We’ve been in Spain for about a week now and are happily sampling Alicante’s rich food scene. The sheer quantity and diversity of dining options here could take us years to explore. So we are pacing ourselves, alternating between dining out and eating in. Both have been great experiences so far.
The meals coming out of our apartment kitchen have been affordable and delicious. That’s mostly due to the super fresh ingredients available to us just a few yards from our front door. And sometimes, dinners and lunches are pulled from the doggy bags we bring home. The restaurant portions here are generous in the extreme and rarely can we clean our plates.
Our dinner at home tonight is a good example, two seafood pastas from the other evening, refreshed with butter, garlic, white wine, a little cream, and fresh shrimp and served with a mixed salad and a warm baguette from our corner market.
In a couple of days, we’ll do the same with the mouth-watering leftover seafood rice dish and grilled calamari feast we savored yesterday for lunch at an elegant, but affordable restaurant, El Gosto del Gourmet. It’s sleek setting, complete with white table cloths and artisan glasses and plates, was matched by professional and friendly service. At home, a meal like this would be a couple of hundred bucks easy, but our tab came to less than $60, including wine, and appetizers.
The photo of our rice main course may look like paella (and it really is), Spain’s world-famous dish born in Valencia and made with rabbit, snails, and green beans. But here and around much of the country, most menus refer to rice dishes as just that: arroz. Many times as ours was, it is cooked in a paella pan, but because the ingredients are different, so is the name. In our case, we had Arroz Alicantino with chicken, seafood, and vegetables.
We’re still rookies when it comes to Spanish cuisine, but we’re more than willing to learn. More food posts to come. Bon Appetite!
