the dough ball: Sevilla: Round Two

This is going to be more picture based and less wordy. But I went back to Sevilla in April and actually remembered to take pictures of the food. So here it is. And let me say, compared to Barcelona, it's like going from New York City prices to middle of Mexico prices. Amazing. Oh and my memory's a little fuzzy, as I didn't write down anything I had. So these are mostly educated guesses.

And we're going to start out with 'ambience' pictures, as blogger no longer lets me decide what order I want my pictures in; it just does it for me. Thanks so much blogger.

These first two plates of food came from a fancier place we went (the name escapes me now) that definitely had a more varied menu, reminding me of combinations they do in Barcelona. Strange thing was, it had an outdoor seating area right next to tons of other more 'touristy' bars, right off the edge of the Jardines Reales Alcazares. But once you got inside and saw the menu, the food was a different story.

This is a 'bric' or crunchy pastry filled with beef.

Foie gras, mushroom, and egg. A very familiar (and winning) combination.

Next we have Eslava. A delicious, vibrant packed bar that we made it to one night, and tried to go again but it was closed. Words of advice: Sundays and Mondays are no good for eating out.

Here's their salmorejo, which has become one of my staples in Sevilla. If you want to think of it as similar to gazpacho, go ahead, but I think it's so much better. It's like a rich tomato sauce without the pasta, sprinkled with bits of ham, hard-boiled egg, and drizzled with olive oil.

I'm seeing bits of meat...I remember the dish on the bottom right was pretty nice.

This is their signature dish. Another perfect marriage of foie and egg.

These next plates come from Taberna, a restaurant not far from the Cathedral. A very typical southern Spanish place, but mainly delicious (except for one unfortunate 'whats this?' attempt). Friendly people, and cheap cheap cheap.

Spinach and chickpeas is Andalucia's answer to 'everything's fried and there are no vegetables.' This dish is here to counter those claims.

My favorite was the dish that you can't see as well, in the back. Eggs, perfectly cooked potato 'chips', but thicker than store bought ones, so they still retained some soft potatoey-ness inside, with a fried egg and chorizo on top. It's like a perfect breakfast, anytime of day. Next you can see the one mistep at Taberna, the deep-fried eggroll like cylinder: a flamenquin. Basically a roll of cheese and ham (but not serrano, more like Oscar Mayer) then thrown into the deep fryer. As our Sevillano 'native' described it, surely only late night food, after a few drinks...Next to it is salmorejo covering a fried eggplant. I think I prefer plain ole salmorejo in its pure state, but this wasn't bad. And in front, croquetas, found all over Spain. A little fried bit of goodness.

Absolutely delicious mushrooms and jamon. You can see the brown crispiness on them, excellentely cooked, which has really endeared me to oyster mushrooms.

The inside of Taberna.

Of course I had to get salmorejo.

One of the places we'd been to before was Ajo Blanco, which is the name of a famous cold soup (after gazpacho, the most well-known of Andalucia's cold soups), but it's also the name of a Mexican-Spanish bar in Sevilla. Pretty decent food, if you ignore that they don't actually know the correct Mexican names for things (I think an enchilada might be queso fundido, a taco is a chalupa, etc).

Here's the chalupa/tostada (probably listed on the menu as a gordita or something, but we'll excuse you Ajo Blanco, because in the end, it's good).

Queso Fundido

Ajo blanco. I had to get the bar's namesake soup, which is traditionally served with grapes. A cold, garlicky and bread soup with grapes might not sound so tempting, but if you ever go to Southern Spain between April and October, hot food will be the last thing on your mind. And it's pretty tasty if you get a good one.