[In Basque: What's up? We're the VagaBrothers] Right now we are
in San Sebastian feasting on Pinxtos. Nom nom nom!
San Sebastian is the cultural capital of the Basque county
where we were lucky enough to live for a few years soaking up the good life
San Sebastian, known as Donostia in the Basque language
is famous for
its gorgeous beaches, excellent cuisine and legendary old town,
which has more bars per square meter than anywhere else in the world
But not just any bars:
bars that serve Pintxos
Basque style tapas best experienced on a pintxos pub crawl.
So we met up with local guide Eli Susperregui of
San Sebastian food tours and American ex-pat and food blogger,
Marti Kilpatrick, who offered to show us the best Pintxos in Donostia
We began with one of the originators: Bar Ganbara
which has spent
30 years elevating Basque cuisine
with a simple recipe:
pintxos of only quality, local, seasonal ingredients.
So we ordered a glass of txakoli, a Basque
sparkling wine and asked Marti a simple question.
What's the difference between a pintxo and a tapa?
It's a big debate, but I think one of the major differences is that tapas come from south of Spain
they come free usually with the order of a drink.
Pintxos tend to be more elaborate, more special, more expensive
So it's usually a combination of three flavors.
And from the three basic, we have developed into something else
It looks amazing. What do we have here to eat ?
This is called Gilda and this is the first pintxo ever
that we start making in the Basque country. Really?
Yes, and it's coming with anchioves, guindilla pepper,a pickle and olive. Wow!
one of my favorite things about eating pintxos is
napkin, finished, to the ground.
Toothpick, finished to the ground
I've heard that the dirtier the floor is in a pintxo bar, the better it is, Right?
Is that true or not? It's like in a
barbeque, when you know it's a good barbeque when it's a load of mess around
So in the pintxos bar at the end of the night, this is what you expect to find.
Next the girls took us down
the party street
of Calle Fermin Calbeton
to our second stop Borda Berri
Ok Here we are at Borda Berri
I would consider this
a new generation
of pintxo bars, which is quite interesting as well
so everything they do here is like a main course
but served in a little plate
What are we going to order? They have
a pretty amazing menu right there.
Here I like the most the kebab
which is the pork strip
and also the pig's ear. How adventurous are you?
I'm pretty adventurous
I said a pig's ear. Yeah
Pig's ear is good?
This is a Romanesco sauce. It's actually
well known in the Catalonia area, Barcelona and all that
but here they made it with walnuts
It tastes really nice. Wow
It's a great combination with the pig's ear. wow
Is it crunchy?
It's crunchy, it's chewy
It's got really strong flavors
and it's spicy
and that's something you really don't
find too often here in the Basque country
This is the best piece of pork you're
going to find in the country. OK
All those innuendos got us in the mood for something sexy
so the girls
took us to Bar Zeruko, which showed us
the true meaning of food porn.
Hardest thing about this
is finding which pintxo to pick.
There are too many to choose from. After making
some tough descisions, Marti explained
why she loves Bar Zeruko.
This is the high end of all the pintxo bars. You walk in
It's gorgeous, filled with tons of pintxos in the bar
but all with a little touch of something
like "spherification"
or foam. Yeah, if you're a tourist
you come here and get your high end cuisine on.
If you can't spend a 150 Euro,
you can come and spend five.
Girls....
These pintxos are crazy. What are we eating here?
What is this thing? What's this? What's this?
Yeah we have a whole lot of stuff going on.
Here we have a typical Basque dish
of calamari turned upside down
literally dumped out on the plate
with the pepper and buttery toast
Here, figs stuffed with foie
Here ,tomato confit
made into a salad
stuffed with Idiazabal, the local cheese
and then
the sea urchin with the sea urchin cream
and parsley and some other flavors
That sounds Basque for delicious. Yes
and then this one is waiting for the attack. Oh wow
and then smile to me
This is codfish, no?
salted cod with toast and caramillized onions
cream of carrots
some parsley pearls
and then a parsley shot to wash it down
So cook 10 seconds each side
put it on there, and then take a shot. Ok
Don't eat the wood? No
Don't eat the stick
There you go
Salud.
I've been hit in the face
with a recipe book of flavors
I like it. There is a lot of flavors
in one bite
Textures, flavors. This is what the molecular
cuisine is like. I know, sounds good
We'll we going to go see that next.
So let's go head over to A Fuego Negro
Ok Cheers
A Fuego Negro is the bad boy of the pintxo scene.
The brain child of three young
hip chefs who stirred up the cooking world
with an unlikely combination of
influences: comic books, grafitti
American soul music and hiphop
and the latest culinary trends
We were greeted by Edorta Lamo
chef, D.J.
and general badass, who poured
us some drinks and pulled out a few
of his favorite dishes: delicious
squid donuts , raw mackerel
with refrito sauce,
a Kobe Beef Slider with banana chips,
and a fresh prawn
with quail egg, served
on an edible toothpick
Sometimes when you go out for pintxos, you're presented
with awkward situations.
This is one of them. Look at this little
beautiful, miniature burger.
Everyone wants a bite of it. Problem is:
how the hell do you do that?
Because it's quite literally, bite size.
You can all have a potato chip, though
I have heard the saying........It's a banana chip.
Ladies first
The main issue with pintxos is they're
so beautiful and they're so
well presented and
when it finally comes down to actually eating them
it's not beautiful,
but here we go
and it's not really shareable, so sorry ladies
Jealous. Wow
What I like about this bar is
it's "Alta Cocina" again, like Zeruko
but they also take sort of an
ironic hipster twist on everything
so we're having like the grandma fish, your grandma's fish
that pintxo that you just ate
with the shrimp and the mayonnaise is a grandma pintxo,
and then I'm drinking a grandma drink, which is Vermouth
but it's like with a little twist
an ironic twist because
what your grandma used to do, is now cool again
Yes, yes.
But those were only four of the
hundreds of pintxo bars in town.
So as we parted ways with our friends,
we promised to come back to San Sebastian
with even more of an appetite
Hope you guys enjoyed that video
Eskerrik asko ["Thanks" in Basque] to all the bars and Marti and Eli for showing us around.
Make sure you guys check them out in the info
box below. And if you're thinking of
coming and visiting San Sebastian
watch our video :
"24 Hours in San Sebastian." Ok if you like the video
give it a thumb's up, share it with friends
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every Tuesday, and we'll see you guys
on the road. Agur