Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Menú del Día
To cap prices at lunchtime Monday to Friday, order the
menú del día,
a three-course set
menu that includes water, bread and a drink (usually €10 and up). You'll be given a menu
with five or six starters, the same number of mains and a handful of desserts - choose
one from each category. Few working Spaniards have time to go home for lunch and tak-
ing a packed lunch is just not the done thing. The
menú del día
allows them to eat home-
style food without breaking the bank.
Ways of Eating
Most visitors complain not about the quality of Spanish food but about its timing.
Outside of the regular business hours, many bars serve tapas throughout the day.
Bocadillos
(bread rolls with filling) are another convenient option. Once you do find
a bar or restaurant that's open when you're hungry, the typical
carta
(menu) begins
with starters such as
ensaladas
(salads),
sopas
(soups) and
entremeses
(hors
d'oeuvres). If you can't face a full menu, the
plato combinado
is a meat-and-three-
veg dish.
When it comes to tapas - bite-sized morsels whose premise is so simple as to
have all the hallmarks of genius - some bars, especially in Granada, put a tiny plate
of food with every drink you order. Otherwise, tapas varieties are sometimes lined
up along the bar and ordering tapas couldn't be easier - you either take a small
plate and help yourself or point to the morsel you want. More commonly, they'll
have a list of tapas, either on a menu or posted up behind the bar -
raciones
(ra-
tions; large tapas serving) or
media raciones
(half-rations; smaller tapas serving)
are ideal if you particularly like something and want more than a mere tapa. The
best tapas in Spain are the
pintxos
(Basque for tapas) in San Sebastián.
The Laws Of Spanish Cooking
The laws of traditional Spanish cooking are deceptively simple: take the freshest in-
gredients and interfere with them as little as possible.
If simplicity is the cornerstone of Spanish cooking, it's the innovation and nouvelle
cuisine emerging from Spanish kitchens that has truly taken the world by storm.
Celebrity chefs such as Ferran Adrià and Mari Arzak have developed their own
Search WWH ::
Custom Search