LBB Note #7: Granada (Day 1:Tapas)

We got off in a random street of Granada. Any feeling of claustrophobia I might have had in downtown Valencia was amplified several times here. The streets were incredibly narrow and with the added dimension of slope (and a lot more traffic), it was nerve-wrecking.

We got to our apartment/hostel (we weren't sure what it was at that point) early. We took a while to find the place, but we eventually rang the bell and got buzzed up. We then opened the large, heavy and old door.

The apartment was dead in the heart of the historic district,it was located along the Gran Via de Colon; one of the main streets in Granada. We rested a while and planned our angle of attack. I had traveled all this while and I had only one goal at this point, see the Alhambra.

Granada has three main hills and a fertile Vega, or valley, at their feet. The three main hills are the one that the Alhambra sits on, as well as the Albaicin and the Sacromonte. The Albaicin has a large neighborhood on it; one of the main ones in Granada, and is a large part of the city's historic center. The Sacromonte is Gitano (Spanish gypsy) territory. Up there you can enjoy all sorts of tablaos (flamenco shows) in their cave houses, and it is considerably more removed. I told Brandon that before anything else I wanted to catch at least a glimpse of the Alhambra before it got dark, so we began our trip up the Albaicin.

                                      
At the end of the steep hill we finally came across the Alhambra. It was still pretty early; the sun rays were still yellow and shining off her reddish walls. We had a few minutes before the famous "golden hour", when the last rays of the day hit the fortress and turned her walls a bright vermilion. We didn't mind the light though; the tall walls, and their respective turrets, against the sharp background of the Sierra Nevada provided one of the most (if not the most) impressive sights in my life.

 

Well, mission accomplished. When I saw her I said to myself that my trip was more than worth it; I could grab a car right back to Valencia. But, let's be honest here, where's the fun in that? Time for some tapas.

So if you remember from an earlier blog, I mentioned that tapas are not free in Valencia. That seems to be true for most of Spain, but here in Andalucia they play by different rules. If you order a round of drinks; say beer or wine, then your drinks comes with a delicious (and free of charge) plate of food. The guilt that comes from ordering just one round of beer, getting food for it, and just having to pay for the drinks is something I still haven't recovered from. I felt like a moocher, just taking advantage of the system; waiting to be humiliated by the entire town for my sneaky ways. Obviously that was never the case, in Granada that's not only common behavior, but also expected.

We walked down the street from the park where we looked the Alhambra to a small plaza in front of a church. Sure enough, two Tapas bar were placed side by side in the corner of the square. We took a seat in the crisp evening (it was a lot cooler here in Granada, around 60 degrees at almost all times) and ordered a round of beer. Sure enough, our beer came with a plate of food.

First free tapa!

It was some sort of cold salad; vinegar and salt with tomatoes, potatoes, olives and croutons. After a four hour trip and a forty minute walk up a steep hill; it tasted delicious. But within the grand scheme of tapas, it was okay. But I am reminded of the concept of great food from humble ingredients. I just don't understand the philistines that complain when they don't get enough food (Or "Texas-sized portions" as they describe them) or enough peppers to make them secrete their own weight in mucus. If how hot a certain pepper is is the main criteria, isn't Southeast Asian cuisine the best in that aspect? (Hint: it is.  It's also superior in all other ways, shapes or forms.) Take for example the olive. The olive is ubiquitous in Spanish cuisine. They bring you a non-pitted olives as a small appetizer while you wait for the rest of the food, and I can surely tell you that that one single olive has more flavor in it than all the barbecue sauce I have ever eaten up to this point.You just have to get out of your comfort zone and what you're used to to realize that Spanish food is hands down the best Western food you can get. How are you gonna enjoy a culture of a new place if you just constantly miss your own? Food is a really good way to take a country in, and I sure don't want to drop the ball with that. But I digress.

After the first tapa, I'm sad to say, we lost track of time. We catastrophically missed our window of picture-taking. I could barely get up in time to take in this dreadful picture from the cliff at the end of the plaza.

(That was, of course, sarcasm. This picture is amazing.)

Oh well, back down the hill it is! (But not before some floodlit Alhambra pictures.)

 On the way down we found a pretty large number of Arabic themed souvenir shops. We ignored them, bee-lining for more food. They were tourist traps anyway.

                                     
We then came across Oliver's. Oliver's is a tapas bar a literal stone throw away from the Granada cathedral. We came here because Anthony Bourdain came here in his Granada episode, easy as that. Part of the conditioning I performed on Brandon in order to convince him to come with me included showing him that particular Parts Unknown episode. Here's the promo for it:

After having him watch that show, he didn't need much convincing. 

Oliver's is a stand-up bar, in a very literal sense. You wait standing up (and in our particular case at the very end of the bar, ostracized from the much, much older crowd around us), but it didn't matter. We got two very good Alhambra cañas (Alhambra is also a brand of beer, and caña is a serving size of about half a regular beer bottle) which came with, in my opinion, the very best tapa of the entire trip. I present to you: Kentucky Fried Octopus.

(It wasn't officially called that, I just christened it that)

We also had this delicious ham drizzled with Olive oil on bread a few rounds later.

After Oliver's we were tired and with a full stomach, so we went back to our apartment to get a good night's sleep (according to official records). Tomorrow would be a new day.