Am I dreaming? Pintxos me!
San Sebastián is a beach resort town in Basque Country, so a lot of people were there for the sun... we were there for the food! Rumour has it that SS is second only to Kyoto for Michelin-starred restaurants. Lourdes knows we would have loved to have tried them all, but we had our sights set on just one of them. More on that later. First, the pintxos!
Some of the dishes you can sample directly from the bar but the best ones are made to order!
The Basque people like to make noise and have fun. This was a random parade of 'giant heads' through the streets. Apparently there are groups all over the Basque Country that do this for fun.
Even the treats that came with coffee after the meal were spectacular, juice filled bites of joy!
On our first night in town we hit the Pintxos (pin-choss) bars, the Basque version of tapas that the town is famous for and that line the streets of the Old Quarter of town.
For anyone planning a trip, our favourite bars were Goiz Argi where they had fantastic grilled prawns and squid, (and where on our last night in town we met an couple from Utah in the area for a mountain biking trip and chatted until the bar closed, potentially shattering any hope they had of a low-key first night...), and A Fuego Negro where the barman was just like a giant Speedy Gonzalas, talking at a million miles an hour and seemed to love his job. The other favourite was Borda Berri which had amazing grilled octopususes and some delicious duck plus a great wine list. We went back there a few times.
At one bar we saw some fun looking chilli peppers that we'd seen earlier in the market. We asked the bartender if they were hot to which he gave a Basquesque shrug and replied, "maybe". We took this to mean that it depended on your ability to handle hot chillis. A bit of research later revealed that these chilis are called Pimientos di Padron, a chilli pepper specific to this NW region of Basque Country. They're famous because eating them is playing culinary roulette, because most are mild like a capsicum but one in every 20 will blow your head off. We did pluck up the courage to try them at the next bar in a magical snack combined with anchovies and green olives - delicious.
The grilled squid at Goiz Argi were awesome!
Check out the wallpaper...Not sure this kind of plagiarism would fly in other parts of the world?
Now, back to the Michelin stars. Our entire trip has been based around a booking we made nine months ago (for lunch!) at a restaurant in San Sebastien called 'Arzak', with 3 Michelin stars and highly recommended by our friends Poppa and Lou. So the day had finally arrived and the 3.5 hour, nine course meal did not disappoint. Everything from the professional but not pompous service to the creative presentation of each dish was an amazing experience. Between the two of us we tasted almost everything on the menu, our favourites being the lobster and bee pollen and the lamb with green curry Thai sauce.
Al even shaved for the experience
OK, so this one was a bit over the top but fun just the same. Yep, that is an iPad mini under the plate with a video playing of the ocean breaking over rocks. A whole new spin on fish and chips.
For our 'on location' run in San Sebastián Michelle found a hiking trail along the coast that she somehow managed to convince Al to run. A beautiful run through the green national park area North of the city that links to a small harbour / fishing village.
The two bays of San Sebastián. At this point we'd climbed the equivalent of a 10 story building and Michelle was trying to distract Al from the signs that said how far it was to the end point
Luckily we were running down these stairs not up at the end of the 11km. Also luckily, there was a bus waiting to take us back to town!
Next stop one night in Paris before we're off to Canada for two weeks.