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Bidmead Bites in Barcelona

10th January 2018 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Whether it’s fried squid in the south or a cooked suckling pig in Madrid, Spain and its cuisine have long been an interest of mine. Escaping London for the New Year, my boyfriend and I headed off for four days holiday in Barcelona, where I had more than ample opportunity to eat and drink the cities edible offerings.

No sooner had we stepped off the airport bus than we were already chowing down on some churros. Expertly fried to be crunchy rather than greasy and generously filled with creme patisserie, this street snack was just a small amuse bouche for the great things to come.

Sugar coated, deep fried things of beauty – Churros

Whoever coined the phrase less is more must have been a fan of pan con tomate, or pa amb tomaquet as it’s known in Catalan. This simple snack is my favourite Spanish breakfast and consists of, as the name might imply, bread with tomato. The addition of olive oil, salt and sometimes garlic bring it together, but all in all this dish is a simple as it gets.

Breakfasting at the beautiful cafe Mauri in the Eixample neighbourhood, I had all the pan con tomate my heart desired (three pieces no less). Washed down with a cafe cortado, I was set to start the day.

Pan con tomate at Cafe Mauri

While the Spaniards love a caña (a little less than half a pint of beer, drunk at pretty much any hour of the day), they’re also partial to a bit of  vermouth. A sweet and aromatic fortified wine which was once the drink of elderly gentlemen, it’s now become extremely popular, with trendy new vermuterias popping up all over the city.

Far from modern (it’s positively ancient), you have Bar Montse, tucked away in the Barrio Gótico. Barrels of homemade vermouth sit opposite walls of spirits and liqueurs covered in cobwebs. Not so appetising to eat in, but wonderfully atmospheric for a quick drink to quench the sightseeing induced thirst, here we enjoyed a little vermouth sat on one of the tables outside.

Barrels of homemade vermouth at Bar Monste

For lunch, we headed to Bar Celta, a small pulpería in Barceloneta which specialises in, you guessed it, pulpo (squid en inglés).

Fish and seafood make up the majority of the menu, but tempting meat options such as my favourite blood sausage morcilla serve to please the fish-fearing customer amongst us. Ignoring the meat (minus some delightful ham croquettes to start with), we honed in on the seafood; grilled prawns, steamed razor clams and of course, squid.

Squid as the starring member of lunch at Bar Celta

Normally served on a bed of potatoes, at Bar Celta this came carb-free, meaning with the focus on the tender squid itself. A dusting of paprika on top served to boost its smoky flavour. The prawns and razor clams both came steamed and then grilled, topped with buttery parsley sauce. Again – sometimes, simple is best. Visit here for some fresh Spanish food and service with a smile.

Steamed razor clams (navajas) and squid at Bar Celta

Race for the squid!

Located in the San Antoni neighbourhood is vermouth bar and all round top snack joint Quimet & Quimet. Don’t expect to find a seat – this is prop yourself up on the bar and eat with your hands kind of venue, serving small tapas and high quality montaditos – rusky rounds of crunchy bread come topped with meat, fish, and often both together (you’ll find veggie options too…if you look hard enough).

Vermouth in hand, I was ready to eat.

Munching montaditos at Quimet + Quimet

The tangy artichoke mixed with the creamy cheese, sweet tomato and intensely savoury caviar was a well-thought out combination of flavours. This savoury and sweet mixture also featured in the meat montadito; a rich pâté with smoked mushrooms, drizzled with a honey dressing.

For when the midday meal calls for something more substantial, a menú del día is the perfect option. Three courses and a drink normally come in at around 10-13 euros, and if you seek them out these can be some of the best meals around.

One such restaurant offering a brilliant menu is Transatlantico restaurant. First dishes varied from traditional Catalan meat and potato soup (escudella) to cauliflower cheese; the options for the second dish range from cod right through to horse.

Eschewing all things equestrian and sticking to more familiar foods, I chose a stuffed aubergine for starter, but quickly got food envy of all the paella that was coming out of the kitchen. Wondering how greedy it’d be to convert my three-course lunch into a four plate affair, I asked about the option of adding on an extra paella. It’d cost me all of 4 euros… I was sold.

Beef ribs & chips, paella and cod and ratatouille

My boyfriend chose beef ribs and chips (because too much seafood is against an Argentine’s DNA), while I had cod with pisto, basically a Spanish ratatouille. Pudding was a wonderfully retro affair, with a flan and a sweet cheese mousse, which was so good it made me think it was probably just pure Philadelphia cheese and whipped cream. Bliss.

Sweet cheese mousse and flan to finish off our menu del dia

During our time in the city, we ate and drink like royalty for just a fraction of the price we would have in London, and were left hungry for more. My love affair with Spain will continue, which is just as well…I’m not full yet, and I’ll be back.

Filed Under: food writing, review, Spanish food, travel bidmeadbites, travel writing Tagged With: bar celta, barcelona, barceloneta, cheap eats in barcelona, churros, pulpo, set lunch, spain, spanish food

Granada, where free food dreams really do come true

9th July 2017 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

A quick disclaimer: BidmeadBites has not ceased to eat or exist, although I’m aware the increasing length of time in between each post gives that impression. I’ve clearly been far too busy eating and cooking to actually write about it, but I correct that here with a new post on a recent trip to Granada.

Home to the almighty Alhambra palace and Spain’s Moorish past, Granada is also at the very heart of the great Spanish tradition of tapas. Renowned for its plentiful portions which come complimentary with each drink, Granada outshines any other Spanish city in the tapas stakes.

Complimentary…what, like, don’t have to pay for it? That’s correct. As someone who loves to bag a bargain, finding good food on the cheap is a real hobby of mine. Do you know what’s better than cheap? Completely free food.

Los diamantes, founded in 1942, is a cornerstone in the tapas scene of Granada, with three branches in the city centre. As you wiggle your way through the crowds and wade through the used napkins strewn around the floor, you place your drinks order and wait. Fight the urge to look at the menu, and don’t you dare even think about ordering food. The whole fun here is seeing what food your drink will bring – a fresh plate of beautiful tomatoes, coated in olive oil and sprinkled with chunky salt maybe? Or some freshly cooked prawns, practically still swimming on your plate with head, tail and eyes intact?

Tomato tapas at Los Diamantes

Once you’ve had a couple of drinks and reveled in the sheer thrill of free, random but most importantly tasty plates, you are then welcome (and encouraged) to look at a menu. Doing so, the offal lover in me rejoiced. Morcilla (the very best kind of black pudding), mollejas (sweetbreads…just good old glands) and sesos (these, my friends, are brains) jumped out at me. Black sausage was just a bit boring, while brains were slightly too hannibal-esque. The sweetbreads suited me perfectly. Ordering an enormous plate that claimed to be half a portion, I dug into these rich, creamy and smoky grilled glands.

Girl meets glands, Granada 2017

While I’m an outright offal lover, my pescatarian sister is (quite obviously) not. In order to balance of the vast quantity of animal glands on the table, we also ordered a plate of navajas – razor clams, soaked in a buttery garlic and parsley sauce. These were a happy memory of ours from family holidays to the Costa del Sol, and Granada’s version did not disappoint.

Navajas con limón

Another highly recommend tapas spot is La Taña. Owned by a sommelier, this small bar’s walls are adorned with hundreds of bottles of wine. We enjoyed a couple of glasses of red and sampled their homemade vermouth, which although sweeter than I’m used to, was just the thing to go with the little montaditos (slices of french bread with savory toppings) that came out with each drink.

Tapeando at La Taña

I highly recommend La Taña for a taste of tapas culture and great wine – a lot of  tapas is based on drinking cañas (small beers, a little less than a half pint), but for when you don’t fancy beer this wine bar makes a great alternative.

Beer, wine, vermouth…what about something distinctly summery, almost so sweet it verges into the realms of alchopops? Have a tinto de verano with your tapas! This fine concoction of red wine and lemonade is just the tipple to kick off a long night of food and drink. When you order your tinto, you’ll be asked “con blanca o de limón?”. Blanca is a natural, less sweet soda, while limón refers to something more like a lemon Fanta. Go for blanca and enjoy the smoothness of this chilled beverage without a sugar overload.

We enjoyed many a tinto and a free tapas with it at Bar Casa Julio, another iconic city centre bar. Here the tapas were plentiful and filling, and my favorite was this plate of boquerones, little fried anchovy-like fish.

Quality fish tapas at Bar Casa Julio

Ordering off the menu, we opted to try berenjena frita con miel de caña (deep-fried pieces of aubergine drizzled with thick and dark sugar cane molasses). An Andalusian specialty, the contrast of the full-bodied sweetest of the molasses against the savory fried aubergine is at first an unexpected combination of flavors, but by the second slice you’re hooked.

Berenjena frita con miel de caña

Despite the fact you could quite easily spend your entire time in Granada eating like King Felipe himself without placing any food orders whatsoever, it is worth veering away from the free tapas on occasion:  such as when visiting Bodegas Castañeda.

Deciding what to order here was difficult, and not just because we’d become so quickly accustomed to free food rolling out after us; everything on this menu tempts. From mixed cold plates consisting of various montaditos, or hot fried fish platters, it all sounded wonderful. 

The one meal we actually paid for, lunching at Bodegas Castañeda

After much deliberation, we went for a retro classic and Bidmead family favorite – ensalada rusa, which wins awards for the least salad like salad around: potatoes, eggs, and more mayo than you can shake a stick at. Along with this we went for the house special, a cold plate with an odd-sounding but great tasting mix of oranges, salted cod, olives, tomatoes and capers. Other than this there was some refreshing gazpacho and a tuna empanada (Spanish-style pasty). Together it was a perfect pre-Alhambra lunch, giving us all the fuerza we needed to conquer the castle.

Leaving Granada, my only real regret was not having visited sooner. To think I’ve lived 25 years and spent various holidays in Spain, without making it to this magical city, where food is not only delicious but completely free…oh what a fool! But now I share this knowledge with you all in the hope you don’t waste any more time going any where else. Granada, I’ll be seeing you very soon.

Filed Under: food writing, Spanish food, travel bidmeadbites Tagged With: bidmead bites, cheap eats, granada, spain, tapas

Munching in Madrid

9th January 2017 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Smoky grilled squid, saffron spiked paella and jugs of dangerously drinkable sangria evoke very happy memories of my summers spent in Spain, mainly on the Andalusian coast where my grandparents retired.  

Moving away from the coast and onto the cities capital, I’ve recently spent a lot of time in Madrid. In between working over there and visiting friends, I have eaten and drunk my way around the city, and should you be planning a trip to the Spanish capital, these are my culinary must-sees.

Tucked away in a side street in Chueca, Madrid’s go-to destination for gay culture and nightlife, you’ll find El Bierzo. Despite the constant trends entering and influencing this hip and happening area of the city, as far es El Bierzo is concerned, everything could well be frozen in the 1970s. Retro decor, old school waiters and a menu so Spanish it could be used as a dictionary reference for typical Madrileño cooking. 

Big white fava beans cooked with fatty and flavorsome cuts of meat, fillets of white  fish served with just a slice of lemon, right over to rich and creamy cooked innards (think kidneys and liver) in thick and boozy sauces; this is proper home-cooked comida casera. The time to visit is lunch, where a menu del día involves three courses and a beer or glass of wine for €11-13 euros, depending on your choice of main. 

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Artichoke and jamón entrada at El Bierzo

For my most recent trip, I started with sauteed artichokes with ham, cooked up with a portion of garlic that’d keep Dracula at bay for many centuries. I picked a tuna steak in tomato sauce for mains, and topped off this three-course delight with the ultimate classic in Spanish puddings – flan. 

The artichokes were meltingly soft and thanks to the fried garlic,they held their own against the strong, salty influence of the jamón. The tuna in tomato sauce was less exciting, as the sauce element left the fish far more cooked than I normally would have liked. Still, it was perfectly passable and all was redeemed with the oh-so-old school flan, beautifully creamy with a sharp caramel sauce.

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Flan, a pudding for queens

If you find yourself in Madrid on a Sunday, despite any post Saturday night hangover you may be suffering, hitting the tapas bars in La Latina is un must. A bar crawl with less booze and lots of food, this is the perfect way to sample various dishes and soak up all the different flavours Spanish cuisine has to offer.

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Crab and aubergine montaditos in txirimiri

Start with a taste of Basque tapas in Txirmiri, where montaditos (little tapas on top of slices of white bread) are served to be nibbled down with a caña, the equivalent of a quarter pint of beer. 

Moving onto a slightly larger dish, the pulpo a la gallega at La Perejila is not to be missed. Rather than served on a bed of thinly sliced potato as I have tried it before, here the pulpo (squid) came with a cloudy, creamy mash. I welcomed the change and enjoyed this dish immensely. The thin slices of meaty squid topped with crunchy grains of rock salt and sprinkled with warm, sweet and tangy pimentón pepper was a dream mix of textures and flavours. 

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Pulpo a la gallega at perejila, La Latina

Walking away from La Latina and into Las Huertas, the literary district of Madrid, we stopped off at El Diario de Las Huertas; a full to the brim Spanish tapas bar, with a sit down restaurant at the back. As we ordered some glasses of vino tinto, before even glancing the menu, a morcilla mondadito caught my eye. 

Different from the English black pudding, the Spanish equivalent morcilla often contains rice and slightly richer spices, and in certain parts of the country it can be found with raisins and nuts inside too. Here at La Taberna we tried it smashed across a slice of French baguette and sprinkled with sesame seeds. 

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Morcilla…mi primer amor

Fearing we had perhaps not been getting our five a day (unless potato does really count as a vegetable), we also ordered some pimientos de padrón. A futile attempt to eat veg, really, as these little green peppers come deep fried and covered in rock salt – and they’re all the better for it. Supposedly every one in ten is spicy, although I’ve never come by one that bites. A great finger food to nibble on, using bread to mop up the salty oil left behind is a right of passage. 

pep

Some nice fresh greens?

As well as the La Latina taps crawl in the day, a bustling street to sample more Spanish food in the evening is Calle de la Cruz. Given that this street leads directly onto the main square of the city, the Plaza del Sol, you may well pass some downright dodgy looking tourist traps. If anyone offers you paella for dinner, run for the hills, or better still, head directly to Casa Toni, where you’ll be in for a truly traditional taps experience.

Truly traditional = guts and all. For an offal enthusiast like myself, this place is a dream – famous for their fried tripe, here in one sitting I managed to consume sweet breads, tripe and blood sausage. The tripe, albeit it slightly greasy, was actually surprisingly soft to eat, with an creamy texture and smoky flavor. 

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Zarajo – braided sheep’s intestines rolled on a vine branch and fried. Not for the faint-hearted

The mollejas (sweetbreads) were some of the best I’ve ever eaten, and having lived in Argentina where these are quite a delicacy, that’s saying something. The morcilla was also a great success: served in small chunks on cocktail sticks, it converted even the non-offal lovers of the group.

Compared to London, almost anywhere else in the world seems cheap, but if you want to do Madrid in a particularly thrifty fashion, I’ll let you in on a secret: you can have dinner without ordering any food. Ir de tapas is to order small plates at various different bars, however…if you can hold off ordering food upon arrival, with just a drink you might just be fed a delicious plate of tapas at no extra cost.

Not every bar will offer these, and even when they do it can be small olives, or sad bits of hardened bread and dry tortilla. Head to El Riazor though, an unassuming bar next to the Plaza Mayor, and you can sample everything from fried anchovies to their creamy paella, all for the price of a drink (a very reasonable €1.50). Go hungry, leave drunk and full, without having bought a meal. Prop yourself up at the bar and try their vermouth al grifo (on tap) or even revel in your secret desire to openly drink alchopops and go for a tinto de verano – red wine mixed with lemonade.

Rounding off all that savory with a touch of sweet, anyone visiting Madrid for the first time should make a mandatory tea break at Chocolatería San Ginés. Churros and chocolate is a traditional Spanish treat, although here I must confess: I’m not actually a huge fan. I find churros rather unexciting, as fried sweet batter just doesn’t rock my world. 

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Chocolate y churros

They do, however, make the perfect dipping vessel when accompanied with the thick, dark hot chocolate that comes alongside them. Whether your keen on churros themselves or not, a hot cup of cocoa such as this turns them into something really quite special. 

From fried tripe to chocolate-dipped churros, Madrid is a brilliant place to sample some real comida española. Flights can be as cheap as £12 one-way with Ryanair, so if you’ve never been and fancy a trip a away I urge you to munch your way through Madrid.

Filed Under: food writing, Spanish food

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