I hinted in this post that this was on its way and I hopefully won’t disappoint! My first foray away from Tapas and into Pinchos. Think about those tinfoil hedgehogs that your parents made for your birthday buffet when you were six. You know the ones that were covered in toothpicks with varying combinations of pineapple, cocktail sausages and Red Leicester. Now upgrade that to about 1000 and you’ve got pinchos.
It in essence is a snack with various combinations of foods with a cocktail stick through it. It goes by a similar guise of Tapas being a snack type food that you eat whilst drinking with friends often going from one bar to another trying different dishes. And that’s exactly what we did on our Food Lover Tour.
We started the tour at our meeting point of El Molino, Barcelonas Mini Moulin Rouge where cabaret shows are now held. We walked up into the district of El Poble Sec all the way up to the seventh (precise I know!) oldest restaurant in Barcelona (El Sortidor). They know this as there’s a plaque in the pavement that any business over 100 years received and has the year of establishment on it too. Here we actually started with Tapas (no cocktail sticks in sight!) and I had the most amazing dish! It was a stuffed aubergine stuffed with pork, beef and Parmesan and it had a sweet edge to it, I could have just eaten that all day! I was also told they did the best Patatas Bravas and I can agree they were exactly that. The sauce was given an edge with the addition of hazelnuts and almonds whilst the potatoes were the perfect side of crispy.
After some lovely wine and a duck dish it was time to move onto what I call cocktail stick heaven. As the tour starts quite early for Barcelona terms the bars were set up ready to trade with sticks as far as the eye can see. We stopped at L’Angolino and then at Anardi where we tried a few different dishes and got to try the local cider. It’s poured from a height to add air bubbles into the drink. They won’t pour a full glass either as it’s important it’s freshly done so you can taste the full flavour. I had a kimchi bun with calamari inside and like had a prawn roll that reminded me a lot of the 90’s chocolate bar ‘Secret’ thanks to its crispy stringy outer. Both were delicious.
I can’t remember which ones of these we had (bad blogger!) but I do know I had some amazing goats cheese and some quince jelly and I think black pudding! Luckily you don’t have to remember how many you have when dining on Pinchos outside of the tour either, most are charged at one standard price and you pay for the amount of cocktail stick you have on your plate when you’ve finished. Nice and simple just how I like it!
Our second to last stop was again cocktail stick-less and was all fish based, so I got to have mussels finally plus some Manchego it was all yummy and would have been what I would have chosen had I been eating out on my own without the tour so I was super happy to try it! We also had some Vermouth which I’m still trying to get a taste for I must say.
Our finally stop was Pepa Tomate for dessert. This was where we had tomatoes. Well actually profiteroles disguised as tomatoes and they were lush! There was also a chilli chocolate brownie that I just couldn’t eat! Darn it! Oh, and our table!? Ultimate football lovers goals (no pun intended)
Luckily it wasn’t fully over, the group had gotten along so well we all went onwards for drinks at the end of the tour (except an American couple who disappeared before the end!) and proceeded to put the world to rights! It was a great way to end the tour and I was gutted we had to leave to go and see the Magic Fountains but I was determined to finally see them and with our last night in Barcelona coming quickly to an end we ran across the streets to finally get to see about fifteen minutes of them. I’ll go back for more next time right!? If you’re going to Barcelona then I really do recommend a Food Lover Tour. Ours was the Picoteo Lover * at €57 each which includes all food and drink on the trip. Let me know if you go!
*Tour provided in consideration of review. As always all my thoughts are my own!