travel zen on friday - cadiz, spain

Cadiz

In addition to the sights, Cadiz is a fantastic eating city. Please do let us know if you've dined there before and share your experience with us.

travel zen on tuesday - bilbao - chocolate con churro

Chocolate con churro in Bilbao, Spain.  This was probably the yummiest, thickest hot chocolate I've ever had!  I heard that the Spanish eat this for breakfast - if I did that I would be 300 pounds!

how to take the ferry between spain and morocco

View of the sun setting over Southern Spain from Tangier.

Given that Tarifa, Spain and Tanger (the Moroccan spelling for Tangier), Morocco are only about an hour (via fast ferry) from each other, it's really easy to visit both countries without spending a ton of money on airfare. Note, however, that if the water is too choppy, the officials at Tarifa and Tanger could shut down their respective ports. In that case, you will have to take a slightly longer ferry ride between Algeciras in Spain and Tanger Med in Morocco. 

That being said, I took the ferry between both countries and found it a fairly easy and cheap way to visit both countries. I hope this post will assist you in your next ferry journey between these two countries.

things to do in fuengirola

Welcome to Fuengirola.

Fuengirola (or Fuengi, as referred to by many English speaking expats who live there) is about 50 minutes by local train from Malaga. It is on the famed Costa del Sol (Sun Coast). Back during the boom days, many British and Northern European retirees decided to move and live in Fuengi (think of it like Americans from the North moving to Florida during the Winter). After the recent global recession hit, many of the expats left and Spanish folks moved in to take over some of the vacated condominiums.

A Fuengirola street looking towards the sea.

Although the coastal streets mostly have plenty of expats milling about, one will see many local Spanish people by just walking a couple of blocks inland. Fuengirola is a nice, quiet town, and a perfect place to spend a few days relaxing and eating well. 

I hope you get the chance to visit this lovely town. If you do, these are my recommendations:

things to do in malaga

Malaga.

About two and a half hours on the fast train from Madrid is the Andalucian city of Malaga. I enjoy visiting Malaga because not only does it have history, architecture and an eating scene like other popular Spanish cities, but it is also on Costa del Sol (Sun Coast). That means, it tends to be warmer in Malaga than other cities, and it has beaches.

These are my recommendations when visiting this fair city:

what and where to eat in madrid

The Gran Reserva at Joselito's.

I love eating in Spain. Inevitably, the food I've eaten there has ended up in my top 10 for best street food or in my top 10 for best restaurant dishes. It's probably because my Filipino heritage has a 300 year history with Spain, and a lot of the food I grew up eating has its roots in Spanish cuisine. Luckily, Mr. SR also loves eating in Spain, a likely result of his many visits to his family's home in Andalucia. So, whenever we visit, all we do is eat. Often.

While we have eaten very well in every part of the country, I think Madrid holds its own among the other cities. After all, as the capital and the center of Spain, many of the food from around the country end up there. 

For the most part, this post will not discuss specific restaurants because I think Madrid is more than just a few restaurants. There are just so many great areas to explore with lots of eating opportunities. So, what and where should you eat if you visit Madrid?

sazy rock's top 10 best street food dishes (to date) around the world

For me, there is nothing more satisfying than traveling to a new place and falling in love with the food. Let's face it, the way to this gal's heart is through her tummy (and sometimes, liver). When I look back on my travels, I often drool when I remember all the food I ate.

Last week, I listed my top 10 restaurant dishes.  This week, I'm sharing my top 10 favorite street food dishes I've encountered while traveling.  I'm not sharing those found in the United States because that's where I live (although, I particularly like this taco truck in Los Angeles called, Mariscos Jaliscos, that serves the most delicious shrimp taco I have ever tasted).

So far, these are my top street food dishes I've encountered while traveling listed in no particular order.

1.  Taiwanese sausage in Taipei, Taiwan.

I found all sorts of tasty food in the Taipei night markets. But, the simple Taiwanese sausage caught my eye, nose, and taste buds. My first bite snapped the casing and immediately released slightly sweet juices of the cooked ground pork. While I liked eating the sausage by itself, dipping it in garlic sauce added another layer of flavor.

Taiwanese sausage.

sazy rock's top 10 best restaurant dishes (to date) around the world

If you haven't figured it out yet, I really like to eat - and not necessarily healthy foods - when I travel. Eating while traveling makes me happy. In this first of my top 10 series, I will be sharing my top 10 restaurant dishes so far. I've excluded the US because I live there. I also reserve to change my mind about what should be on the top 10 tomorrow -- only because there's so much tasty food out there. So, without further ado, here they are:

1.  Various dishes at Azurmendi near Bilbao, Spain
This restaurant just outside of Bilbao served delicious, local, seasonal and beautiful food. The lobster on lobster dish was absolutely simple yet so tasty. The truffled egg was not simple but, biting into the yolk just showed how a great chef can elevate a simple egg into something ridiculously good. Oh, and the foie gras ash was so rich and creamy I thought I died and went to heaven. Okay, I loved a lot of dishes at Azurmendi, which I reviewed here. In fact, I'll just say that, in the past five years (and probably more), Azurmendi served the best dishes I have ever eaten anywhere (including in the United States).

Five of around 19 dishes served at Azurmendi. Clockwise from top left: lobster with lobster cornet,
foie gras ash with a block of foie gras underneath, squid, mullet, and egg yolk infused with black truffles.

Gran Reserva Jamon from Joselito's.

2.  Jamon Iberico de Bellota at Joselito's in Madrid, Spain
Technically, Joselito's is not a restaurant but a store where you can get Jamon Iberico to take home or eat in the store. When I visited, they offered different kinds of Jamon Iberico de Bellota, which came from black footed Iberian pig fed on acorns while freely roaming the dehesa of the Extremadura region of Spain. The best kind I tasted was the Grand Reserva, which was aged for up to five years before being carved. The resulting ham was nice and fatty (I'd like to think that the fat was good for me because you know, it's acorn fed). When I ate it, the thinly hand sliced piece practically melted in my mouth.

freebies around the world

Traveling could be expensive. In a series of posts, we will let you know about places that allow you entry into famous, fascinating and/or worthwhile sights or activities for free. Yes, gratis. 

For sights, we are not including public spaces (such as Central Park in New York or the medinas of Morocco) but we may include public (i.e, government run) buildings (such as the museums in London).

So, let’s start with a few freebies, shall we?

United States of America

Los Angeles, CA

1. The Getty – Enjoy a lot of paintings, photographs and a garden that changes with the season for free, but you have to pay for parking.

You can get up close and
personal with the steel curves of
the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

2.  The Getty Villa – You can see Greek, Roman and Etruscan art for free, but you will need to sign up for a (free) ticket. Also, parking isn’t free.

3. Walt Disney Concert Hall – Renowned architect Frank Gehry designed this wonderful jumble of shiny steel. You can roam the grounds – don’t miss the “Rose Garden” in the back of the Concert Hall – and enter the building for free but you have to pay to watch a show. Enjoy being up close and personal with the curved steel.

4. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) – Only the permanent collection and non-ticketed exhibitions are free on the Second Tuesday each month. 

5. Los Angeles Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels – Renowned Spanish architect Rafael Moneo designed this gem.

6. Bradbury building – You may have seen this building in movies like Blade Runner and (500) Days of Summer, among other things. This beautiful, light and airy building is free to visit up to the first floor landing. Beyond that, the tenants don't want random folks roaming around their space.

restaurant review: azurmendi

I can't say I'm a food critic, because I'm not.  But, I like to eat... a lot.

On a recent trip to Bilbao, Spain, the hubster's friend suggested that we check out a restaurant called, Azurmendi, just 30 minutes outside the city in a town called Larrabetzu. It has three stars from the Michelin Guide. About a month or so after we dined there, the 2014 San Pellegrino's 50 Best Restaurants in the World list came out and identified it as the 26th best restaurant.  Now, I don't know whether that's true but this is what I know: Chef Eneko Atxa knows what he's doing.

The scene

The Azurmendi Greenhouse
where we tasted pumpkin seeds.

Azurmendi has two restaurant buildings: one perched on a hill and one below. They use the bottom restaurant for special events and casual dining, and the top restaurant for fine dining. The top restaurant is very modern with floor to ceiling windows so you can view verdant hills... and a freeway. Multi-lingual staff members immediately greeted us when we entered the restaurant. The waiting area (or garden) has a high ceiling with a lot of plants, a tree and a fountain.  We could see the kitchen from there.  We were told that if the restaurant was not busy, they regularly took diners on a tour of the greenhouse above the restaurant where they grew a lot of their produce.