As if I hadn’t eaten enough already during my time in San Sebastian, Saturday included a “Flavors of San Sebastian” guided tour exploring the marketplace and a variety of pintxo spots. I think I’ve hit a dozen or so pintxos bars already, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to take a tour to hear some interesting tidbits about the regions food and popular social customs. Plus, there are 114 bar/pintxos places in Parte Vieja alone so I’ve barely made a dent. On the tour we visited six spots including La Brexta market, the city's main market where most of the bar owners and chefs get their meat, produce and other goods.
The "Sabores de San Sebastian" tour is organized by the city's tourism office.
First stop was the outdoor produce market, which was filled with fresh vegetables, greens and fruit.
Local farmers and growers bring their goods to the city-center market several times a week to sell.
So many vibrant colors.
After the outdoor produce market we went downstairs to get a look at the stalls selling meat, seafood and cheeses. They use "nose to tail" in this part of the world so no part of the animal goes to waste. These are cow tongues or "lengua de vaca."
Pig's feet!
The biggest rack of ribs I've ever seen. I don't know what animal it was from though.
A mound of fresh squid. Being situated on the Atlantic coast seafood is featured heavily in Basque country's cuisine.
San Sebastian cheese cake or "corta de queso." It is similar to traditional cheese cake but it has a richer filling and a crispier almost toasted or burnt crust. Magnifico!
The "flavors" tour was basically a pintxos bar crawl with a guide acting as the waiter bringing you drinks and tapas at each stop.
Pickup handball is a big activity in the area. They use these style of courts for handball or sometimes jai alai.
This was the grand finale and the best pintxos of the bunch - local mushrooms drenched in a cheesey garlic sauce on top of a piece of iberico (pork) and a slice of toast.
One of the best parts of the tour was meeting and chatting with the other people on the tour. There were people from England, Ireland, Berlin, Israel and more.
After a lazy afternoon relaxing by the beach and at the hotel, I met up with my new Australian friends Chantal and Steph for another nice dinner. This time we went to La Fabrica, ranked the #3 restaurant in San Sebastian by TripAdvisor.com and said to be great food for reasonable prices.
I did a bit of site seeing on my walk to the restaurant. This is the famous Maria Cristina Hotel, one of the most historic hotels in all of Spain. It is the main venue for the popular San Sebastian Film Festival, which takes place Sept. 21-29, so I just missed it.
"The Cubes" as they are known, houses auditoriums for San Sebastian's theater and concerts.
I dug this tunnel for some reason and I was able to catch it without any cars or motorists.
The streets of Parte Vieja from above.
La Fabrica was a small place with about 15 tables and it was filled from about 8pm-midnight nonstop.
Steph and Chantal are on a two-month European trip.
We started with a pumpkin and watermelon gazpacho.
Having seen all the fresh vegetables at the market earlier I had to try the sauteed vegetable dish which was served in a delicious mushroom cream sauce.
Seared tuna filet with a slightly fried crispy outside.
Roasted venison served wtih potato puree (we did a tasting menu so the portions were smaller, but we got several dishes).
Tangy raspberry puree with a spoon-scoop of ice cream.
Crispy creamy puff pastry with ginger ice cream.
We finished dinner around 12:30am - they eat really late in Spain - and I called it a night and headed home. I have a half day in San Sebastian on Sunday and then I take the five-hour train ride to Barcelona where I'll be for four days.
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