Spain: Madrid bites

Full text taken from TODAY, Travel; Thursday, 22-April-2010
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Madrid bites

by Jafri M
traveller@mediacorp.com.sg

Celebrated gastronomic alchemist Ferran Adria may be closing the doors of his three-star Michelin restaurant, El Bulli, temporarily in two years, but Spain will always be a great gourmet destination.

Madrid is a perennial hot spot for rising Michelin-quality chefs, premier food conventions and international gourmet summits. Typical Madrid cuisine fuses the country's different cooking styles, and may showcase Andalucian tapas beside Galician-style fish. The city serves as a tasty starter to the diverse culinary adventures to be had in Spain.

To better appreciate the experience, try to follow local eating habits. Breakfast is often a milky coffee and sweet roll, with a late morning snack of churros con chocolate, which is scrumptious golden curls of fried doughnut-like batter slowly savoured with thick, melted chocolate. The beverage makes for a perfect post bar-hopping indulgence.

Try it at the perpetually packed Chocolateria San Gines at Pasadizio de San Gines, which has been serving churros and chocolate since 1894. A plate of churros and cup of chocolate cost about $10.

Lunch in the city is served between 1pm and 4pm, and many restaurants offer an affordable three-course meal. The locals eat dinner after 9pm, especially on weekends. Lunch is usually the main meal of the day while dinner is a lighter affair, often featuring traditional tapas.

A typical tapas bar, be it a tiled old tavern or a more contemporary bar set up, offers between 8 and 12 different kinds of savoury, bite-sized morsels, laid out on white plates or warming trays, and flavoured with paprika, cumin, salt, and often copious amounts of olive oil. Much of the offerings are seafood like anchovies, sardines and squid in assorted seasonings. They are best downed with beer, at the counter. Expect to pay about $20 for a meal.

Try tapas bar hopping around the lively Plaza de Santa Ana. If you go on a tapas tour, try not to eat more than two tapas per stop, otherwise you will be full quickly. Some popular options include tortilla de patatas (thick omelet of eggs, onion and potatoes), huevos rotos (eggs fried over a bed of potato slices) and calamares fritos (fried squid).

Other Madrid staples are the invigorating stews and hotpots, like the succulent cocido madrileno, a substantial and hearty meal by itself. This classic chickpea stew with vegetables is cooked slowly with chicken, beef shank and pork.

Vegetable lovers will find fresh produce translated into perennial favourites like coles de bruselas salteados (sauteed brussel sprouts) and coliflor al ajo arriero (cauliflower in garlic and paprika sauce).

The locals have a great appetite for fish, with popular dishes like bacalao al ajoarriero (cod stew with tomatoes, garlic and pepper). Madrid is often called "the best port in Spain" for good reason. Its Mercamadrid Fish Market - spanning some 42,000sqm and with annual sales of over 130 million kg - is the biggest in Europe and offers all types of seafood products.

Those with a sweet tooth can indulge in bartolillos con crema (small pie filled with custard) and of course, churros con chocolate. Jafri M

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SPAIN: Olive country life Trip notes

Image via Wikipedia

Olive country life Trip notes

Hippies as well as villagers live as one in Spain's deep south

by Nellie Huang
traveller@mediacorp.com.sg

A KIND of Shangri-La lies tucked in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, deep in the heart of Andalucia.

The Alpujarra region is one of the most fertile areas in Spain. Water from the mountains and Mediterranean sunshine feed fruit orchards while the dry air helps cure that Spanish staple, serrano ham.

The scenery, too, is pretty. White-washed villages, remnants of Muslim communities, cling onto the slopes.

While the Alpujarras is off the tourist trail in the way that cities such as Madrid and Barcelona are its stars, the region's bucolic way of life tends to attract travellers who want to stay.

My partner and I took a tour into the mountains to see this bohemian enclave for ourselves.


Olive groves

As we drove to the peaks, we watched brown, rugged landscapes give way to silvery olive groves, as the smell of pine and citrus permeated the air.

Our tour guide, Roberto, an olive cultivator in his 50s, told us what he loved about life in the Alpujarras: "Nothing thrills me more than reaping the fruits of my labour. Every season, I go out into the fields to collect the olives when they're ripe. That is the best part of my job."


Natural springs and holistic centres

The pastoral life he described is an enticing one. In his 1957 book South of Granada, British writer Gerald Brenan detailed his seven-year stay in this area in the 1920s. Since then, it has become a veritable destination for hippies, and now, New Age practitioners.

The gateway to the Alpujarras, the town of Lanjaron, is home to a Buddhist meditation centre, yoga halls and holistic stores. It reverberates with spiritual energy, drawing artists and writers from all over the world.

We drove on to Cortijo Amapolis, a retreat in the shape of a Mongolian yurt hidden in the valleys. The retreat programme combines meditation, yoga and massages.

One of the guests, Ruben, a Brazilian dancer, said: "Waking up to the mountain air, meditating in the tranquillity and being surrounded by fellow artists - that's what makes me feel alive. I've been here for only a month, but I know this is now my home."


Organic living

We left the hippie trail behind us, with the slopes carpeted by meadows of wildflowers. Mushrooms and herbs found in the wild are used in local cuisine and what people can't pick, they grow in their backyard - one reason why Alpujarran cuisine is gaining fame for its organic origins.

Farmhouses, or cortijos, abound, serving food in its purest form. We stopped at Cortijo Garin to sample a typical item, the Plato Alpujarreno - a mixture of jamon (cured ham), morcilla (congealed cow's blood) and patatas a lo pobre (pan-fried potato), tossed in locally produced olive oil and condiments. Naturally, the ingredients came from the restaurant's own farm.


Casa rural

Twelve kilometres away lies the Poquiera valley, the backdrop to the famous trio: Pampaneira, Capileira and Bubion. The three are reportedly the most stunning of the Alpujarras' white-washed villages. Each is a phalanx of twisting mule tracks, steep cobbled paths and wooden balconies draped with bright red peppers that invites hours of exploration.

We pushed further to the other end of the highlands, 20km away, to get to Pitres. The town has a bundle of rustic holiday homes, or casas rurales. Poised on the slopes, these guesthouses have an unobstructed view of the gorge and outdoor terraces to while away the time.

As the sun set, we settled into La Oveja Verde, a traditional country-style guesthouse, to enjoy a glass of wine.

The beauty of the place inspired a fellow guest, a middle-aged British writer, to use Pitres as the setting for his next novel. "I want to use the romance of the Alpujarras in my novel," he said. "A place like this is rare these days."



Go: The nearest airports are in Malaga and Granada. Lufthansa and British Airways fly to both airports for about $1,500. For optimum mobility, rent a car at the airport. The rate is about ?50 ($94) a day. Road signs are in Spanish but it is easy to find your way with a map. Most locals speak only Spanish, so learn some words before you go. The other option to book a tour. Olive Oil Tours (www.oliveoiltour.com) depart from Granada. A six-hour excursion including lunch costs ?55.

When to go: The best time to visit is in spring (April to June) when the climate is pleasant and flowers are in bloom. Temperatures can drop drastically at night, even in summer. Winter is best avoided as roads might be closed due to snow.

Eat and stay:

• Cortijo Garin (www.cortijogarin.com). The average price of a meal is $10.
• Alpujarras Holidays (www.alpujarra-holidays.com) has homes furnished with a kitchen and swimming pool. Rates from $40 per person.
• Cortijo Los Iberos (www.casaibero.com) is an excellent farmhouse for travellers to experience rural living. Rates from $22.5 per person.
• La Oveja Verde (www.laovejaverde.es) has panoramic views. Rates start from $30 person per night.
• Cortijo Amapolis (www.armonia.tantrika.net). Retreats that include accommodation in a yurt, meditation sessions and three meals daily cost $150 a day.

Taken from TODAYOnline.com; see the source article here: TODAYonline | Travel | Olive country lifeTrip notes
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Spain for foodies

A GOURMET’S TOUR

Spanish restaurants dominate world’s top 10 list, so is it time for a tasting?

The Basque Country (above) is famed for its cuisine. Munoz (below) fuses Spanish with Chinese flavours.

It used to be that when one thinks of Spain, it’s flamenco, tapas, bullfighting and Gaudi’s dripping La Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona that comes to mind. Soon, one can add fine food to the list of associations, if it hasn’t been already. On Monday, it was reported that Spain’s El Bulli had topped S Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants list for the fourth year in row. More importantly, three of the top five restaurants were from Spain. Mugaritz and El Celler de Can Roca took fourth and fifth place after Britain’s The Fat Duck and Denmark’s Noma.

So, is it time for foodies here to loosen their belts and pack their bags for a tour of Spain? Today sat down with up-and-coming chef from Madrid David Munoz — who is in town for the World Gourmet Summit this week — and his wife Angela Montero for their take on the culinary revolution in Spain and tips for travelling gourmands.

Indeed, Munoz, who co-owns Madrid’s award winning DiverXO restaurant with Montero, is very much part of Spain’s new wave of innovative cooks, fusing Spanish with Chinese ingredients to produce startling flavours. His potato omelette looks like a tiny Chinese dumpling, to be enjoyed with a sip of jasmine tea.

Why do you think Spanish restaurants are so highly rated now?

There’s been a burst of culinary innovation that started with Ferran Adria from El Bulli. He opened the way for chefs to experiment with their cooking. Also, there’s been a liberalisation of thinking in the past 10 to 12 years. The Spanish had been oppressed under the Franco government, but now people are experimenting with things — in food, in fashion. The young make an effort to learn English. It’s a new way of thinking.

Where should travellers go for a culinary tour?

Madrid has a lot of places now. Catalonia and the Basque Country are also good regions for food.

The Basque has incredible cuisine. Even in the a pub, they eat very well. They have a way of cooking, they do a lot of stews. They have very good gastronomy and now, they have very good restaurants. Mugaritz and Arzak, the fourth and eighth top restaurants in the world, are from this area. Travellers should try the cod. It’s salted then cleaned with water. When cooked, the flavours are very different. A lot of people like it this way.

Any tips for finding the best places to eat?

When you see a country, you take a guide but you only see what the guide shows you. To know what’s going on, talk to the people. Ask where they eat. You have to interact with them to find out what’s best.

What must visitors try?

Iberico ham. It’s what distinguishes Spain from other countries. In Catalonia, they eat espardenta. It’s a small animal found inside a sea cucumber. Chinese people would eat the outside and throw away the inside. In Spain, we eat it. It’s very expensive — one kilogramme costs €150 ($293). It tastes a bit like baby squid. Very nice. Jennifer Chen

From TODAY, Traveller – Thursday, 23-April-2009