Not always easy to find your way around for a hungry layman, lost in the jungle of bodegas, tascas, tabernas, tapas bars, marisquerías, pulperías, mesones and other restaurants... You have to be tempted, dare to dive into the crowd in search of the counter and its eternal jamones (hams), choose a dish without necessarily understanding what is in it. It is by tasting that you become connoisseur!

 

In Spain, there are fewer “restaurants” as we know them in the rest of Europe. On the other hand, most bars and cafes offer something to eat. You can, depending on the size of your appetite or simply to taste several specialties, order una tapa (a small portion), una ración (a whole plate) or una media ración (half a plate). The clientele usually remains standing at the counter, but many establishments combine the tapas bar with a few taberna-style tables and a separate more chic restaurant room. There is something for everyone and for all budgets. Most offer lunch menus at low prices, even if in tourist restaurants, cooking is often poor.

 

As for fruit lovers, you will be quicker to go to the supermarket than to look for a fresh and sweet touch on the menu! Also be careful not to get your words tangled: if the bocadillo is a “sandwich”, sandwich (in Spanish) means a “toast” or a “croque-monsieur”, while the tostada is a “slice of toasted sandwich bread ".

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Paella

Rice base cooked in oil at the same time as the chicken, lean pork with ham, langoustines, peas, garlic, onions, spices and saffron. The paella is of Valencian origin. The fishermen added the ingredients found on the spot to the rice: eel, rabbit, green beans, peas, artichokes from huertas (vegetable gardens), etc., as well as saffron, which gives paella its yellow color. Given its price, saffron is very often replaced by turmeric or a food coloring. In the open air, in a large frying pan placed on a tripod, it should be cooked slowly.

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Gazpacho

Cold soup of Andalusian origin, composed of raw vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, onions, cucumbers, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and hard bread.

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Tortilla

Omelet served cold or hot, most often with potatoes (patatas), or even with herbs, crayfish tails, chorizo ​​or even with tomatoes, bacon, peas, etc.

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Cocido

Asort of stew with more or less variations, served as a main course and very invigorating. Generally served as a daily specialty in some restaurants once a week.

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Dessert

On the sweet side, the churros, these fried pancake sticks, inherited from the Arab influence, the porras (large churros) and the buñuelos (donuts) to dip at tea time in the traditional thick hot chocolate.

Other delicacies, most often based on milk and eggs, leche frita, a kind of sweet and thick béchamel, cooled and then cut into large squares fried in oil then sprinkled with sugar, the tocino de cielo (hair cake ), the natillas, thick custard flavored with cinnamon or lemon, arroz con leche (rice pudding), torrijas, the equivalent of a French toast.

 

Where to eat in Spain?

• Tasca: bistro, tapas bar, where one nibbles rather leaning on the counter.

• Cervecería: “brasserie”, in the literal sense, therefore beer bar.

• Bodega: "wine cellar", in practice a sort of wine bar.

• Taberna: "tavern".

But all these names designate a little the same thing: a bar where you drink beers, wines and tapas.

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Among the restaurants, there are also:

• Mesón: fairly inexpensive restaurant preparing typical cuisine.

• Comedor: dining room in a hotel establishment or in a bar.

• Marisquería: fish and seafood restaurant (mariscos = seafood); you will meet many in the region.

• Restaurante: this is the closest thing to the classic restaurant, that is to say a place where you sit down to eat, even if you often find, except when the address is really opulent, a tapas counter in the next room.

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Beer (cerveza)

The most common drink! In bars, rather than a cerveza, ask for una caña, the essential and very refreshing draft beer, usually served in 0.2 l glasses (for a larger glass - 0.33 cl or 0.5 l - ask for a jarra). A cooler says una clara.

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Wine

Central Spain produces good regional wines, known and less known. Among the most famous, those of Rioja, as famous in Spain as our Bordeaux, and of Castile-Leon (Ribera del Duero, Rueda, Tierra de León), without forgetting the Somontano wines in the surroundings of Huesca, in Aragon , and those of the Manche which offer a good average.

In Extremadura, we often find vino de pitarra, a young artisanal wine, not bad and cheap, but its accelerated fermentation in about twenty days does not always work for sensitive stomachs. Young Spaniards drink calimocho, a drink that is nothing more or less than red wine mixed with Coca-Cola! Galicia produces very good regional wines, especially whites. There are several denominations of origin, the best known of which is Rías Baixas.

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Vermuth al grifo

Literally, vermouth on tap. It is cooked wine macerated with herbs and delivered in small barrels with sparkling water. We pull it a bit like draft beer. It's light, refreshing, sparkling, and has nothing to do with bottled vermouths.

 

The granizado de limón

Lemon juice, sugar and crushed ice. There is also the granizado version of coffee or various fruits (orange, peach).

The most refreshing drink you can find a lot in summer is horchata, which everyone wrongly translates to "orgeat".

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Coffee:

Generally good, is for all breakfasts. The Spanish particularly like it with milk (café con leche), added hot in bars. If you want it black, ask for a solo coffee - or a cortado if you prefer it just with a touch of leche. An elongated man calls himself largo coffee. And then: helado coffee (iced) or café con hielo (served hot but with a glass full of ice cubes: it's up to you to make the mixture for a smoothie!).

 

Another essential Spanish since the discovery of the Americas, hot chocolate does not look like ours. Here, it is a rich and nourishing drink, thickened with starch, dense in aromas, made expressly to soak the famous churros, these elongated donuts.