A beautiful Basque morning in Bilbao lured me out early in the day for a long walk, as Jack took care of some work from our hotel room. I strolled down the long, pedestrian avenue which lead straight to the gleaming Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry. The hulking, curving structure of steel and glass fit in with the modern cityscape of Bilbao, crowning the town with a unique edge which seems to push the envelope on this northern coast of Spain.
After we checked out of the hotel, we took one last walk around the old town and the lovely riverside.
The bright, pastel colors of old town were set off brilliantly against the black and white spots of this dalmation... notice how his eyes are also multi-colored!
One of the cool things about being married to a food blogger, is that we often find ourselves off the beaten path, whether we're at home or abroad, following our noses to some out of the way, unknown little establishment serving phenomenal food. Today was one such day. While doing his food research for our Spain trip, Jack had read about a unique asador in the countryside outside of Bilbao, which was revolutionizing the concept of the grill. Since we still had our rental car, we decided to give it a go, and followed a set of complicated directions gleaned from the internet, our maps, and the gps system, leading us deep into tiny little towns tucked in the emerald mountains of the Basque country.
We found our destination, a restaurant called Etxebarri, in the middle of a tiny town square, surrounded by small, chalet-style buildings.
The courtyard was exceedingly charming, with lovely, stone buildings surrounded by mountains, mist and sheep grazing on the neighboring hillsides. The quaint setting reminded me so much of Switzerland.
For a restaurant of such renown, we were surprised to find ourselves in pretty much an empty dining room, while the bar raged with laughter and beer downstairs.
Since Jack's the expert, I'll leave the food commentary and most of the photos for him to cover on his blog, but here are just a few samples of some of the things we delighted upon on this particular afternoon...
Caviar, lightly smoked on the grill, served warm, which punctuated the deep, rich flavor of the eggs, hinted by a light smokiness...
Baby octopus, perfectly tender, with a nice, crispy caramelization on the skin, again with a slight hint of smokiness...
We were floored by the entire meal. It really was the kind of food that changes your perspective on... life. We both put the lunch in our top 5 eating experiences ever. Since it seemed to be a slow day, we asked our server if we could meet the chef.
Victor Arguinz came out and greeted us warmly, listened kindly as we blubbered about how delicious his food was, posed jovially with us for pictures, and then treated us to an after dinner herbal liquor. Love that Spanish hospitality!
Somehow, we rolled ourselves out of the hillside, and made it into San Sebastian by 6pm, returned our rental car, checked into our hotel, and then passed out for a few hours. We woke up at around 10 pm, and, feeling the need to get in a bit of exercise, we headed out and took a midnight stroll through the quiet streets of this spectacular, beach side resort town.
Our evening ended peacefully, watching the light rippling off of the gentle waves in the river.
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