Tapas Dancing

If there was one country I was looking forward to visiting more than any other, it was Spain. I love eating tapas, being able to try many different things in one meal, especially when travelling is a great way to go. In the limited number of meals you have available to you on a holiday means you never get to try all of the amazing flavours and ingredients that represent a local cuisine, but this style of eating allows you to try much more. Not only that, but it is a great way of dining if you are travelling solo, just find a seat at the bar and chat with the people beside you or the bartender, asking what is good that day or what the dishes of other diners taste like is a great way to try the best food.

Let's start with a trip to the central market of Barcelona. As I walk down La Rambla, navigating my way through crowds of tourists mingled with locals and street performers, I find La Boqueria de St Josep. Right at the entrance, I walk past a shop selling many different versions of jamon - spanish ham. Although to call it ham is probably doing it an injustice. Jamon is one of the most sought after hams in the worlds and attracts prices in the hundreds of dollars per kilo. You can see one in this photo selling for 160 Euro per kilogram.

This amazing meat product is one of the best recognised hams in the world, along with prosciutto. One of the ways to tell a quality product is by looking for marbling of fat within the muscle. As you can se, they are displayed with the hoof still attached.

After that, I walk into the fruit and veg section of the market, stalls piled high with delectable fresh-looking produce.

And even a few that I had never seen before.

The fish section has amazingly fresh looking fish and many of the shellfish on display are sold live.

Apart from all the fabulous fresh produce available, there are several Tapas/Pintxos Bars scattered throughout the market. They serve the amazing fresh food of the market cooked right before your eyes. I had to come back to try two of them, but I'm very glad I did. The first visit was to Pinotxo Bar, right near the entrance of the market and as with all of these bars in the market it is always full and you have to wait around for someone to leave and snag their seat before someone else does.

I sat down and asked for a cerveca and whatever they felt like serving me. They started me off with the mussels.

Bursting with fresh, bright flavours, the salsa really enhanced the briney flavour of the plump mussels.

Next came more shellfish, this time clams. The ones on the left are razor clams which I had never tried before, but they were very nice and I'm sure freshness has a lot to do with how good this tastes. They do very little with it, just a slight dressing, allowing the taste of the ingredients to shine through.

The next dish they served me was baby squid and beans.

This is a very different presentation of squid to what I have normally seen. Usually it has been served with bright, fresh flavours. In this case, the flavour was earthy and savoury, the beans tender. To start with, taste buds were craving for something bright and powerful to give some high notes to this dish, but as I ate more and more, I started enjoy this dish more than I thought possible. I was starting to crave the deep savoury flavour and hated when my bowl was empty. As I was eating this dish, the couple next to me had a plate of stew that looked really nice and when I asked them about it they were very pleased.

Even though they couldn't really communicate in too many words of english, I could tell they wanted me to have some by the way the lady grabbed my fork and gave it back with a heap of the stew on it. I asked for a small portion of this.

The meat was tender and the sauce was delicious, more of those savoury flavours that I am coming to enjoy more and more while in Spain.

The other bar in the market that is well worth a mention is El Quim. I only had two things there, but they were both very nice. To start, I saw a dark sausage and asked for one of those.

This was their version of black pudding,this tasted really mild, with a delicate flavour that was a little nutty.

The second dish, which was the dish I had come here to try, was their fried eggs with baby squid. The eggs are served with a runny yolk and covered in baby squid. The waiter told me to cut up the egg and stir it all together.

The yolk creates a sauce that binds this rich, delicious dish together. Again there are lots of savoury flavours going on here with no bright touch to balance it out, but I'm starting to want that less and less as I eat more of the local cuisine.

There are still a few restaurants to talk about, but you'll have to tune in next time to see more amazing Spanish food.