Tag Archives: sevilla

cava cata

29 Thursday Sep 2011

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

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So this is what I did last night!

What better way to further celebrate Tuesday’s good news than to go out to a free cava tasting the following evening. No question mark – rhetorical question. One of my all-time favourite tapas bars – La Azotea – has recently opened the new location of their fabulous Vinos & Más gourmet food and wine shop and last night was the first cata (wine tasting) featuring five fabulous Parxet cavas:  brut reserva, brut natura, gran reserva extra brut (my favourite), brut rosé and a dessert rosé. What I love about these catas at Vinos & Más is that they are casual and not at all snobby. I get to learn something new about wines and never feel silly about asking questions.

After the cata Nog & I were in need of a bit of something to eat and as La Azotea was jam-packed (as usual at that hour) we wandered over to a typical neighbourhood place called Dos de Mayo, which was also packed but their clientelle doesn’t linger as long. So we shared a few tapitas… always nice to mix business with pleasure, and especially when it ends up being mixing pleasure with pleasure…

andalucía sabor

20 Tuesday Sep 2011

Posted by in culture, food & drink, sevilla

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So this is what I’ll be doing over the next three days – attending the Andalucía Sabor Fine Food Exhibition – which kicks off this morning with a jamón slicing competition. Though in fact it began yesterday evening with an interesting and entertaining round-table discussion with three of Spain’s top chefs (Juan Mari Arzak, Carme Ruscalleda and Dani Garcia) about the Mediterranean diet and why eating locally and in season is so important.

Last year I had wangled an invitation to the Best New Chef competition so I guess I was still “on file” because of that, and so I was happy to receive an email a few weeks ago inviting me to attend this year’s Andalucía Sabor as Press or, more accurately, one of the bloggers that will be not only be allowed entrance (normal admission price is 75 euros) but also will have a blogger’s area with access to tables and plugs for laptops, etc. This would be an ideal moment to use the iPad I still don’t have. So I will just be armed with my iPhone as both laptops are too heavy to lug around all day, especially as I’m still having to wear the “faja” to hold my operation incision together.

And as if attending a three-day conference wasn’t enough I also have Sevilla Tapas Tours tonight and Thursday night, plus a presentation meeting with a prospective social media client tomorrow evening (another instance where an iPad would come in handy). Meanwhile I still have my daily work with my other clients to keep up with…

Speaking of which, best get that done while I down another cup of coffee, then I’ll have to hit the shower and get out of here. The conference centre is way the hell out near the airport, about half an hour on the bus, but at least there is a direct route there with the stop just five minutes from my house. Okay – gotta run!

summer returns

07 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by in sevilla, spain, summer, weather

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Last Friday afternoon I took a taxi from the hospital to the Plaza Alfalfa, a square near my house, so that I could pick up the various drugs I needed at the pharmacy there. While inside the skies opened and this very unsummerlike scene left me stranded while Nog raced home to get umbrellas so I could get home as soon as possible without getting soaked through.

All that week up until Sunday the weather was lovely and fresh, with a couple of rainstorms to clean the air. But this week The Heat is back. At the moment the thermometer reads 32º in my livingroom but I refuse to turn on the airconditioning because another thing waiting for me when I got home was a 173€ electricity bill for August (!!!). I’m still in shock. That is just for one month! And I only used the aircon for maybe three hours a day in August. So for the rest of the summer I’m just going to sweat it out and look forward to the cooler weather to arrive. Though I could do without another rainy winter…

wall street journal az

26 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by in sevilla, tapas, wine, work

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So do you remember the fabulous Gourmet Tapas Tour I did last week? Well, I was sworn to secrecy until now but the article came out this morning so I’m free to blab it to the world. The tour was actually part of an interview I was asked to give to the Wall Street Journal Europe about my tapas tours. London-based food columnist Bruce Palling was down in Málaga province for a few days and he wanted to come up to Sevilla for the day to check out the “new tapas scene” and see how tapas have been evolving recently.

I met Bruce and his wife Lucinda for a lunchtime tapas tour and we went to four tapas bars where I knew they were doing tapas with a twist, still using traditional local ingredients but creating new and exciting dishes. And well, I had a great time. Bruce and Lucinda are true foodies and were great company and, as always, I felt proud to show off some of the places that I really love.

When I asked Bruce how he found out about me he said that when he was asking around London about who to contact in Sevilla about tapas my name kept coming up, so he decided to get in touch. Although he didn’t name names I knew it had to be some of the London twitter connections I’ve made over the past few years. Anyhow, we shall see if this helps bring in some more business, but I’m actually just so thrilled to see “my name in lights” and to read about how much Bruce enjoyed the tapas tour. You can read the article here:

Small Plates of Seville