Tag: patatas bravas

My favorite places in Spain………..Salamanca Part 2 – the food

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Taking a walk through the small yet lively market in Salamanca is the perfect way to warm up your taste buds for an afternoon of tapa indulgence. This University town has tapas to suit anybody’s taste. For a plate of the some of the best ham, chorizo and cheese you should look for Las Caballerizas. It is a student cafeteria in the old stables of Salamanca. Cheap, traditional and delicious.

We always like to make a stop in Casa Paca right of the Plaza Mayor. The pisto (vegetable stew) with quails egg is one of my favorites. My daughter loves the meatballs and the “broken eggs” with ham and potatoes. The bar is the place to be where you can easily choose from the display of tapas but a table can be nice as well to kick back and observe the local flavor.

Pisto at Casa Paca
Pisto at Casa Paca

Sometimes tapas with a modern edge can be fun as well. Last year we stumbled into a place off the Rua Mayor. It is called Tapas 2.0, Gastrotasca. We were needing something green in our lives and were pleasantly surprised by the caramelized goat cheese with veggies. After that there was no stopping us. The crispy chicken leg was delicious and the patatas bravas rank among my favorites. Slightly spicy with a hint of garlic. As my daughter dove happily into the Mac Montero burger we were offered two glasses of Cava and a piece of chocolate cake to celebrate their anniversary. Heaven for us!

Patatas Bravas
Patatas Bravas

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Salamanca never disappoints. The beauty of the city mixed with the atmosphere and outstanding food welcomes me with every visit.

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got the mojo…………………

I’ve expressed before my obsession with spicy food and the lack there of it in Spain.  I am eternally searching for the exceptions.  After 20 years of searching  I get extra excited when I find a good spicy dish in a typical place.  Because finding spicy food in an Indian or Mexican joint is pretty much a given.  The other day we stopped into one of our favorite local bars in our old neighborhood.  If you don’t get here by 1:30 in the afternoon you can find yourself with your face plastered against the window as you scream out to the bartender for another beer.  Well, the other day we were pleasantly surprised by a new tapa on their list.  PAPAS EN MOJO PICÓN!! I’ve talked about Patatas Bravas before.  These are not the same. The flavor is completely different. Mojo Picón is a spicy sauce from the Canary Islands that is made with garlic, cayenne peppers, cumin, vinegar, olive oil and salt.  Or any other variation on the theme.  The name comes from the Portuguese word Molho (sauce).  And these potatoes were particularly delicious with their homemade Mojo Picón!! Thank you Granada for the mojo!

Rabas and Bravas

Rabas y Bravas
Rabas y Bravas

Deep fried food.  Before moving to Spain this was something I ate occasionally in a bar or to cure a hangover.  In Spain however, fried food disguises itself in a way that almost makes it seem healthy.  And, according to many a Spaniard, if it is prepared correctly it is healthy indeed.  You may try to avoid it, try to minimize, but it is always there and always delicious.  Even after 17 years I still haven’t taken up the tradition of deep frying in my own home.  I prefer to leave the dirty work to someone else and enjoy my “fritanga” sitting on a beach or a pleasant terrace.  The smell of my neighbor’s fried fish wafting into my open windows three times a week is as close as I need to be.

Two years ago we discovered a great campground in a national park on the Northern coast of Spain in the region of Cantabria.  From the campground you can walk down to an extensive beach, Oyambre, that allows amazing views of the “Picos de Europa”, a spectacular mountain range.  Last year we discovered a great little restaurant still open in the off season where we enjoyed a menu of the day that included a pinto bean stew and an excellent tuna with onions or atún encebollado, typical along this coast.  When we returned this year in August, the main beach restaurant or “chiringuito” as we would call it here was open.  El Pájaro Amarillo as it is called has beautiful views of the beach from its extensive terrace.  We were looking to eat something “light” on our first afternoon at the beach.  Since my daughter is a huge fan of fried calamares we decided to order “rabas” .  They are basically deep fried squid cut to be straight instead of rings.  We also ordered a “ración” of patatas bravas ( fried potatoes in a spicy sauce).  The fried squid in Cantabria is one of the most tender and delicious that I have had in the country (and my daughter eats it everywhere possible).  But, the patatas bravas were unbelievable.  This is a typical tapa served all over the country in many different ways.  Like my daughter with fired squid, I try to taste all varieties of patatas bravas throughout the country.  What usually varies the most is the sauce.  These were actually patatas mixtas which includes both the spicy tomato sauce and an alioli or garlic mayonnaise.  Both of the sauces were so delicious that we dipped both the potatoes and the squid into the sauce.  YUM!!!  The alioli held enough garlic to ward off the flu for 5 years and the brava sauce was actually SPICY!!!  Something very unusual in Spain.  We returned the next day and ordered the exact same simple meal without one regret.  The beach is beautiful and the mixture of sand, sun and fried yumminess makes it all the more worth the visit!!!

Bonito Encebollado