We started the day with a nice little hike up to the top of the hill you see below. There is an 18th century fortress up there. It provides some great views of the city. For reference, our little pension (aka hostel) is between the hill and the twin towered building you see below:
On our way to the fortress hike, some sort of Basque marching band (flutes and drums) was walking by our front door:
The morning light coming through the trees during our hike:
Looking east from the fortress towards the "Gros" neighborhood and the main surfing beach in San Sebastián:
Looking north out into the Atlantic, the trees made us feel like we were in San Francisco, peering out towards the Golden Gate Bridge from the Presidio:
Looking west, there is another bay with its own beautiful beach. The big rock you see in the upper right hand corner is actually an island. We were blown away by how clear the water was:
After our hike, we built up a bit of an appetite. Fortunately, there are gourmet restaurants every 10 feet in San Sebastián. We used a variety of sources to triangulate the top 10 must-visit pinxtos bars. First and foremost, we used the 2 page email our friends Josh and Jess sent us. Josh and Jess are huge fans of San Sebastián and have been several times (Josh lived here for at least 6 months as well). And they are foodies, so we trust their judgment entirely. Our supplementary sources of info were: the Trip Advisor app (the best app for travel in Europe hands down), the Guardian's article on the top 10 pinxtos bars, a similar article in the NY Times, and finally, our tired old (but trusty) hard copy of Lonely Planet Spain. So we had some guidance. Jon spent 30 minutes synthesizing that guidance, looking for overlap and patterns, and then "pinned" the locations to Google Maps on his iPhone. This is a screen shot of our map. The stars show the bars we want to hit and the blue dot is our hostel:
Then we were off like a hungry hyena twosome, roving this Basque Serengeti for the best squid, shrimp, and veal cheek we could find.
Our first stop was outside the old quarter, over in Gros. Bar Bergara was excellent. Very busy, very friendly, and tons of flavor. Cam did all of the communicating in Spanish, which helped a TON:
Inside Bar Bergara, where the vivid colors were outdone by even more vivid flavor:
After Bergara, we walked a bit, and Jon found a great little bike shop:
Next we hit Mil Catas, also in the Gros neighborhood:
This place was excellent as well. The squid and mushroom dish on the left was the best squid of the day. On the right, we had a skewer of lightly tempura'd shrimp:
After two great bars in Gros, we headed back to the old quarter. Goiz Bargi is tiny. We walked right by it yesterday. But all of our sources listed it as one of the top pinxto bars in town. And it was great. The gambas (aka shrimp) come on a skewer over a piece of bread with some sort of heavenly sauce over it all. Delicious. The place was packed shoulder to shoulder and everyone was eating the gambas. There wasn't enough room to even snap a photo. People spill out into the street and drink wine and eat pinxtos:
Our next spot was oh, 12 feet away. Bar Borda Berri had our favorite food of the day. And this is saying A LOT because everything we ate today was spectacular.
Very creative food in a very plain, unpretentious environment:
Here is your correspondent, happy as a clam (after Cam ordered everything in perfect Spanish). I have no idea what kind of wine we were drinking other than it was a Rioja and it was delicious:
On the left, we have veal cheek. It was probably braised for a full day because it just melted in my mouth. The sauce was some of tomato, basil, plus two distinctive mystery ingredients that generated an "oh my god" after every bite. One of the best things I have ever had, ever, anywhere. And it cost 2.5 euros. On the right, we have a tomato stuffed with smoked tuna, with fleur de sel on top and its own pesto-balsamic thing going on. Also delicious. We are definitely going back. We may order the cheek once a day everyday until we leave:
Next we went one block away to Zeruko:
This is where all the cool kids hang out. Very chic vibe, but still friendly and welcoming. We actually felt cool just standing there. Here is Cam, looking very cool:
Sometimes places have a cool vibe but bad food. Those places probably don't last long in San Sebastián. The food at Zeruko was great. Probably the highest on the creativity scale out of all the places we went. Here is our sea urchin dish, which was a crispy little urchin inside a sauce that was "essence of urchin." It was very very rich:
After hitting 5 pinxtos bars and liking all of them, we were feeling pretty good about life so we went for a long walk along the beach. That is when we took the first photo of this blog post, so you can see how nice the afternoon stroll was.
Tomorrow, we rinse and repeat. We will probably get braver and not worry about being "those guys" taking photos of the food in the bar, so you may see more food shots.
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