Spanish Food Log #2: Paella

Okay, I know that I should probably follow the chronological order of my trip to Spain, but I can't help jumping around since the focus of these post and the one before this is about food.

So again, I'm taking you through the photos taken in both Madrid and Barcelona within the same post. Topic? Paella, baby!

First, we'll be stopping over at Madrid since that was our first stop and also where we had our first paella. 

Day 1 was spent on travelling from Borås to Madrid, arriving at the hotel near Atocha Station past 10pm. Here's to Day 2, photos taken right before dinner. 

Was mad hungry, as Jing kept dragging me from attractions to attractions, ALL ON FOOT and disallowed me to take a break or ice cream, as it was getting darker and she wanted to take photos of the attractions. So I didn't bother remembering where we were going exactly. All I was thinking of was food. So don't ask me what the name of this square was.

 Can't tell you the name of this place but I can most probably show you on the map, it was near some main shopping district, just a street after the square aboce. I only just went into Zara and another shop. Came out empty handed.

I was starting to make a fuss by this time. So I chose a restaurant quickly on the main shopping road. Here's what we had.

 My small glass of aloe vera tea that cost me about EUR2-3 and there wasn't much in it at all and I was quite thirsty. Didn't taste that extraordinary either. Interesting glass and filter, though.

Our first croquette in Spain, ON THE HOUSE! Woohoo!! Kind hearted waiter gave us some of these to try. The outer layer was thin, fried to a golden brown colour with a slight crisp. The insides were rich and creamy, with bits of bacon within.

 Our main star of the night, mixed paella to share, consist of both seafood and chicken pieces. Let's see, seafood included mussels, clams and calamari. It took about 15-20 minutes to cook.

Close up of my portion. Squeeze in with some fresh lemon juice, mmmMMmm! 

The first plate was awesome, but when you have second/ third serving, it starts to get a bit...blugh. So would definitely go for smaller portions next time. 

Had been craving for ice cream the whole day. So decided to have some after the paella. Here's 2 pieces of pancakes, 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream with a large dose of chocolate sauce. 

The pancakes were literally saturated with the chocolate hence I didn't finish them. 

Jing had her dessert first, before the paella. Just a normal ball of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.

My verdict of the experience? Probably just 6.5/10. 

Paella was nice but too much of it really would make you feel sick. When you're feeling a bit sick of the main meal and your pancakes come to be a bit too saturated with chocolate...just doesn't do anything but make you feel even more sick and stuffed. 

Here are some quick snaps after dinner, along the way back from city centre to our hotel.

The same square as the first 2 photos, but now in night time. 

 A bar we passed by that I thought looked quite cool, called Glass Bar.

 Reminded me of Stamford Raffles featured in Kiasu comic books that I read when I was younger

 They came out for a quick show! Many paused and took photos, like yours truly here.

Night view of a night in Madrid, near some fountain roundabout, where we took a right turn to go back to the hotel.

Now!

Fast forward to the Day 5, to Barcelona and to our last meal in Spain before our flight back to Sweden at one of the restaurants a few streets past Placa de Catalunya. This time I chose whichever restaurant that looked slightly funkier. 

Loved the vintage deco on the wall by the entrance!

 Cola-Cao...wonder what that was back in the Spanish 50s or 60s  

 A snap of the bar, whilst sipping on my cafe latte and waiting for my food.

I had paella again. But this time, it's pasta/ noodle version, called Fideua. 

Here it is!!

My fideua, served on a wide, deep-soup metal pan, with a small side dish of white, garlicky, savoury cream.

Here's a close up of my first spoonful before it was gone. 

Honestly, this tasted really close to Malaysian fried bee hoon/ vermicelli, with a slight lemony tang! I was quite surprised. Never would I have thought that I'd get something as close to home as this when I'm over in Spain. It goes really well with the garlic cream that I was given. Was really yummy. Loved every bite!

Would give it a 7.5/10!!

Hope you enjoyed this post! Still more to come!

Spanish Food Log #1: The Worst and The Best

Nearly a month and a half ago, on 8th December 2010, one of my closests friends, Jing, whom I've met since our arrival in Sweden, departed for Spain for about 5 days. Since it was only for a short period of time, we could only go to Madrid and Barcelona, 2 days each for both cities and the 1 full day dedicated for traveling to-and-from both countries.

I was a bit tentative about going there initially, since I had quite a bit of work to do and had classes as well. Anyway, decided to just go ahead with it since I knew what was going on in class, the direction of my projects and would only just miss a class or two. Moreover, I'm here in Europe,  hence it's definitely more affordable to travel within other European countries than if I were to travel all the way from Australia/ Malaysia. 

One of the most renown and notable food in Spanish cuisine is tapas. For those that are unfamiliar with them, they are a type of appetizer that comes in a variety of combination of ingredients, many of them on sliced baguettes with olive oil. 

Jing and I had our very first tapas in Spain at Barcelona, after our trip to Madrid, at one of the restaurants on Rambla dels Estudis, in between our hotel at Silken Ramblas and Placa de Catalunya, all within the vicinity of Barcelona city centre. 

But before I go onto the pictures of our tapas, I can't wait to show the picture of the hot chocolate that I ordered at Madrid near Atocha Station during lunch, before we set off for the airport for Barcelona.

Ready????

 

 Jeng jeng jeng jeng!!!! Spanish hot chocolate (they pronounce it as CHO-CO-LAT-TEH)

I was like....whaaat on earth is this? I asked for hot chocolate and you gave me chocolate sauce?? And I was on a diet (still am). This is gonna fatten me up in no time. But boy was it gooood!!!! It was so thick, creamy and rich. Omg so goood! I just had to finish the whole thing but I took my time and had it teaspoon by teaspoon, to a point Jing was asking: "Ey, are you eating porridge?"

Darn good. WOOHOO. I feel alive even thinking about it.

Then came lunch, which sucked to its very cheesy and spinachy core. It should have its name changed to "Eat-Me-If-You-Want-To-Feel-Miserable".

Everything was just so....creamy, thick and on the dry side. Swallowing a mouthful of my greenish pasta was like swallowing a bite of mudcake with warm custard sauce. As you can see, there was absolutely NOTHING but carbs and fat on my plate. No protein. Jing had fettucini carbonara, which was better than mine. The croquette tasted like potato mash whipped with cream. Very thick consistency. It was by far the worst meal we had in Spain.

I'd rate it 4/10. 

BLUURRRGGH.

Now, let's have a look at the good stuff in Barcelona, tapas!!!

We absolutely had NO CLUE what each tapas was. All we knew was they were like a feast to our eyes and we just had fun pointing at the pretty ones and went 'I want this! This! This! And that!'

Look at these beautiful! Oooooooh.

 Top: Squid topping?? Bottom: Spanish Jamón (pronounced ha-mon), which is ham basically dry-cured, caviar and prawn.

 Don't know what they were. Just take a guess. But they tasted good.

 Look at 'em beauties. How good would it be if mountains look like that and each part of them are edible.

 Spanish omelette, composed of egg, potato and some sorta batter, I suppose, as it tasted thick with springy consistency. With some bread slices here with tomoto spread.

 Err....Spanish sausages?? Forgot the name. But it was gooood. Topped on unpeeled, panfried potato slices. 

 Random customer

 The good man that served us tapas

 Blood pudding/ sausage on the right, I think.

 My part of the table at the bar. I ordered the hot chocolate again, half hoping it would be like the one I had in Madrid, thick and creamy....omgggg. But it was just a regular HC, sigh. Better for my waistline I guess, if I looked on the bright side.

*Nom nom nom*

A period of about 5-7 minutes passed and in came new plates of tapas!!

 So pretttttyyy!!!!!

 Looks good but nyeh too creamy for me :'( That looks like cream cheese wrapped in ham, topped with a small dallop of blueberry jam

 We were already full but when we saw this we just had to order it!!!!!

 Our last baby before its halves ended in our stomachs. That was grilled red pepprika, sundried tomato, some super delish, pan fried fish, err...don't know what that is on top, some sorta fish I guess and possibly artichoke with some chocolatey looking, dark brown sauce.

I'd give it 7/10, for the variety presented, presentation, taste and ambience :)

That's it with the tapas! Next would be the paella we had!


Adios!

København

A little more than two weeks ago I visited Copenhagen with my floormate over the weekend. Most of the photos of the trip are up in my Facebook already but I thought I wanted to only show some of the more interesting ones here. Well, they were photos I took over at Amalienborg Palace, where the Danish royal family are residing I think. 

Frankly speaking, we weren't suppose to take photos inside, unless given special consent. I only knew this when I was happily snapping away and the second guard I talked to told me no photos were allowed. The first guard I talked to saw that I was taking photos and didn't tell me anything about the no photograph policy. In fact, he even helped me in getting my photos right (due to the constant change of natural lighting) and shared that he takes photos as well and would always want his shots right too. 

Many photos were taken but I'll select my favourite ones of my visit to Amalienborg Slot (Palace). They were taken in one of the buildings at the palatial compound, which was open as a museum for exhibition to the public.

Images below are personal items that belonged to the current Danish Queen, Queen Margarethe II, and rooms that she used to live in as a child/ young lady. This exhibition was specially held as a celebration of the queen's 70th this year. This palace was where she was born and it was an amazing feeling to be standing in rooms that real kings and queens, whom you'd only read on books or Wikipedia, used to live in.

I think this was a room that Queen Margarethe used to spend time in. The toddler dress on the right could have been belonged to her

Crafts of the young queen then. She is considered a creative queen as she loves handicrafts, apparently

How many pipes does one need or can one actually smoke in a day?

 Photos of the royal family

 They'd do well if this was a test. I wouldn't be able to go pass 3 generations before me

 Interesting tradition. I guess you could guess Crown Prince Frederik 9 and our lovely Aussie Princess Mary's son's name, if you haven't heard of him already

 

 Uniform belonged to the Queen in younger days

Imagine if your dad told you these are photos of your great-great grandma/ grand aunts and cousins. Woah.

Sorry if the photos are a little dark, as I was in a hurry on the day of the trip and these are unedited. And I can't be bothered to edit as the main reason for this post is only to share the experience.

Hope you all enjoyed it and have a sense of awe as I did over the amazingly maintained items and above all, the carefully recorded history of the lives of this family and their forefathers.

The history was simply amazing. Another castle that's definitely worth visiting is Frederiksborg Slot. THAT one was the highlight of my trip to Denmark. That would be my favourite castle to date (only to visit, not live in it). Pictures are on my Facebook page.

You should visit Denmark if you've the chance!!