Category Archives: tapas

impromptu

19 Tuesday Apr 2011

Posted by in food & drink, restaurants, sevilla, tapas, twitter, wine, work

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It’s been a bit of a crazy week, especially with me thinking I was quite mad to have taken on five – FIVE! – tapas tours during Semana Santa. The logistics of trying to organise the tours so as to avoid crowds and processions has been challenging to say the least. And so, having just finished three days in a row of evening tours – which all went very well I am happy to report – I was looking forward to making a nice meal at home and putting my feet up this evening.

So Nog & I went out to the Encarnación market (under Las Setas) to see what looked good and I decided to check out the little café/bar inside the market that Agustín had told me about. A bit like La Cantina in the Feria market, La Encarnación has a short list of daily fish on offer which they will fry or grill for you. Super fresh and very tasty.

Then along came a couple who asked if we spoke English and Spanish and said they needed our help. Turns out they wanted to find out if “huevas” were the same as shad roe and I suggested that they should try a tapa of it right then and there. Which they did. Verdict: almost the same but shad roe wasn’t quite so dry.

So after chatting a while and tweeting this photo of Philip with his huevas (which Fiona said came so near to being a naughty comment!) I mentioned my tapas blog and the tours and it turns out that I won’t be putting my feet up tonight. Instead I’ll be meeting Philip and Mary from New York at their hotel and going out on an impromptu tapas tour! They even invited Nog along.

As it’s been raining off and on all afternoon I don’t expect there to be many (if any) processions tonight, but that doesn’t mean that the bars won’t be crazy busy. Anyhooo… I just love it when stuff like this happens. And I’m quite looking forward to doing something a bit different tour-wise tonight as Philip & Mary have expressed an interest in trying out Flores Jamones & Vinos, which isn’t usually on my list as they don’t do tapas per se. They also told me that they didn’t mind if we had to get a taxi to go somewhere special – cool!

Stay tuned to my Sevilla Tapas twitter feed later if you’d like to come along…

a day in the country

27 Sunday Mar 2011

Posted by in culture, food & drink, friends, photos, restaurants, sevilla, spain, tapas, wine, work

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[click to enlarge]

One of the reasons I occasionally wish I had a car (and a valid driving licence) is to take day trips to the many little villages near Sevilla. So I was delighted the other day when my Twitter buddy Eduardo got in touch to ask if I wanted to go with him and his girlfriend Mercedes to an olive oil & wine tasting in El Viso del Alcor. The tasting was held at the magnificent Basilippo hacienda in the countryside amongst their olive groves, and the snacks we enjoyed during the event were catered by Más Que Tapas. I was keen to go not only to learn more about olive oil (and, as it turned out, caviar!) but also to meet Aurore and Eduardo, who run Más Que Tapas, as they have often asked me to come out and see their place.

After a presentation on the different types of olives oils (we sampled three) inside the museum, we went out to the gardens to sample five different wines, paired with delicious snacks prepared with the olive oils we had just tasted.  But first we were in for a special treat – some local caviar and sparkling wine. We had a great time and I got to meet some new people, as well as a small pregnant cat which I ended up feeding chunks of bread dipped in my carrillada gravy. By the time the tasting finished we were informed that Más Que Tapas was offering a special “after hours” lunch menu (it was way past lunch time) and so we made our way over for something a bit more substantial.

[only click to enlarge if you’re not hungry]

In the end we didn’t go for the fixed menu and just (just!) ordered three dishes to share. Above you can see owners Eduardo & Aurore in the top corner, and at the bottom that’s Aurore again with Eduardo & Mercedes. In between some fabulous food: risotto with mushrooms, cashews & raisins, a burger of goat cheese, a slice of apple and foie, and some grilled scallops and chorizo on puff pastry with carrot purée. As if that weren’t enough we were given a couple of hot desserts to sample and I found myself wondering how on earth I was going to manage to eat anything on my tapas tour that evening…

It was a fabulous day in the country with lovely people. We got back to Sevilla around 6.30 and so later I wasn’t too concerned to discover that my clients were delayed getting into town from Lisbon which meant the tapas tour was rescheduled for today. In fact, I have to leave in a few minutes – see ya!

a tale of two azoteas

18 Friday Mar 2011

Posted by in food & drink, friends, home, restaurants, sevilla, tapas, television, twitter

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Azotea n. A rooftop terrace

This morning I meant to get up, get some work done, and then hit the gym. But then the guy from Digital+ called to say he could install the satellite dish and set up my new tv service, sooooo…  I decided to just stick around at home and get it done. But because I was working downstairs and wasn’t paying attention to what the guy was doing, it was a bit of a bummer to find out he’d attached the dish to the side of the azotea wall (I thought it would be on the top of that pole) right where I want to put the barbeque (when I get one), but oh well. New service seems to be working fine and it’ll be cheaper than what I had with the dreaded Movistar. Also swapped internet and phone service yesterday to go with Vodafone, so in a week or so there should be no more Movistar in my life.

So having missed the gym there was nothing left to do but go out and eat a whack of tapas!

Yesterday I’d made plans to meed Dutch Twitter pal @Amiek who is in town on holiday, so we went out to La Azotea, one of my favourite places that I actually hadn’t been to for awhile. And well, it was fabulous as always and great to see everyone again. Spent a lovely afternoon chatting with Amiek, who has lived in Sevilla before and speaks fluent Spanish (have never met a Dutch person who didn’t speak at least five languages). She’s staying in her old ‘hood, but as it’s been awhile since she’s been here I’ll be giving her tips on the latest and greatest tapas bars, and will most likely see her again before she leaves on Tuesday. Damn but that Twitter thang is great. Lunch below, which Amiek very generously treated me to…

[click to enlarge]
espetos de pijotas (fish onna stick) with blood orange mayo
grilled morcilla with caramalised onion & quail egg
cod & wild mushroom canneloni with scallop sauce / grilled tuna with olive paté
presa (iberian pork) tataky with crushed pistachios & creamy idiazabal cheese sauce

have crutches, will travel…

09 Wednesday Feb 2011

Posted by in health & happiness, tapas, work

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Seriously, still on crutches. Well, not at home. There I can shuffle from here to there in a slow and somewhat easy-ish if slightly painful manner. But out on the street I still really need the crutches I borrowed last week from Agustín’s wife, Elena. Weirdly, I find walking hurts my right hip more than my sprained left ankle, which is why I am still using two crutches – I can’t figure out which side would benefit more from just using one!

And so… I have been way too much on my feet this past week, wandering about town, as well as up and down stairs (and tall ladders!) at home. Some people have told me to stay off my feet as much as possible, others have said that gentle use of the ankle will help rebuild its strength. All I know is that I’VE HAD TO GET THINGS DONE. And so I’ve done what’s needed doing, hoping that I haven’t done any irreparable damage to my lovely left ankle, which I love so much…

This evening I have another tapas tour, and an English class at Agustín’s before it, so at least I can ask him to have a look at my ankle and give me his opinion (a week later). Which I hope won’t be that I’d be mad to do the tapas tour, cos well, I kinda have to do it. I think I have to be the most impatient patient ever, which I also discovered after my various cancer ops – I could never “take things easy” as ordered. I was always out and about as soon as I could manage it. Could be that I’ve f*cked up my ankle for life by not sitting around on my butt for the past week, but I reckon that if there is any real damage done then it’s already been done – and tonight I have to work! Will put leg up tomorrow if I have to…

 

ow…

02 Wednesday Feb 2011

Posted by in health & happiness, home, tapas

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Had a tapas tour last night and went to meet my clients (two lovely couples from England) at their hotel. On the way to our first stop wandering down a cobbly narrow street my left ankle suddenly twisted and … OW! It hurt like a sonofabitch. But there was no way I wanted to cancel the tour so I hobbled my way through it. Actually had a great time in spite of the now very swollen ankle, though by the end I was having serious trouble walking. So I called Nog to come and meet me as I felt a bit vulnerable walking home alone. And here is the damage. The swelling actually doesn’t show up as much in the photo. There’s no real bruising but I can’t put any weight on it without a lot of pain. Dammit.

So, am sitting here looking at all these boxes and thinking what rotten timing. There’s so much to do and I can barely move around. But, I will go to my class at Agustín’s this evening. He’s a doctor, so if he says I should go get the thing x-rayed then I’ll taxi over from there and also get my port cleaning done, as that’s due this week. It’s always something…