Saludos desde Galicia

I may not be doing any cooking while I'm in Spain, but I'm sure going to be doing a lot of eating. So while I'm on a cooking hiatus consider this "The Eating Sister" blog. (Yeah, that's quite a stretch for me ;-)

Last night I was pretty tired from the flight so I just wanted something light before crawling into bed. I ended up at a restaurant/tapas bar near the hotel and proceeded to forget every word of Spanish that I'd learned. The camerero (who would not have been out of place in Paris) didn't believe that I really wanted the calamar de la ria en tinta to be "en tinta". Although I didn't know what that meant I also didn't know what he was trying to tell me so I stuck with en tinta. Turns out it means that it was served in a pitch black sauce made of its own ink -- which was muy bueno. A very simple dish, but the squid was tender and cooked to perfection. The accompanying bread and wine were also really nice -- a trend which I'm sure will apply pretty much everywhere I go :-).

And tonight I decided to embrace the Spanish nightlife and didn't head out for supper until almost 11pm. (Can bar-hopping for tapas be far behind?) My primero was a huge plate of pulpo de Feira, which is octopus with paprika and olive oil. It was amazing -- simple yet incredibly tender and very tasty. For my segundo I had rape mariscado, which is monkfish with mixed seafood (clams and crayfish). The seafood was very fresh and the dish had a nice flavour, but the sauce was a bit heavy for me. Maybe I shouldn't have filled up on all that octopus ;-). The best part was the waiter who complimented me on my Spanish, thus guaranteeing his tip -- camerero, you had me at buenas noches.