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One of the hazards of being a high profile Queen of Tapas and sherry educator is that just when you thought you might get an actual day off you get invited to go out and eat and drink fine food and wines. 😉 This week’s guilty parties were winemakers Finca Allende, and hosts and food pairing providers for their cata (tasting), Abades Triana restaurant.
The setting, the modern glass palace just acros the river in Triana, was actually rather pleasant, light and spacious, with a view of the Torre del Oro and the boats on the river.
The cata itself was conducted by Miguel Ángel de Gregorio of Finca Allende. They are a fairly small bodega from Briones in the Rioja Alta, and it was interesting to learn something more about this wine region. Miguel Ángel, who is clearly passionate about his wines, first arrived in Briones in 1986, and considered the climate, and especially the land, as ideal for the kind of terroire driven wines that he wanted to make.
We tried six different wines, two white and four red, each made with grapes from specific parcels of land, and which paired very nicely with a menu that progressed from a soup starter (salmorejo), through a tartar of urta (fish), a pluma Iberica, and beef to a chocolate mousse dessert. Exquisite.
Thanks to Finca Allende and Restaurant Abades Triana for an enjoyable, very interesting, and tasty afternoon. More on the wines, etc coming up on the Azahar Sevilla blog.
I kind of hit the ground running after getting back from my London Getaway. I had already planned to get together with 
It was a fabulous evening. Fran is a native New Yorker who now lives in Tokyo with her husband Kaz. Aside from being film producers and art lovers, they are both also food & wine lovers, and as usual Sevilla worked its magic on them. By the end of the evening we had all become fast friends and F & K were already talking about planning a return visit to Andalucía. Come back soon! xx
I have “known” travel and food writer 
Greek olives at Old Spitalfields Market
Smithfield Meat Market
The Eagle
cheers!
chef Shaun Searley and his famous confit potatoes
Ye Olde Mitre
Peter, Steven, Julie and John at Ye Olde Mitre
obstructed view from the Sky Garden
Leadenhall Market
the Spitalfields goat
Taberna do Mercado:
So this was it! The day I’d been looking forward to and dreading in equal measure. Also it was the main reason for being in London for this particular London Getaway, to be one of the judges at the first World Sherry Awards. I say “dreading” because I had never judged anything at this level before, and wasn’t sure what would be expected. Happily my friend Owen 
Owen finds a secret passage behind fake bookshelf door at the Caledonian Club
cool Tudor style buildings just off Regent Street
the Egyptian escalator in Harrod’s
chillin’ and rechargin’ at Harvey Nicks
fall-off-the-bone smoked beef short rib at Zelman Meats
triple-fried chips with Holy Fuck mayo (their name, not mine)
pubbing with John and Peter
For years I’ve been bumping into Pilar and Juan Antonio at various food & wine events around Sevilla, and we always say we will meet up sometime in Cádiz. Pilar has a food blog called 
We finished up (as one always must when in Cádiz) at the fabulously OTT Café Royalty, for their famous picatostes, which go perfectly with either coffee, cava or cocktails. Just to be sure, we had all three. The picatostes are a bit like a very thick French toast, dusted with icing sugar. Delish.
Rafa, 
So THIS was fun. On Thursday evening – after 
I’ll be doing a “proper” blog post about it tomorrow on 