Last night, we went on a tapas tour in Granada. Tapas, small plates, is a popular Spanish cuisine. We had two local tour guides who took Naomi, Ima, Andi, Louvie (someone who joined our tour and is from Toronto), and I to four different bars for drinks and tapas.
The bars we went to were La Bella, Bar Casa Julio, La Tarara, and lastly La Distinguida. At every bar we had drinks (don’t worry mine were non alcoholic) and a tapa. In Granada, tapas come with your drink so your drink costs a little more.
Bars are central to the daily lives of the Spanish. People meet each other in bars instead of their houses, even if they have children. Everyone loves drinking in Spain. The drinking age is 18, but people start drinking earlier.
People don’t usually go out for tapas and to a restaurant in the same night. They do one or the other. It is also more common to go to multiple bars a night, not just one. Tapas and drinks usually start at around 9 or 10 at night and go on for for a while.
Tapa Vocabulary: 1. Picoteo means a meal of tapas. 2. Tapear is to go for tapas. 3. The word tapa comes from the word tapar (to cover) because workers used to go work in the field and cover the wine with a plate of food. 4. Pescadito is fried fish. Pescada means fish and ito means fried. 5. Tortilla De Patata is made out of Potato, egg, onion, and salt. This dish is very popular in Spain and is similar to a frittata except this gets flipped and a frittata doesn’t. 6. Mojo Picon is a garlic sauce with garlic cloves, spices and herbs, bread crumbs, and tomato. 7. Que approveche! This is what say say in Spain before eating. 8. Salud! This what you say before drinking.
Me enjoying a glass of wine! Just kidding, I only tasted my mom’s
At the last place they served sardines and used a blowtorch!
This is the normal kitchen size for a bar that makes tapes. Tiny!
-Alexandra
P.S. The Tapas we ate would all be improved with a little garlic.
P.P.S. For a recipe of Mojo Picon just search red pepper sauce (mojo picon) by Lisa and Tony Sierra. We ate this sauce with potatoes but Mojo Picon is not limited to only potatoes.