda feeling like we should see something more of Barcelona than it's restaurants .. well that and after yet another fine Boqueria breakfast we had hours to fill before we could admire another eatery. We headed up into the hills that border the city to the fantasy garden Park Guell. Originally built by Gaudi as a playground for the rich we wandered round the winding paths all morning, listing to buskers and taking in the views back over Barcelona, it was amazing! To think that he had envisioned all of this in his head is astounding, I guess that's where the genius part comes into it.



After all this walking and artistic appreciation we were soon feeling the need for a little snack or two. Tapac 24 was close (well nothings really close to the garden so it was a cab ride) and we had only had a wee breakfast there before, so a sample of there lunch menu seemed to be in order.

We arrived grabbed a table and looked for the menu, hmmmm seems to be the same as the breakfast menu we had the other day .. we look around, a quick question, ahhh lunch menus come out at 12 - seems we had arrived a tad early, oh well we'll just grab a few things off the breakfast menu to tide us over. I'm just going to interrupt myself at this point to say y'know what I like about Spain? It was becoming apparent to me that you could eat whatever you like at whatever time you like and no one would say boo. You can put Rabo de toro (braised oxtail) on the breakfast menu and someone (us) will order it and it's all good. Amazingly good actually, fall off the bone in sticky finger lickin braising stock, and served in a tre cute little cast iron pan, icing on the cake people.



Our other tider overers were a can of sardines - Spain's canned seafood is not even playing the same game as the stuff you usually see lining supermarket shelves the product is often hand picked and canned only at the prime of it's season. Once you taste the difference you can understand how some Spanish canned seafood can cost hundreds of euros.



Eggs with potatoes and foie - a plate of hand-cut fries, sauteed foie gras and a fried egg smashed over the top, be still my congealing heart. It's a dish that arrives and you know how horrifically bad for you eating something like this will be yet your fork moves with surprising speed to scoop up mouthful after mouthful of pure deliciousness.



We had now lingered our way in to the lunching time zone. Menus were swapped and special boards were being bought out, so was a jug of some sangria like concoction on the table next to us. We'll have one of those please. One of those turned out to be a jug of agua de Valencia, Spanish sparkling wine (cava) with orange juice vodka and gin. Delicious & super easy to drink, maybe even a little too easy.



With the lunch menu in our hands we quickly browsed and in no time at all we had two of the most delectable anchovy fillets I had ever had the pleasure to meet sitting in front of us as well as a plate of grated tomato with sherry vinegar, sea salt and olive oil and some generous chunks of crusty bread for mopping it all up. A long time ago I used to think anchovies were horrible salty fishy things that had no reason for existing. Foolish me. To some extent a lot are that way, but to eat one of the anchovies at Tapac is to treat yourself to a just the right amount salty, just the right amount fishy, whole lot of umami experience.





The McFoie is something we had read about so of course one of those had to be ordered. Start with a small burger bun, fill with beef and foie gras patty, grill in a flat sandwich press till toasty, serve with truffle aoli. Need I say more?







At this point having just ordered another jug of agua de Valencia and feeling like we could still have a smackeral more we eyed up the specials board, proudly written in Catalan. Having even less of a grasp of Catalan than Spanish we randomly picked a few things.



We knew what chimichurri was so whatever's with that we'll have. Grilled beef it turned out to be. Smokey and doused with a herbacious chilli salsa. Heaven.



A plate of crumbed fried thingys were rabbit ribs. Moreish morsels of rabbit meat with a rich aoli for dipping. Once you popped you just couldn't stop.



Calcots are a traditional springtime treat. Grown from an onion bulb, the shoots have soil piled around them as they grow similar to white asparagus. the result is a leek like mild onion that is then charred grilled and usually served with romesco sauce. There is no tidy way to eat them just scoop a little romesco and slurp it down, you may even get a few appreciative glance for embracing the tradition wholeheartedly.



We both knew we were done but we couldn't leave with out one more Tapac specialty. Chocolate with olive oil and salt is not just a Tapac specialty but a Catalan one. In this case the chocolate is quenelles of rich ganache drizzled with olive oil speckled with great Spanish flake salt and topped with a wafer of toasted bread. Chocolaty, salty, crunchy, just delicious.



Sated we made our way out onto the street surprised to find we had lost quite a few hours and that it was now time for siesta. Oh well when in Rome, or Spain in this case.

Tapac 24
Diputacio 269
Barcelona
8am - midinght