Tag: sevilla

El Aljarafe | An Afternoon in Salteras

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El Aljarafe is Arabic for “knoll”, and is the name for the cluster of villages dotting the hills just outside Sevilla. I rarely venture out there other than to go to IKEA (in Castilleja de la Cuesta), mostly because it’s a pain to get to by bus. It would actually be fun to do a day trip to some of the little villages out there some time if I can convince someone with a car to do this with me. But I digress…

I’ve only been to Salteras once, about 12 years ago, when I was invited to a special lunch at one of the “parrilla” restaurants there. About thirty years ago the first one – La Bodega – opened in Salteras and was such a great success that soon other places started copying its “formula” of offering a simple menu based on BBQ grilled meats served with “papas arrugás” and “mojo picón”. These are small potatoes boiled in a small amount of very salty water leaving the skins wrinkled and sparkling with salt, which are then dipped in a spicy Canarian sauce. Soon Salteras was full of these establishments and became THE place to go for fabulous meat & potato meals. Since then the menus have become more extensive while the number of restaurants has diminished. Now there are about five left and on Sunday I decided to go out there and try one out.

After a bit of online research I chose La Resolana because I liked the look of their website and I especially liked that they had a “tapas corner”, which meant that my friend Peter (aka Seville Concierge) and I could try more dishes. So we trekked down to the bus station just in time to catch the 1pm to Salteras and when the bus driver pulled out of the station and put on some rock-a-billy music it started to feel like a proper Road Trip. We got held up for awhile in a village just outside of Camas when the main road became blocked by a funeral procession. I’d never seen this before and got one of those odd “I’m living in Spain” moments as I watched a crowd of at least fifty people walking slowly behind a hearse, with half a dozen pallbearers in the lead. It was a sad and beautiful sight.

If you go to Salteras from Sevilla by car it will take you about ten minutes. The bus takes about 25 minutes (or 35 with funeral) and we stopped in places I didn’t even know existed. Luckily we had been told which stop in Salteras to get off at, which ended up being just a few minutes walk to La Resolana. And well, we had a wonderful lunch. As it was a hot afternoon in August the place was pretty quiet, though I’m told it’s always packed out during the rest of the year. I can see why. The service was great, the food excellent, and at one point when a Twitter friend asked me exactly which part of the pig “pluma” comes from (yes, I tweeted the whole lunch) one of the chefs brought me out a book showing me the different pork cuts. After that we were given some boozy sorbet drinks on the house and I got to take photos of everyone for Sevilla Tapas. If you want to see all the great stuff we had to eat then have a look here:
La Resolana

It was only after I got home that I realised this had actually been another of my 20th anniversary day trips! And I’m now keen to explore El Aljarafe a bit more.

If I can find someone to take me…

El Jueves Street Market

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Go down to Calle Feria on a Thursday morning and you could be in for a big surprise, as a long section of the street and some side streets are taken over by the stalls of the El Jueves (Spanish for Thursday) market. Officially it’s an antiques market, but though you can find antiques here, the range of things on sale here is much wider and more eclectic. Ceramics, paintings and furniture jostle for attention with second hand books and toys, watches and accessories, CDs and recycled fixtures and fittings. Looking for a pepper mill to match your salt cellar? A lava lamp? A console for your old video-games? You just might find them here. If not, never mind, half the fun is in the browsing, or sitting in one of the local bars with a coffee and toast watching the bustle outside. And you never know when you’re going to stumble on that unmissable bargain or the perfect souvenir.

[click on images to enlarge]

El Jueves must be one of the oldest still-existing markets in Europe, dating back to the 13th century, just after the Christian reconquest of the city, and there are rumoured to be one or two items that have shown up every Thursday since then.

A Night at the Opera

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I’d been meaning to go to Sevilla de Ópera in the Arenal Market ever since I first heard about it from Claudio, owner of the Adriano Hotel, and was introduced to its organisers, opera baritone Luciano Miotto and producer Paco Oliva. Then last Saturday I was invited to the final show for this season (it starts up again in September).

Sevilla is often advertised as the “city of opera“, and is famous as the setting for operas by Bizet (Carmen), Rossini (The Barber of Seville), and Mozart (The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni).

Sevilla de Ópera put on a small show (the one we saw featured three singers and a pianist) that aims to make opera more accessible to the public. Their concept is based on a typical tablao de flamenco, a bit like dinner theatre, though you can also just go and have drinks. The difference here is that, although there is some basic scenery, there is no actual stage – or rather, the entire room is the stage – and the performers come and go using various entrances, interacting with the audience. I think it’s a great way for people to get a first taste of opera without feeling intimidated, and the market setting adds to its “everyman” appeal. But the quality of the performances ensures that well-seasoned opera lovers will enjoy it too.

Gianpero Ruggeri, Sachika Ito & Luciano Miotto

I’m not exactly an “opera buff” myself and wasn’t sure what to expect, but the show turned out to be hugely enjoyable, with scenes from the Mozart and Rossini operas and other songs (traditional Spanish and a couple of zarzuelas) performed with skill and gusto. And the encore, Rossini’s Duet for Two Cats, was delightful – a humorous piece with “meow” as the only lyric. Very frustratingly, my attempt to video it for posterity (and for my friend Sledpress) on my iPhone proved unsuccessful but Luciano told me I could find them performing it on YouTube. Enjoy…

[youtube=”http://youtu.be/2c6xvPPRTW4″]

Looking forward to the new season in September!

Sevilla de Ópera

Dinosaur Toes (aka Percebes)

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They really do look like dinosaur toes, don’t they? They are actually goose barnacles, called percebes in Spanish, and I have been dying to try them ever since I first heard about them. Why? Well, why the hell not? Recently I heard that one of my favourite seafood tapas bars – La Moneda – has been serving percebes and I asked them if they could let me know the next time they got some in. Turned out that was today! Not the best timing as Peter and I had just stopped off for a couple of tapitas with my familia at Bodeguita Romero – celebrating my shiny new laptop purchase (more on that later!) – and after our second tapa I got a Twitter message from Isidro that the percebes had landed.

So we high-tailed it out of the Bodeguita and headed over to La Moneda, with new laptop slung over shoulder – luckily it was only about a five-minute walk away – and upon arrival a plate of steaming percebes were placed in front of us. My first reaction was “eep! now what?” but Isidro quickly instructed us on how to eat them. You grab them at each end and then give them a sharp twist and a yank, after which the “claw” of the toe pulls away with a delectible morsel of deliciousness dangling off the end of it. What Isidro failed to mention was how squirty they are! At the first twist water shot out everywhere (usually all over me!) and I never did manage to get as clean a severing between claw and toe as Isidro did. But man! These guys are very tasty – not to mention prohibitively expensive! – but Isidro gave me a deal since it was my first time.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?

Velá de Santa Ana 2012 – Photos

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Some images from opening night at the Velá de Santa Ana last Friday. We also went to the photo exhibit in the Castillo de San Jorge – DesVELAndo Triana – which was excellent. Am hoping to get down to see the “cucaña” this week, something I’ve never seen (hard to believe after 19 years!). So stay tuned for some fun photos of that…

Velá de Santa Ana
20 – 28 July 2012
Triana