So when Jonnek twitter’d me saying that he found Churros in Richmond, Suanne and I was pretty excited. BTW, did you know that we are on Twitter too? If you are interested to also follow us on Twitter, it is on http://twitter.com/chowtimes.

Our boys wanted to get the newly released Modern Warfare 2 from Best Buy (MW2 is an amazing game). So, we all took a drive to the Lansdowne Mall to pick up the game from Best Buy and then pop over to the food court to check out the Churros.

Jonnek informed us that the Churros can be found at the Empanada Hut.

Empanada Hut is famous for their empanadas. Having just had lunch, we decided not to try them although they looked very mouth-watering. Foodosophy did a write-up once on these empanadas, so you might want to check it out here.

Our mission here was the Churros. Here it is …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Churros from Empanada Hut in Lansdowne Mall, Richmond (282 words)

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Post tags: Fast Food, Restaurant Review, Richmond, Snack

The 1st Dish is called the Avocado Cannelloni with Crab and Pumpkin Seed Oil Cream.

They brought the bread as they start the Dish courses. We had a choice of three bread, all warm. Suanne is so modest. When they brought it, she just took one. For me, I told them I wanted one of each. Guess what. Just as our server was about to leave she quickly said she wants the others too. We love the bread.

I had always thought that elBulli’s dishes are small. Some of them are as small as just a spoonful. So, it was a surprise that the Dishes are full mains.

It looked too pretty to eat. It does remind us of …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Seville: La Alqueria Restaurant in elBulli Hotel, Hacienda Benazuza (Part 2 of 2) (917 words)

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Post tags: Seville 2009, Spain 2009, Spanish, Vacation

Dinner was at 8:30PM. That is when they open for dinner. Dinner at 8:30PM is considered early for people in Spain. The hotel is about 18 km from Seville. 18 km only … remember that.

So we called for a taxi from the hotel as the restaurant is located virtually in the middle of surburb. The ride took longer than we expected. It was because it was a Friday afternoon and people were heading to the beach. The highway was jammed packed with cars.

We thought we get there early so that we can check out the grounds of the five star hotel that La Alqueria is located in. Turned that out we got there right on the dot because of traffic delays.

La Alqueria is located in a hotel called the Hacienda Benazuza elBulli Hotel. Check out their website at http://elbullihotel.com. The hotel is definite exclusive with room rates starting at €400 for low season! I almost wanted to stay at this hotel (OK, for just ONE night) to make sure we get a table at La Alqueria but as usual Suanne knock senses into me.

La Alqueria is a 2-star Michelin restaurant. To put things in perspective, there are only four 3-star and ten 2-star Michelin restaurants in Spain. The real elBulli in Roses near Barcelona is 3-star. This one is 2-star.

When we got there, the taxi driver said the total ride was €53. But the meter was saying about €40. He said that he gotta to charge extra because the elBulli hotel was out of the way. I wasn’t in the mood to challenge him but I should have. You will know why we were overcharged later on this post. After all it was just a 18km ride.

The La Alqueria is not a very big restaurant. We counted about 12 tables only. It is undoubtedly exclusive because despite the low number of tables, they only have 1 seating a night. They don’t turn the tables at all.

Alright, I know I mentioned this to death but I will mention it again for our reader who stumble onto this post. The elBulli near Barcelona had been the #1 restaurant in the world for many years. It is run by Ferran Adria who is the man who had the biggest influence on modern gastronomy of any chef in the world. The Times had said:

To describe elBulli as “a restaurant” is like describing Shakespeare as “a writer”.

The La Alqueria is opened in 1998 about five years after the original elBulli was built. elBulli achieved it’s 3-star Michelin rating a year before La Alqueria was opened.

We have a server assigned to out table. Oh boy, she is one serious no-nonsense dude. Very prim, very proper. Whatever you ask for she will say “very good”, “of course” and “immediately”. The thing is that her English is not too good. I had a problem understanding what she was saying and she had difficulty with my questions.

As soon as we got seated our server gave us cold towels. We … errr … did not know what to do with that. Wipe the hand? Wipe the face? What? So with our nose held up high, we used the towel to wipe our hands … but it would have been nice to wipe the face too.

The sommelier came next talking with us for …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Seville: La Alqueria Restaurant in elBulli Hotel, Hacienda Benazuza (848 words)

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Post tags: Seville 2009, Spain 2009, Spanish, Vacation

I am just so affected by what Brian said in the earlier post about bullfighting. I remember our tour guide at the Bullfighting Museum saying that it is a very passionate topic even in Spain itself. I really think Spaniards are cool people despite the bull and all. So I am not going to respond anymore to the rights or wrong of bullfighting. I have stated enough times my position.

Anyway … I had given way too much weight to this topic on chowtimes. I need to explain this. It is NOT that I wanted to glorify bullfighting. On the contrary I do not. Silly as it may seem, the truth is I wanted to show off the photos I took. You see, there are not many opportunities that I get to use my 70-200mm and I thought some of the shots came out well. That’s why there are so many posts and pictures.

Up until last night, I had wanted to publish one more on bullfighting. It is the one on about the matador who was gored on the neck. From the impact and the precious lost seconds before help came, the matador was completely motionless while bull went at him again and again. I hope the matador survived but it did not look good at all. Anyway, I had decided against putting up another post and instead had embedded the pictures at the bottom of the post here. The password is iagree if you want to see them. Be warned OK?

Changing gears …

Today is our last full day in Seville. There is not a lot of places we wanted to visit. Seville is not really big, certainly not like Barcelona in any sense. There are other places like Isla Magica and all that we could visit in Seville. However, Suanne is not keen on theme parks and neither was I while in Spain. So we took it easy.

This is also the day we will be having dinner in an elBulli restaurant. It is not elBulli but it is the closest to the real deal. More about that later.

Brunch was at a restaurant called Al Alcantina which was recommended by the hotel conceirge. This is located around the central square in Seville historic city center.

We had a table outside the restaurant. Our waitress was really friendly and helpful. No bread here … they served us those thingy above. It was rock hard and definitely on the dry side. We took a couple and then left it alone.

The waitress recommended the Ensaladilla La Alcantina which she said was the prize winner of the Best Classic Tapas in the 2003 Seville Fair of Tapas. Sure, we said … it was worth a try.

€8.70 is how much it costs. It was creamy, served cold and refreshing — absolutely marvelous. We had never had these before. I think it is made with mayo with potatoes and some vegetables.

The puzzling thing is how could this have been classified as tapas?  So I did some research and indeed it is considered as SPANISH tapas despite the Russian word in the name.

We had Paella the previous day but got this again. The waitress was persuasive saying that their Paella is different. OK, we said.

The name of the dish is Arroz en paella marinea del dia. €8.70.

We like this paella better. It was drier than those we had earlier which had sauces at the bottom of the plate which makes it so mushy. It was also flavorful. Suanne said the rice was cooked al dente. I thought the word al dente refers only to pasta.

Bill came to €21.60. It is considered OK given that things are more expensive in Spain. If  I convert this to Canadian, this is over $30. Now that is expensive, right?

We tried to use the Sevilla Card which is supposed to give us a 10% discount. It took a while before our waitress sorted this out with the card issuer. It appears that our card has the “cultura” on it and that does not come with restaurant discounts.

Don’t get the Seville card.  It was not worth it.

After the lunch, we went to this church. It was nothing to shout about really after having seen the Cathedral of Seville. We did not spend a lot of time here.

Let’s talk about el Bulli.

I think I shared about this in chowtimes before. The book above is …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Seville: A Slow Day Before the elBulli Dinner (204 words)

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Post tags: Seville 2009, Spain 2009, Spanish, Vacation

We went out at 7PM for dinner. There is an East Indian restaurant near the hotel. I wanted to try that because I seriously need real Asian food after so many days in Spain. Paella does not count, even though it is rice. Suanne kiboshed my idea saying I am crazy to want to eat Indian food, of all places, in the middle of Spain. Suanne said Tapas … but one that has toothpicks.

You see, we read that traditional tapas are served with toothpicks. You are charged by the number of toothpicks left behind. It was not hard to find.

This place we went to looked quite traditional. It has low tables and stools.  It is also very smokey. We can’t win … if we wanted traditional Spanish Tapas Bar it will be smokey.

It is kind of a self-service place. We take the tapas from the bar on our own and go find our own table. The tapas are replenished with new types every now and then. When they have a new tapas, they bring it to each tables asking if anyone would want them.

Other than that, the only table service is for drinks. We ordered beer and orange juice. It was real strong … it went right to my head immediately. My face flushed up immediately that the tapas server laughed at me when he saw how red my face was.

Besides tapas, they also cook to order. I showed them my list of Spanish food and ask them if they make any of them here. They do!

So we had the Polbo A Feira which is translated as market fair style octopus. It does look spicy, does it? It is not at all. The redness you see is from paprika. It is served with boiled potatoes. The best part of this dish are the …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Seville: Self-Service, Toothpick Tapas (219 words)

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Post tags: Seville 2009, Spain 2009, Spanish, Vacation

Parque de Maria Luisa is a very large park. This is the site of the 1929 Expo. The grand building above is the Plaza de Espana which is built as the Spanish pavilion.

The Plaza de Espana is a large semi-circle of buildings lining a moat with numerous beautiful bridges. In the centre is a large fountain. Well, it was supposed to be a fountain. The moat and the fountain was completely dry because they were doing some work in it. It would have been much cooler if the moat if filled with water. Instead, the entire place was hot and dusty.

One cool thing to note though … The Plaza de Espana is used as a setting for Naboo in Star Wars. The above is the extended scene from Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Cool huh?

There was really nothing to do here except for the War Museum. Actually I don’t really remember the name of the museum anymore. It could be the Military Museum or Arms Museum. These sort of museums are for boys. Suanne was kind of bored. I can see it in her eyes but she tried to pretend to pay attention. I dig these type of museums. It is a small museum unlike the Imperial War Museum and Cabinet War Rooms in London.

Time to eat.  After the visit to the Bullfighting Museum in the morning, it just occurred to me that there is one thing that we had not eaten yet in Spain … Rabo de Toro! I remember reading somewhere that the bull killed in the bullfight is sold in the market for its meat. The meat is not prime meat but the best part is the Rabo de Toro.

So we went scouring for a place for Rabo de Toro. We went to a few places asking if they have Rabo de Toro. That drew smiles from a number of places we went to. We finally found one restaurant which turned out to be pretty good which has that.

He he he … you know which part of the bull that the Rabo de Toro is made of?

We sat at the patio and was immediately served olives and water. The olives was salty and sour. For the life of me, I can never learn to appreciate olives. Yet it is so popular around the Mediterranean.

We like our waiter who was superb and speaks English. I asked for Sherry, it being THE drink in southern Spain. Instead, our waiter recommended Vino de Pasas (Raisin Wine). He said it is digestive and is appreciated for its sweet flavour. We had a glass which is only €1.80.

The bread was alright if not too dry for my liking. We ended up ordering two favourite dishes from the Andalusian region. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, here it is … Rabo de Toro!
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Seville: Rabo de Toro and Plaza de Espana (231 words)

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Post tags: Seville 2009, Spain 2009, Spanish, Vacation

Unfortunately, the archive is 99% in Spanish. We walked through the corridors but could only gather bits and pieces of some of the documents and maps. How I wished that it is in English otherwise we would have spent a couple of hours there. The best thing about the Archivos de Indias is that it is very well air conditioned!

The heat in Seville was getting unbearably too hot for us. The temperature almost reached 40C. Worse thing is that there are not much shades and the building fronts does not have awnings. It was so bad that when we get to a shady area, we just stood there for minutes not wanting to cross the street when it meant walking in the sun.

There is a cute little tram service running through the historic city center. We wanted to take it back to near where our hotel is. So we went to a stop and tried to figure out how to take it. We couldn’t make sense of the signboards. We asked and no one could speak English to help us. It is in Seville we felt kind of isolated because it has so little English.

We went to this restaurant which has really powerful air conditioning and nice pastries. It seems to be a great place to have a drink and something to eat … except that it was impossible to communicate with our waiter. The place was very busy and the waiter does not have any patience to help us with our order. So we just said “thank you” and left.

By 4PM we decided to just call it a day.

So, we decided to go to a place where we thought would be better language-wise.

We went to El Cortes Ingles. Yeah, it is a departmental store but it has a great cafeteria. More importantly, people don’t smoke here!

Wrong choice. English is also at a premium here. At least the waiters (in bow ties and tuxedos!) were very professional, polite and patient. The Summer menu above is in Spanish but we already know quite a number of Spanish words. We could piece together some words to know what some of these means. It is a 3-course menu for €9.95.

I remember calculating that we were spending a lot of money on drinks (was almost $40 Canadian already!). We told ourselves that we are bringing two, maybe three, bottles of 2L bottles the next day even if it means breaking my back carrying it in the backpack.

You know, I like the formal-ness in Spain even in serving water in nice glasses. Mind you, this is a cafeteria.

For a cafeteria, the bread was pretty good. They came individually pre-wrapped in a paper bag and served with butter.

Our “primeros” (first) course is Gazpachos. Our first time having this “liquid salad” and we fell in love with this on the first sip!

Gazpacho is a summer favourite in southern Spain and a native dish to the Andalusian region where Seville is located.  It is very …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Seville: El Cortes Ingles (166 words)

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Post tags: Seville 2009, Spain 2009, Spanish, Vacation

We thought that we should go eat tapas again but this time with a difference from our past visits.  We had always had tapas served to us at the tables, not at the bar.  OK, the one at La Boqueria techincally does not count as a bar.

Against all wisdom and advice from guidebooks, we went to one of the many tapas bar fronting La Rambla.  We went into several and decided that this one looks great with lots of mouthwatering choices.

We ordered drinks.  Suanne had orange juice while I had beer.  The orange juice was €5.50 and the beer €6.  I ordered beer because it makes me look macho, although frankly I prefer Coke more.  LOL!

My face all flush up even with light beer although it does clear quite quickly.  Suanne thinks I am embarassing myself only.  *shrugs*

They have Jamon (that’s Spanish Ham) hanging from the ceiling like any well-respected Spanish restaurant always have.  See the little cups that hangs from some of them.  I think they are the oil catcher or sorts.

We ordered this by pointing to what we wanted and so we do not know what the name is.  So we call this the Mixed Seafood with Garlic and Parsley.  This is a delightful mix of prawns, mussels, black olives, squid, peppers and artificial crab meat.  €6.

Oh … one thing we notice so far is that almost all the tapas we had were served in the same earth clay plates you see above.  It is almost like it is tradition that tapas must be served in these plates.

From the bar, I noticed that the bar tender was taking these plates out from a box.  They must have just taken delivery of new plates.  Guess what we saw …
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Barcelona: Our Last Tapas at La Rambla (530 words)

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Post tags: Barcelona 2009, Spain 2009, Spanish, Vacation

It was our last day in this city.  We had a plane to catch to Seville (or Sevilla in Spanish) in the late afternoon.

We saw Danone the day before when we were at Dia-gonal for breakfast.  It was a restaurant that looked very different from those we had been to so far.

We found out that this place is the first and only Danone retail outlet.  And we were quite surprised to learn that while Danone today is a French company, it actually was originally founded in Barcelona.  That was 90 years ago.  The name Danone is a Catalan name for Daniel and is named after the son of the founder.

In this showcase outlet, there is a small section that showcased Danone’s history and products.

I guess most of you would know of Danone’s brand names.  They are big on yogurts with Activia is a common brand of yogurt in Canada.  We always have Activia in our fridge at home.  Other famous Danone product is Evian.  
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Barcelona: Breakfast at Danone (139 words)

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Post tags: Barcelona 2009, Breakfast, Spain 2009, Spanish, Vacation

We found Alkimia from researching on Chowhound.  We wanted to really go to Cinc Sentits as our first choice but they were closed.  Both were excellent new wave restaurants.

Suanne finally got her glasses fixed.  We were at around Sagrada Familia because there is where Alkimia is located.  We found an optometrist on the way.

You know, Suanne always pushed me to do all the Spanish talking for her but this time (he he he) I told her I am not going to do that for her.  It’s her glasses and if she wants it fixed, she needs to do it herself.  Gosh, she hates me.  But she did well.  The optometrist does not speak English but he knows the problem right off.  He refused payment too even though we offered to pay.  I wished we had something to give him for his kindness.  The only thing we had on ourselves is an Angus Third Pounder coupon, good only in the US.  So Suanne said the FIRST official Spanish word communicating with a Spaniard … Gracias!  Oh, I love to see her all stressed out.  She hates me alright.

Our reservation was for noon but we were there about 30 minutes early.  They were just setting up but were kind enough to let us in and have a table.  We were the only customer there at that time which is technically still breakfast time in Spain!

The interior is awashed in white.  Very minimalistic.  Very white.  I corrected the white balance of the picture above but the interior had a very pleasant lighting.

You know what we love best about Alkimia?  That it is strictly PROHIBIDOR FUMAR!!  No smoking.  Oh yeah!

I like the lighting a lot.  It was as if they are strategically placed that the focus is on the food and nothing else.

As expected, service was excellent.  Very attentive, respectful and anticipative, if there is such a word.  While Alkimia is a fine dining restaurant, they did not mind that we were in casuals and jeans.

I like their pepper and salt shakers.  It took a while for me to figure out which is salt and which is pepper.

The knife … see how it does not lie on the sides?  Alright, I am a sucker for details like this.

Their menu is huge, almost 2 feet long.  It’s not that it is extensive — just outrageously big.  The menu is actually simple.  Alkimia serves contemporary Catalana cuisine.

Only three to choose from:

• The Menu Alkimia, tasting menu at €68 / CAD $105 — 12 courses
• The Traditional Menu at €54 — appetizers, 5 mains, 2 desserts
• The Seasonal Menu at €32 — appetizers, 2 mains, 1 dessert

We went with the Menu Alkimia.  As in most tasting menu, everyone at the table has to order the same menu.  We can’t have 1 order of Menu Alkimia and another for the Traditional Menu.  This is because of timing issues, I believe.

Our waitress can clearly see that we were documenting the meal.  I mean the camera is hard to not notice and Suanne has a note book (not notebook!) on her side.  We were surprised that the waitress went and print out a color menu for our reference.

We had a bottle sparkling water.  €4.50.

The breadstick was the first thing they brought to our table.  It sure was fun … must be at least two feet long that we had to stretch to reach the top.

It was crispy and tasted like it was freshly made.

Next was the cured meat which came with …

… an oily drink with some very crusty bread crumbs in it.  We were told to pop the cured meat and the “drink” all at once.  It has a very unique combination of taste and texture.

We were still at the first appetizer course.  They call this Gorgonzola cheese, tomato, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Gorgonzola cheese is Italian style blue cheese but for this dish it is made into thick foam.

OK, this is the closest we had come so far in trying Ferran Adria’s creation.  It is the famed El Bulli master chef who first invented this style.  It is supposed to place more importance to flavour than to the other aspects of the food.

It was a very interesting start to the meal.  First course down … 11 more to come.  
More after the jump. Click to read the rest of Barcelona: Contemporary Catalan Cuisine at Alkimia (1,284 words)

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Post tags: Barcelona 2009, Spain 2009, Spanish, Vacation