Tag Archives: seville

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…

more sevilla english

03 Sunday Apr 2011

Posted by in social media, twitter, websites, work

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Two years ago I set up this Sevilla English site to try and scare up a bit of business in the classes and translations department, which never really took off. Then today I decided to take it a step further and get Nog involved, switching his Twitter account name (which he rarely used) from the_noggin to SevillaEnglish, and I also set up a Facebook Fan Page for which we are both administrators but that he can mostly maintain.

I reckon that getting active in social media and connecting with local people and businesses may end up helping him get enough work so that he won’t have to pack up and go back to Wales. So let’s hope he sticks with this and gets things happening!

las setas

29 Tuesday Mar 2011

Posted by in culture, history, sevilla, spain

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Undecided…

This past Sunday was the official opening of the Metropol Parasol – aka Las Setas (The Mushrooms). I stayed away from the celebrations but snapped this pic of it yesterday once everything was back to the usual work-a-day crowds. While it was going up, which took years, I hated the damn thing as much as everyone else seemed to and couldn’t imagine how such a monstrosity would “fit” into such a beautiful old city as Sevilla. Though it’s actually sitting in the middle of the Encarnación Plaza, which had its heart and soul cut out of it during a fit of sixties “rebuilding” which destroyed palaces and old houses and left a strip of hideous office buildings and storefronts. But I digress…

The Setas (how can you not call them that?) are on the original site of the Encarnación Market which was levelled and moved to a “temporary” site next door … about 35 years ago. I don’t know the whole story there other than the original site was pretty much a parking lot when I first moved to Sevilla in 1993, then they started digging it up and discovered ruins that held up any building for several years. And then they started constructing The Setas.

The market was shifted over just before Christmas last year and although the building is now officially “open” there’s still some construction going on. When the scaffolding first started coming down, unveiling the first seta (in the foreground of the photo) I was startled to find myself liking how elegant it looked, swooping up towards the sky. But as more of the structure became visible I became less entranced. So I remain undecided. I guess the real test will be how well the site ends up being used. Aside from the market there will be bars and restaurants (coming soon!), and there’s a big shaded area up on the first level which has a small playground for children, benches for adults, and will apparently be used for concerts. There is also a walkway along top of the structure with panoramic views of the city which residents of Sevilla will be able to access free of charge. Anyhow, for better or worse, there it is.

What do you think?

[also posted on the Sevilla Blog]

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!

pippin II

24 Thursday Mar 2011

Posted by in gadgets, geekiness, home, work

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At long last the day has arrived … picked up my new iPhone4 today from Vodafone and am syncing him on iTunes now. So far so good.

Yeah, I guess I could have – should have? – waited for the iPhone5. But my old iPhone3G has really been acting up lately and I got a good offer on this one, both on price and monthly contract fee, so what the heck. And who knows when the iPhone5 will actually be released – and then when it will make its way to Sevilla?? With the (bad) luck I’ve been having trying to find an iPhone4 in town it just made sense to go with the phone that was actually there in the store.

Thus ends the whole Movistar nightmare, as I also switched my internet and landline connection over to Vodafone, and my tv service is now by Digital+ satellite. So I now have a faster internet connection and the same television channels as before, but for about 25 euros less a month. I also expect to save about 20 euros a month on the iPhone monthly rate. So it turns out that I’m actually quite lucky that Movistar screwed up so badly as I am much better off now with this new set up.

My new Vodafone router also came with a wall mount, which I just thought was the coolest thing ever – why don’t they all? So I was able to mount it on the wall next to the phone and electrical plugins – love how much tidier it is. And of course now I don’t have my tv service sucking the bandwidth out of my router and, if anything goes wrong with the internet connection, I can not only still watch tv, but the Vodafone system comes with a mini-modem that I can use free-of-charge during down-time emergencies, or else as an external modem (for a fee) when I am travelling.

Okay, iTunes syncing is done! Time to go play with my new Pippin.