I pause... I re-read the sign and think to myself "oh my God, a fair dedicated to tapas!?!? How wonderful!!!"
Some may be wondering- what's a tapa? And for those who don't know, you sure are missing out!
A tapa is one of the great commodities that defines Spanish culture. It all started because as you may know, Spain can be very dry and desert-like. Deserts have sand and dirt. Spaniards do not like sand or dirt- especially in their beer! To prevent these particles from getting in their drinks and ingesting them, those always thinkin' Spaniards decided to put a piece of bread on top of their glass to protect their precious cerveza.
But what to do with that bread? Eat it of course! But some found it to be dull- why not jazz it up with some queso (cheese), jamon (ham), patatas (potatoes), tomate, or anything else delicoius!?!?
So now we have our tapa. Some delicous spanish food usually on top of bread. But throughout the years, different regions evolved or expanded their tapas, and each region has a different type of tapa. For instance, in areas closer to water, tapas consist of more seafood, where as Madrid sticks with meat products. Some tapas have removed the bread all together and may just serve a plate of frutos secos (nuts), aceitunas (olives), albodingas (meatballs), chicken wings, chorizo, and croquettas (fried ball of potatoes and meat/fish/veggies)
Back to my Tapas mecca.
This fair was held at Valencia's Port in a Tinglado, or big open platform that they enclosed with their own canvas type walls. Inside were 26 booths, each representing a different restaurant in Valencia. Each restaurant brought with them 3 different Tapa and each tapa cost 1.20 euro.
How it works is you go up to the Taquilla (ticket counter) and you tell them how many fichas you would like (coins). Each ficha is 1.20 euro. So therefore if you want 5 tapas, it will cost you 6 euro for 5 fichas. Then when you order your tapa, you hand them a ficha rather than 1.20 euros. It speeds up the process immensly.
I was lucky enough to go to this event twice!!! First with my friend Andrea and her friends Vanessa and Maria. (Andrea is the teacher of english's daughter!). We sampled many delicious tapas and then danced it off in barrio El Carmen until 3 am
The next day I made Nora and Margaux go again (although it did not take much convincing). Friday night was much more crowded than thursday night.
The event ran from 12pm-430 pm, and then again from 8pm until midnight. At around 10pm friday night, there was a line out the door waiting to get in!
Here are some of my tapas that I ate. My favorites were tied between the moussaka with goat cheese, and the prawn "lollipop" in mushroom cream sauce, and the cod croquette with curry sauce, so nice to add some spice to my palate!
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| Mini veggie mussaka con goat cheese, covered in honey |
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| Prawn "lollipop" with mushroom and cheese dipping sauce |
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| Shrimp ravioli with something like a sweet/sour duck sauce on top |
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| Cod croquette with curry sauce- this one required a strategy to eat it because of the round ball on flat bread! |
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| Octopus and Garlic over mashed potatoes |
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| enjoying the american tapa of gigantic hamburgers... between the 3 of them there were about 7. These hamburgers were the size of the plates and the stand always had the longest line! |
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| Tail of a bull over avocado and fried plantains |
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| dessert: grahm cracker smothered in chocolate |
All in all: La feria de la tapa: hard to top that!
(get it?... top that?) hahaha
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