Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
I had a lot of favorites on my trip to Barcelona, so I’m not going to try to rank every meal that I ate in order of preference. Instead, I’m simply going to say that I think El Quim de la Boqueria is an absolute MUST try for food lovers visiting the city. The small restaurant is located right in the heart of La Boqueria Market. It has just 16 stools and a very busy grill that is swarming with outstanding chefs at its heart. It opens early in the morning for breakfast and also serves lunch, then closes in the early afternoon as the market crowd thins out. The food features both traditional Spanish and Catalan dishes alongside very innovative ones. Everything is incredibly fresh and unbelievably well prepared. I raved about it while I was eating and went back several times on my trip, never to be disappointed with anything I ate.
When you arrive at El Quim, it will probably be swarming with people. Just stand behind a few seats where the diners look like they’re almost finished and be patient; chefs will point out open seats and the stools turn quickly. When you sit down, take a quick look through the glass cases at the bar and see what looks good. You’ll find some traditional tapas dishes and lots of seafood that is so fresh it’s still moving. Next, read through the menu (you can get it in English, too) and see what sounds good. Finally, take a look at what the people around you are eating; most of the diners are very friendly and are more than happy to tell you what they’re eating and make recommendations for their favorite items.
+Continue Reading
La Boqueria Market is one of my favorite spots in Barcelona. The market is a large, covered marketplace that offers everything from candied fruit to foie gras, just off La Rambla, one of Barcelona’s busiest streets. A market has been operating at the same location as far back as 1217, though the face of the market has changed many times over the years. The modern market was built in 1840.
The market is packed with with chefs, locals, tourists and foodies from the time that it opens very early in the morning. The vendors sell just about everything you can imagine. Chefs stock up on very fresh, top quality meat, fish and poultry, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh eggs and all kinds of cured meats and cheeses. Tourists are more likely to purchase fruits, nuts, artisan candies, chocolates and individually wrapped foods that they can eat with little to no preparation as they wander around the market taking photos – and there are a lot of people taking photos at the market.
Read on for lots more photos of the market!
+Continue Reading
Last year, I took a vacation to Spain and traveled both in Madrid and into Andalusia, in southern Spain. I had a chance to get to know Spanish food and Spanish culture – and came back home knowing that I wanted to visit the country again. Thanks to a good airfare sale, I was able to get back to Spain this year. This time around I visited a completely different part of the country: Barcelona.
At the heart of Catalonia, Barcelona is almost like a different country when you compare it to some parts of Spain I visited before. It’s a vibrant city with their own language, their own traditions and even their own foods. Since the end of Franco’s era in Spain, there has been a huge resurgence of pride in all things uniquely Catalan as opposed to things that are traditionally “Spanish,” including an increased emphasis on teaching Catalan and Catalonian history in schools. The region was also the birthplace of the biggest food revolutions of the modern age: molecular gastronomy. Of course, you don’t need to have eaten at the now-closed El Bulli to appreciate the impact that it had on food. The food in Barcelona is fantastic and it’s a wonderful place for a little food tourism, as well as a place to visit museums, tour modernist architectural wonders, watch one of the best football clubs in the world in action (FC Barcelona) and relax on the beach.
Over the next couple of days, I’ll recap some of my favorite moments (yes, they do involved food – although seeing FC Barcelona play was amazing!) of the trip including visits to some truly outstanding restaurants, one of the most amazing markets in the world and some delicious desserts. I’ll update the list of posts here as I add them:
And I can’t resist sharing some photos of the city, as well:
Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia and a guard house at Parc Guell. I’m pictured above with Gaudi’s dragon, which marks the entrance at the Parc.
+Continue Reading
When I mention fahrenheit on this site, it’s most likely that I’m about to give instructions about how to preheat your oven before baking a batch of cookies. In this case, however, I’m taking about the restaurant Fahrenheit, in Tremont, a hip suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. I had the chance to dine there on a recent trip to Ohio to visit the Smucker’s headquarters with some other bloggers. The restaurant is owned by Chef Rocco Whalen and is one of the hottest spots in Tremont, which is an area known for its vibrant culinary scene and high quality restaurants.
We actually started our meal with a whole variety of appetizers, including crispy calamari and lobster pizza, but the appetizer that really appealed to me were the Potato Nachos. Homemade tornado-cut potato chips topped with bacon, green onions and a goat cheese dressing. With the salty combination of crispy potatoes, creamy cheese and bacon, it’s pretty much impossible to go wrong: this dish was dangerously addictive and I think just about everyone who took a bite became an instant fan.
+Continue Reading
When you think about olive oil, you probably think about Spain, which grows and produces the majority of the world’s olive oil, or of Italy, Greece and a handful of other Mediterranean countries where olive oil is produced. You probably don’t think about California, even though the Mediterranean climate of much of the state provides a great environment for planting olive trees and producing olive oil. California currently produces just 0.1% of the world’s olive oil and only 1% of the olive oil annually consumed within the United States. It might be a small number, but California olive oil is very accessible to locals and visitors to the state and many olive oil producers offer tours and tastings. Ojai Olive Oil is a great example. This is a family-owned olive orchard and olive oil producer in Ojai, California that offers free tours and tastings to visitors year round.
On a recent trip through Ojai, I made it a point to stop by Ojai Olive Oil and go to a tasting for myself. The farm offers visits by appointment during the week and has an open house policy on Saturdays, where you can drop in without calling ahead. The tours are run by Ron Asquith, the owner of Ojai Olive Oil, who starts out with a talk that offers great insight to olives in general, as well as great information about how the olives and grown, harvested and pressed into oil at his farm. Ojai Olive Oil has been around for just over a decade, but olive trees have been grown on that land for more than 130 years. There are more than 2000 trees in the grove, a mix of young trees and rejuvenated older trees that had been left untended for years. Like grapes used to make wine, there are a number of different varieties of olives grown to produce olive oil. Ojai Olive Oil growns Frantoio, Leccino, Nocelara del Belice, Pendolino, Columella, Kalamata and Lechin de Sevilla olives.
+Continue Reading
