Hola! Sorry for the recent lack of posts, I was conducting important food research in Spain. The short answer to my findings is: Yum. The longer answer will be found below…

I took the OH to Girona, a medieval city in North-eastern Spain for a special birthday. The main reason for this was that it is the location of the second best restaurant in the world – El Celler de Can Roca, which i’d managed to get us a reservation at (only 11 months in advance, no biggie!!). The upside to the location of the restaurant is that Girona is a lovely little city, perfect for wandering round and finding lots to see, eat and drink – all of which we did.

I will be doing a dedicated post on the crazy restaurant experience soon, but for now – here are some other things we ate and drank over the course of four days:

Saturday

Cub was a bar/cafe just down the road from our apartment – so we went straight there for lunch when we arrived, and tried some of their tapas – interesting flavour combinations but all tasty! From top: Dates wrapped in bacon, Patatas ali oli (potatoes with garlic mayo basically), Chorizo tostas with melted cheese & green peppers, Cured duck with poached pear & hazelnuts, and Black pudding & Pistachio croquettes. The dates particularly were heaven!

Next door to cub was a gelateria that also sold Orxata (Horchata). I first had this in Valencia years ago and love it – it’s a drink made of tiger nuts, water and sugar, and served ice cold. Delicious…

That evening we went to a Pintxos bar called Txalaka (pronounced Chalaka).

Pintxos is similar to Tapas, but is mainly served on bread, with a skewer/toothpick. This bar was like a buffet, you grab a big plate, fill it up with goodies, eat it and keep the sticks to show how much you need to pay. I was like a kid in a sweet shop! We also had a basque sparkling white wine called txakoli (the wine is so cheap out there!). You can go up as many times as you like, just don’t forget you’ve got to pay at the end…

On my plate (clockwise from top left): manchego cheese & quince, olives stuffed with cream cheese, figs & cured ham, prawn wrapped in crispy potato strips, cream cheese, pistachio, cured duck & balsamic on bread, marinated broad beans & cured duck, and a cheese croquette. There was also a selection of sweet pintxos, but i only had room for one – little orange jellies.

It was all tasty, i’m only disappointed i didn’t have room for more, as they kept bringing out new dishes every ten minutes or so!

Sunday

Sunday we went to Barcelona to meet up with an old friend who lives there. There are some amazing bars/restaurants in Barcelona but we just stopped at a little cafe and had snacks, so I didn’t take any food photos apart from this one…

Dulche de Leche Ice cream from a shop in Barceloneta (by the sea) – it was fabulous but i’m sure about half of it dripped down my hand as it was so hot! And I can’t remember the name of the place – terrible blogger sorry…

Monday

Monday we did some more exploring around the old town, and found quite a few places serving crepes, probably because it’s so close to the border with France. We chose to eat at Creperie Bretonne because it had a really good value menu del dia (menu of the day – like a set menu), €8.50 for two courses and a drink, and also because they had a big bus in the restaurant – amazing!

There was a choice of soup, salad or quiche to start, then a choice of three galettes. We both chose the ham and cheese quiche to start, which was rich and delicious, and i had some cidre (french cider) which came in a tea cup! We then both had the same galette too – chicken, onion, cheese and chives, which was deceptively filling but very flavourful. Unfortunately I didn’t leave enough room for one of their salted butter caramel crepes, which pains me to this day, as it sounded amazing. Never mind… I did have room for a cortado though – similar to an italian macchiato – an espresso with a little bit of warm milk.

Monday evening we ate at a restaurant called Occi, which lonely planet and our airbnb host had recommended. The menu was a bit fusion-y, mixing Spanish with French, Italian, and some Asian ideas. I had the cheese plate to start – the waiter recommended having half of the portion size which was a good idea as there was still plenty to eat! I liked all the cheeses, a mixture of goat and sheep’s cheese mainly, but felt it could have done with more than the two apricots as accompaniments – some quince or other fruit maybe?

For mains we both went for duck options, the OH had Duck cannelloni with port and apples, which was more like a duck pancake as it was made with pastry. I went for the duck breast with blue cheese ravioli and a coffee sauce – mainly because it sounded odd. The flavours actually all went fine together, but it was all quite stodgy and could’ve done with some vegetables or salad to lift it a bit.

We didn’t have room for dessert but they brought us out some sugared almonds which was a nice touch. There was also a pre-starter of pumpkin soup with crunchy lardons which was probably the nicest thing I ate there! The food generally felt like it was missing something for me, but our waiter was great, and very good at choosing wine for each of us!

Tuesday

Breakfast! A trip to Xocolateria L’antiga, an old-fashioned cafe, was in order for some crazy thick hot chocolate and a pastry. I was desperate for churros but nowhere seemed to have them, so we settled for an ‘Ensaimada’ each – a majorcan cake that tasted a lot like Pannetone. This, dipped into the chocolate was almost enough to make me forget about churros.

I said ‘almost’! When we finally found some an hour or so later I couldn’t resist. We didn’t have them with chocolate, just dusted in sugar and hot and delicious.

Lunch ( I know, we still stopped for lunch after all that): Le Bistrot. We’d walked past this restaurant every day on our way into the old town, and liked how all the tables were set up on the steps – it looked pretty romantic in the evenings. We had their menu of the day – €13 for two courses and a drink. We both chose their house speciality for main – Pork cheeks, which came with chickpeas, carrots and onions. We then had pineapple for dessert, which was literally two massive chunks of fresh pineapple on a plate. The food here was pretty rustic, but the pork cheeks were blinking’ gorgeous and falling off the bone. The service wasn’t amazing but the cheeks made up for it!

That evening we went to El Celler de Can Roca, but I will leave you in suspense about that for now because i have more than enough photo’s to do a dedicated post on that one restaurant!

I’d thoroughly recommend Girona for a mini-break – it was really nice having a few days just to wander around the medieval part of the city, popping into churches and gardens, and restaurants and bars. There are enough places to eat and drink that you could probably eat somewhere different every day for a couple of months!

Some of the things we recommend seeing:

The Cathedral

The Arab Baths

The Archeology Museum (for it’s amazing setting in an old monastery)

Walking the old city walls

More info on Girona can be found on the lonely planet website or the Girona tourist office website.

Let me know if you’ve been!