Patatas Pobres, Spain

After a wonderful two weeks of celebrating my birthday, I am finally back into my kitchen. As I am deciding on what to prepare for dinner, an idea came to mind: why not prepare and write about places and food that I have enjoyed throughout my travels.

We have been in so many wonderful places in the world so where to start was hard. So I turn on to what I am in the mood to eat. “Patatas Pobres” was the first thing that pop to mind. Spain it is. I am starting in Spain, most specifically Alicante.

Alicante is a beautiful town by the Mediterranean sea, located a couple of hours north of Cartagena. It was early spring when we visited, and for us Arizonans was a bit cold, for the locals, or for the tourists coming down from the North of Europe, the beach and sun was just perfect.

The city is a perfect medley of architecture with three thousand years of history to enjoy. The history of the city is deep rooted and it is present on the influence of building from the Roman, the Moors and PaSpanish. Castillo de Santa Barbara sit right by the sea and used to offer protection to the surrounding land. Every where we would turn the wonderful aromas of cooking was teasing us.

The first night there, we decided to venture out and walk to the old city center. Small streets, no cars allowed. We walked around this absolutely beautiful church. The night life was just abundant. The food aromas from all the tapas, wonderful dishes of all sorts of fresh fish, rice… just drove our senses crazy. Walking around the church we found a table outside a tiny restaurant and decided to start our culinary feast. Fish was what we wanted the most as the sea was right there and we could not go wrong. The restaurant owner and chef greeted us with a beautiful smile and with my broken Spanish I manage to explain to him that this was our first adventure in Spain and we wanted him to choose and create a menu for us so we can enjoy a bit of this and a bit of that. My only request was bacalao, or salted cod, a very favorite of mine. Food came and we feasted on gambas, calamares, huevos, arroz negro, croquetas, patatas pobres. The romanticism of the city transcended to our wonderful dinner al fresco, paired with a great glass of wine, it was a perfect first night in Spain. Flan was the perfect final touch.

From there we moved, slowly, to this corner bar and found this cute tiny table where we had some sinful Sangria. We sat there for what seamed hours enjoying the night life, and of course the Sangria.

This wonderful experience has opened the door to our next trip. Maybe Malaga…. stay tuned.

This is the only recipe that I was able to pray away from the chef, enjoy.