San Sebastian, Day 4

During our last trip, we stayed at a hotel in Madrid located on a busy street which I ended up regretting because the partying didn’t end until 4 and I slept fitfully until then.  Our pension in San Sebastian was very centrally located within the historic center but centrally located isn’t always ideal when it comes to hotels in Spain I guess.  Our hotel was located above a bar and the partying did not stop until about 5–I think it was my worst sleeping experience to date.  Bleary-eyed, I still rose and we picked up pastries here and sat down a bench, watching what appeared to be a breast cancer marathon.  We walked across a bridge to the Gros district, lingering by the beach where surfers were taking advantage of the morning waves.  It was nice walking through this area since it was a lot more residential than the area we were staying in which afforded us a glimpse into daily life in San Sebastian.  We stopped off at this gourmet food shop, where I picked up a number of local and imported food items.  We started our Gros district tapas crawl at Dardara Taberna, sharing a ravioli with local mushrooms, grilled calamari served over creamy onions, and a pinxto with Iberian ham and mushrooms.

Ravioli of local mushrooms

I was disappointed that Alona Berri Bar was closed for renovations as I really wanted to try some of their tapas, including their uni cream but there were other tapas restaurants to go to and we stopped off at Mil Catas where we had a really nice risotto with foie and local mushrooms.

After dropping off our groceries, we walked along the beach, which was lovely.  I had heard about a restaurant that served Japanese-Basque food but found their tapas disappointing.  We walked along Parque de Miramar, a public park which overlooks the water with a palace being used as a music school and then slowly made our way back into town.

Parque de Miramar

It was our second and final evening in San Sebastian and we decided to follow one of the tapas tours from this site.  First stop, Txondorra, where we had beef cheeks in red wine sauce and beef cheeks with a mushroom sauce.  Second stop, Borda Berri where we ordered their mushroom risotto (which was actually orzo cooked risotto style), pork cheeks, bomba rice with squid, and carne asada canneloni.

Pork cheeks- yum!

Then it was onto Astelena where we had grilled squid with red peppercorns, a crepe with monkfish, asparagus, and shrimp, lobster with salad, a bonito taco, and a mandarin sorbet with txakoli.

Grilled squid with red peppercorns

It was only around 9:30 so we decided to get drinks somewhere and ended up returning to La Cuchara where Adam saw pork ribs on the menu which he couldn’t resist ordering despite having eaten a veritable Noah’s Ark full of tapas.

Caramelized pork ribs

We made a final stop at A Fuego Negro where I had my only sangria of the trip and watched the couple sitting next to us enjoy their tapas

Shaking the salad ball at A Fuego Negro