Best Food Towns (NOT Barça or San Seb)

[Tohono Rat]

It seems that us CHers are obsessed by Barcelona and San Sebastian. I have been both places and had some amazing meals. But there is so much more to Spain and its cuisine. I love the pintxos in Bilbao (http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/643421), the mariscos in Galicia (http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/636465), the jamón in Extremadura. What have been some of your greatest food experiences in Spain? I have been unable to get to Iberia for a few years and would love to hear your thoughts/stories.

[PBSF]

I think there are great food in just about every area in Spain. Barcelona has wonderful places but the best restaurants are in Catalonia away from Barcelona. For me, there is no better trio of restaurants than Can Fabes, Can Roca and Hispania. Bilbao shares the same Basque pintxo tradition as San Sebastian. And the nearby Basque countryside and mountaiins produces some of the best cheeses: idiazabal, roncal. The entire northern coast has great seafood. So does Madrid which I think is one of the best food city. The best of Spain seems to appear here. The nearby Segovia for roasted meat. I've had excellent food in Valencia and Seville is one my favorite because of the great tapas and just about everything that a medium size city should be. In fact, all of Andalucia except in some coastal resort, is great. It is not just the taste in the food but the way it is served and enjoyed. Pork in all forms is wonderful in Extremadura and just about everywhere else in Spain.

[Harters]

Well, Spain remains a major holdiay destination for we north Europeans and we visit almost all of the country's coastal areas and islands. I usually visit a couple of times a year.

For me, great Spanish food isnt about the "clever" cooking in the well advertised places in Barca. It's about a simple salad followed by an enormous steak at an asador in Andalucia. Or fish or rabbit in a small cafe in Mallorca.

But, the most memorable times havnt always involved great food. You can't always get great food in tourist destinations (although, in Spain, you can normally get pretty good, even if not great). But they have been about not even thinking about going out to dinner until 10pm and still be sat outside the restaurant three hours later, chatting and drinking coffee with no-one hassling us to go home. It's particularly memorable when I know there's snow on the ground at home and I'm sat outside in shorts in Tenerife. That's Spain for me and millions like me. It's why we all keep going back.

[Adam23]

Our best memories of this past trip would put Girona near the top. It seemed like a very good food town. We had an excellent, if not superb, dinner at Can Roca. We had some very nice lunches in the old part of the city, with some delicious crepes stuck in my mind.

[msmarabini]

Thanks for your post and for speaking up! I couldn't agree more...the Spanish CH board seems overrun with recommendations for Barca, Madrid and San Sebastian - with the same restaurants being named over and over. Not that there's anything wrong with that...but Spain has so much more to offer. My favourite town in general AND for good food is SEVILLA, but I'm crazy for Andalucian tapas in general. Just to name a few of the specialty Andalucian tapas that don't always show up on menus in other parts of Spain: berejenas fritas con miel (fried eggplant with honey), montaditos de pringa (which is like a cousin to pulled pork barbeque sandwiches), gazpacho andaluz style (this is a really smooth tasting gazpacho -with a bright orange colour - heaven on a hot summer's day), cazon (little fried pieces of shark, highly seasoned and marinated in vinegar) tortillitas de camarones (little fried shrimp cakes) patatas alinas (IMO better than bravas - with olive oil, vinegar, parsley, and onion) salmorejo (like a thicker gazpacho topped with chopped egg and jamon - in Cordoba we spread it over fried eggplant slices - yum!). Valencia is the "home" of paella. There are hundreds of places serving paella here - with just as many types of paellas on offer. I've been living in Valencia for the past 4 years and counting - and although have yet to find a place that I would say is my favourite, I have definitely had some really good ones here - much better than ones on offer in other places of Spain. Also good in Valencia - but harder to find- is the Gazpacho Valenciano - which has nothing to do with the cold tomato soup - but is more like a kin to chicken and dumplings!!! Will have to do a post on this board about it sometime. And another one of my favorite places for food in Spain is Palma de Mallorca: for the cocas - which are like little veggie topped pizzas - without cheese, for ensaimadas - great breakfast pastry or dessert - IMO the best ones are filled with cream- on request, sobresada - mallorca's spreadable sausage - great served warm on bread with a touch of honey for a sweet-salty combo, tumbet - which is not so different from ratatouille - with tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, potatoes stewed together, and finally, the bread in mallorca is fantastic - nice round loaves of brown bread. Haven't yet been to Galicia, but all my Spanish friends rave about the seafood there.

[Harters]

Mallorca's probably also my favourite part of Spain - great food as you say, if you pick carefully and "deselect" the obvious touristy places. Given the choice between a weekend in Barca or a weekend in Plama, I'd have a hard decision to make. Next time you're on the island, try and get away to the smaller towns, say like Inca, Petra, Pollensa or Soller (where my brother in law comes from) - look out for the "cellar" restaurants which are likely to be those serving traditional dishes.

In addition to the dishes you mention, may I also add (in no particular order)

- sopas mallorquinas - a vegetable soup with thin slices of dry bread in the bottom of the bowl.
- pa amb oli - almost the classic dish of the island - bread, oil, tomatoes, salt
- trempo - salad of green peppers, onion, tomato at its most delicious basic offering.
- rabbit with onions
- lomo con col - pork fillet with cabbage
- frit de matances - a fry-up of liver, potatoes, onions, peppers, garlic
- lechona - suckling pig
- bunyols - like mini-doughnuts
- and almost anything with oranges from the Tramuntana
- and "Fet a Soller" icecream

[msmarabini]

OOOH - frit de matances - i completely forgot about this one!!!! You are right, this is really good! We had this at a friend's house, and I ate so much of it, I was afraid for my cholesterol! Thanks for the other food rec's - I think we are heading over in November and will definitely look for these. Cheers!

[Harters]

My first time eating frit was at the BiL's parents' house. It was wonderful food - tasty, oily, meaty - apart from something very chewy. Of course, being guests and not speaking Castilian very well (and only a few words of the Mallorquin dialect), we chewed, swallowed and smiled. Only afterwards did my wife ask her sister what it was. Lung!

The same holiday and lack of language skills brought the great rabbit debacle. We went to visit Pedro's father's huerto and were looking at his caged rabbits. Next day, father brings one round to the apartment - well dead and skinned. Never occured to us they were kept for eating. Never occured to him that ourt remarks about how nice the big white one looked meant anything other than that was the one to eaten. Pedro jointed it, stuck it on the BBQ and he & I ate it with an exceptionally garlicky alioli. Wonderful. My wife couldnt bring herself to eat.

Man, I love Spain and I really love Mallorca. But next planned is to Tenerife at the end of Januray - after the crap summer we've had in the UK, I'll be glad to feel some warmth. Food will be average, though - good quality tourist stuff but that's pretty much it (apart from great fish)