Offbeat Eats » Spain

39º27N (Valencia, Spain)

kaszeta — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:16:00 +0000

For our last full day in Valencia, the weather had cooled off a few degrees to be just “pleasantly warm”, so we decided it would be a good day to go check out the beach and go swimming (I had been to the beach twice before, but at night). After a few hours of swimming and relaxing on the sand, we needed a light lunch, so we decided to go walking.

The southern end of Malvarossa beach is actually several blocks of restaurants all packed together (including the very nice La Pepica that I had eaten at two nights before), but we ended up instead walking out on the breakwater of the Port of Valencia, where we came across 39º27N, and decided to have a light lunch there.

39º27N is perched on the edge of the breakwater, and has two parts, a nice glass walled bar and restaurant inside, and an open-air bar, both of which have a stunningly nice view back at Malvarossa Beach. Since the weather was so pleasant, we picked a nice table under one of the sunscreens and ordered a light lunch of Jamón ibérico, some Spanish cheeses, some wine.

Jamón ibérico

I’m suprised I’ve gotten this far into blogging my Spanish trip without really going on about Jamón ibérico… The Spaniards really like their ham, having real pride in their Jamóns, ranging from the fairly cheap and afford (but still delicious) Jamón Serrano (dry-cured ham sliced thinly) up to some of the crazy-expensive Jamón ibérico. Jamón ibérico is the ne plus ultra of Spanish hams, made only from Spanish cerdo negro pigs, fed on a special diet (feed for the cheaper stuff, a mix of feed and acorns for the moderate stuff, and an exclusive acorn diet for the expensive stuff). The result is a sublime experience of soft meat (speckled with fat), delicate fat layers, and a nice overall savory pork flavor. So when our lunch at 39º27N offered us another opportunity to have some jamón ibérico de bellota (the jamón made from the acorn-fed pigs), we couldn’t resist. And the result was wonderful, a large plate with dozens of sumptuous thin slices of delicious jamón . Oh, how I wish I could get this stuff in the states (between Spanish export laws and US FDA import laws, this stuff is almost impossible to get).

Rounding out the lunch was another platter, this time of Spanish quesos. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not terribly good at identifying cheeses, but we ended up with the typical plate of medium and hard cow and goat milk cheeses, all having a nice texture and the nice slightly-sour flavor that I like in a good cheese. The one cheese on the plate that I could identify, Manchego, was very pleasant, relatively sweet, and with notes reminiscent of salted almonds. After my Spanish experience, I’m tempted to spend some more time experiencing aged cheeses.

Overall, it was a very light lunch, but we really enjoyed 39º27N as a place with good food, good wine, and a stellar view. I’ll be sure to come back on future trips as well.

Labarra (Valencia, Spain)

kaszeta — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 00:17:00 +0000

Labarra

For our second dinner in Valencia, we wanted to find something a little bit outside the tourist belt, but still Spanish and convenient to downtown. After a little bit of research, we settled on Labarra, a small Tapas bar located a few blocks south of Carre Colon, and thus a few blocks outside of both the old city and the main tourist beat in a fairly quiet neighborhood, with several outdoor tables nicely arranged on a little square.

Our goal this night was to do some tapas, since the previous night we’d done the obiglatory paella and morcillas, so wanted to try something a little brooders from Spain. Ordering was a little difficult, since, like the US, Monday is the slow night of the week for restaurants, and they didn’t have several items on the menu. That, combined with our Spanish and the waiter’s English having very little intersection (although the waiter was outstandingly patient in dealing with us and our bad pronunciation and pantomiming), we managed to order up a rather nice range of dishes for the evening.

First up was a nice plate of sliced Spanish chorizo (I had wanted Jamon Iberico, but they were out). Like the other Chorizos I’d already sampled in Spain, this was a rather pleasant dry sausage, with good smoky paprika notes, some mild garlic notes, and little streaks of fat that just gently melted on your tongue. As I write this, I’ve been back in the US almost two weeks, and I’m already missing Spanish pork products (I can actually get some decent Spanish chorizo. Jamon as well, if I want to pay through the nose for it).

Beans with Bacon and Garlic

Next up was a fairly simple dish that I encountered several times as a tapas dish: beans with bacon and garlic. It sounds like such a simple dish, and it is, but the several places I had experienced this dish did such a good job of it: nice beans cooked until wrinkly on the outside and creamy smooth inside, with just enough bacon and garlic to really blend with the smokier notes of the beans without overwhelming them. I really do need to try and duplicate this dish at home.

Another thing we found about Valencian cuisine (at least restaurants) was a distinct lack of vegetables except as ingredients in paella. Even at the tapas bars, most dishes were meat, sausage, or rice dishes. Labarra, however, served us up a very pleasant plate of marinated vegetables (peppers, onions, beans, and chickpeas) that did nicely satisfy out cravings, and worked with the rest of the meal.

Arroz al Horno

Finally, we ordered one main dish: Arroz al Horno (“baked rice”). Similar to Paella, it’s a rice dish baked in the oven (instead of made on a pan) with blood sausage, pork, beans, garlic, and tomato. However, that’s where the similarity ends. The rice is entirely different in texture, more like a US-style casserole instead of a paella’s firm nature. And the dry cooking of the oven gives the rice a nice nuttiness. All in all, a rather pleasant and simple dish.

Overall, we really enjoyed Labarra, and were glad to find this place in it’s nice little quiet corner of Valencia.

El Rall (Valencia, Spain)

kaszeta — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 17:51:00 +0000

El Rall

Our first proper dining experience in Valencia: dinner at El Rall (“Especialitat en Arossos” or “Specialists in Rice Dishes”), located on a small plaza behind La Lonja, with the outdoor dining patio that most Valencian places seem to have (an ongoing mystery that I will have to return to Valencia to answer: what do they do when it’s cold or rainy? 90% of Valencia’s restaurant seating appears to be on outdoor plazas and patios), completely taking over a small plaza between four buildings.

El Rall is a good example of one of the things that makes this part of Spain rather cool: a restaurant that specializes in rice dishes. Valencia is known for it’s many rice dishes, the foremost being Paella, which was actually invented here (Valencia is located at the edge of a giant marshy area called Albufera, which to this day has many rice paddies, although a substantial fraction of Spain’s rice is actually imported now).

El Rall’s Morcillas

Seeing that I’m at a place specializing in rice, we decided to order, well, rice. El Rall is, in particular, known as a place for Paella, especially the most-prized local variety, Valencian paella. Valencian paella consists of white rice, green vegetables, meat (usually pollo and canejo, the latter of which (rabbit) actually sent me looking for the phrasebook), beans and seasoning. Snails aren’t uncommon, either. So we ordered up a large order of Paella Valencian (restaurants that serve up Paella for less than two people at a time are rare, so the single tourist needs to beware!), and settled back in for dinner.

However, we didn’t start with the Paella, we started off with appetizers, picking probably one of the most Valencian items on the menu: Morcillas de Burgos con muselina de ajo confitado y jamon. Very hard to describe, it’s basically the local black pudding (blood pudding with rice and barley) served up with a nice garlic mousseline and some Iberian ham. The result is a nice tapas-style little morsel that can be handled a bit like a finger sandwich, but popped into your mouth rather easily. I really liked these: the morcillas were very tasty, combining the nice flavor of the blood sausage with some rice for a nice texture, and the ham and mousseline atop atop the sausage added some nice savory notes to the item. I really liked this appetizer, and was kind of disappointed that I didn’t order it again this trip (I did get a lot of Morcillas, but not prepared like this).

El Rall Paella Valencian

Then it was time for the paella to arrive. Being delivered with a flourish by the waiter, the paella Valencian was quite pleasant. Primarily being a dish of rice (in this case Spanish “bomba” rice), it was very nicely cooked, with just enough tooth to it to be reminiscent of a good risotto (there, now I’ve done it… I’ll be pursued by angry Spaniards for comparing Spanish food to Italian…), but soft enough to start to char to the bottom of the pan in the way a good paella is supposed to (part of the joy of eating paella is scraping the pan). Also in the mix was a healthy mix of both chicken and rabbit, both nicely tender, and three different forms of beans (haricot, some sort of long flat bean, and fava beans), making for a pleasant dish.

The first of many paellas I experienced in Valencia, this was one of the most pleasant, and I got to enjoy it in an enjoyable outdoor terrace with perfect weather and friendly (albeit non-English speaking) waitstaff.

El Rall
Calle Tundidores, 2
Valencia, Spain

Concerning the Horchata (Various Valencian Locations)

kaszeta — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:01:00 +0000

Horchata Daniel

Right after getting into Valencia, we had to go strait to our hotel in the outskirts of Valencia in a quiet little suburb known as Alboraya.

Alboraya’s claim to fame is being the birthplace to the Horchata (also spelled Orchata, or Orxata in Valencian), the drink common to several Hispanic nations. The proper Valencian version has exactly three ingredients, water, chufa (tigernuts), and sugar. (The related Mexican horchata is generally made from rice or almonds and is spiced).

One legend links the origins of the name to James I of Aragon, who after being given the drink for the first time by a local in Alboraya, was said to have exclaimed “Això és or, xata!” (“That’s gold, darling!”)

In any case, the town of Alboraya is almost a shrine to the Horchata. The main street is Avenida de Horchata, and there are about a dozen horchaterias nearby, with Horchata Daniel being one of the most revered. So we went there to recuperate from our flight (we went at 1:30 am, which isn’t “late” in Spain, this photo is from a later visit). Indeed, true to Spanish form, the place was quite happening, with most of the tables being filled with young couples or small groups going out to enjoy the Horchatas and many helados (ice creams) offered by Daniel.

Horchata Granizado

Of course, I had to get the Horchata. Being offered it either as liquid (liquida) or frozen (granizado), I opted for the latter, since it was still rather warm out. The resulting drink, shown here, was rather pleasant. Tasting somewhat similar to almond milk or a milkshake, it’s a light, refreshing drink reminiscent of a nutty milkshake. A properly made Horchata de Chufa (I discovered during my visit that there is even a certifying authority for “authentico” horchata de chufas) has a nice robustness of flavor, which, quite frankly, I greatly prefer over the Latin American horchatas using almonds or rice (I can’t blame them, however, since you can’t make a horchata de chufa without chufa). We did discover sampling various other Horchatas around town that there is an art to making a proper one, since a few of the ones we sampled were gritty and/or chalky, but the ones from Horchata Daniel were silky smooth. As an added bonus, a proper Horchata is also dairy-free, so I didn’t always have to lug my pills around.

Chufa (Tigernuts)

The waiter at Daniel was also nice enough to see that, as camera-toting tourists, we might need some explanation, so he came by and brought us a plate of chufas that we could sample, and explained what made the Valencian Horchata different from the Mexican ones I may have tried.

The next question, however, is how do you actually consume the horchata? There’s a classic methodology to this in Valencia, which is the following process: (1) Order an ice-cold horchata. (2) Order a plate of fartons. (3) Consume horchata and fartons, primarily by dipping the fartons in the horchata. (4) Repeat. The overall process is really similar to that of Cafe du Monde in New Orleans (where you do the same with iced coffee and beignets).

Fartons

Of course, this begs the question, what the heck is a “farton”? The answer is simple, it’s a soft breadstick-like pastry, very slightly sweetened, designed to be dipped into your horchata, soaking up some of it, so that the breadiness of the farton is nicely complemented by the sweet, milky liquid. Actually, though, the fartons themselves aren’t that much by themselves, mostly tasting of bread. But this is by design, since there’s already a lot of sugar in the horchata. The combination, however, is splendid, and I hope I didn’t gain too much weight from the combination.

Over the trip, we also learned that horchata also makes a splendid base for several other desserts, such as what Horchata Daniel calls the “Flotaor”: a scoop of ice cream floated on frozen horchata, or the “Sospir”, a 50-50 blend of horchata and coffee granizado. Both were pleasant enough that we visited Horchata Daniel 6 times while we were in Alboraya, making us temporarily “regulars”. Doing my part to support the local chufa industry, I guess.

Flotaor

We didn’t limit ourselves to Horchata Daniel, either. Downtown Valencia also sports many Horchaterias, including Horchateria Santa Catalina and Horchateria El Siglo, both located a few meters off of Plaza de la Reina, and both having excellent Horchatas (the latter also having nice outside seating on the plaza, perfect for people-watching). Several of the mobile “Horxata” stands around the city (mostly by the tourist attractions) also serve up some nice horchatas,

So, if you ever find yourself even vaguely close to Valencia, I strongly suggest trying out the Horchata de Chufa. It’s cold, it’s refreshing, and it’s part of a tradition going back hundreds of years.

Horchata Daniel
Avenida de la Horchata, 41
46120
Alboraya, Spain

Horchateria Santa Catalina
Plaza Santa Catalina, 6
46001
Valencia, Spain

El Siglo’s Horchatas y Fartons

Horchateria El Siglo
Plaza Santa Catalina, 11
46001
Valencia, Spain

Vinea (Madrid Barajas International Airport, Spain)

kaszeta — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 08:25:00 +0000

Vinea

As any of us that travel frequently can attest, the average quality of airport food is particularly lousy. Usually it’s either fast food (served up by HMS Host catering, or some other similar foreign equivalent), captive-audience priced, or served by people that don’t seem to understand that airports are frequented by people that are often in a hurry. So usually the result is quickly wolfing down some overpriced crappy food, hoping that your next flight won’t be plagued by food poisoning.

So I always make it a point to review places that prove to be an exception to this rule. On my current trip, a great example of this was Vinea, in Terminal 4 at Madrid-Barajas International Airport. Vinea serves up a basic tapas menu and a selection of wines by the glass. If you’ve experienced Spain outside of airports, this sort of business isn’t unusual, indeed, it is pretty much one of the concepts for Spanish fast food (the other is the similar stands serving jamon bocadillos and glasses of wine or cerveza). But the fact that Vinea does the same at Madrid’s airport is nice, and makes it a very nice alternative to, say, the Spanish McDonalds right next door.

Vinea Tomato and Cheese salad

In any case, Carol and I had a fairly long layover, so we settled into two seats at the bar, and I went to the ordering counter. The staff quickly determined the obvious (that I’m approaching total non-fluency in Spanish), shifted to English, and offered up several nice suggestions for tapas, including a nice salmon, mozzarella, and tomato salad, a nice meat plate (they lit up when they heard me compare something to soppresata), and some nice wedges of Spanish cheese. We rounded it out with two glasses of temperanillo, running up the tab to 32 euro. A bit pricey, but not outlandish for an airport.

The food itself was quite good. The salad was made with perfectly ripe tomatoes, lightly smoked salmon, and nice, soft, and smooth mozzarella, making for a pleasant salad. The cheese plate was similarly nice, with two varieties of queso. The meat plate it where it really shined, with some nice Iberian ham (practically melting in your mouth), some sopresata, some chorizo, and another ham that I couldn’t quite identify. Nice delicate meat textures with must enough cure and spicing to really make it shine.

Vinea Meat Tapas Plate

Rounded out with a nice glass of tempranillo, and it was a perfectly fine way to spend a layover at Madrid’s airport (alas, my next layover here wasn’t so lucky…)