San Sebastian and Bilbao Redux

One day, Hito emailed me to ask if I wanted to go to Porto. May had been....uninspiring in terms of weather and he wanted a beach getaway. In my reply, I suggested San Sebastian as a beach AND food getaway. A few links to mine and Pooey's trips there last year and he was sold! As was his colleague Mel!


Flying into Bilbao late at night, we decided to crash at a hotel in San Mames near the Termibus terminal where we'd take an early bus to Sanseb. This kinda limited our late night dinner options. The hotel reception guy said there was a Chinese place nearby that opened late, but his expression and tone were kinda sheepish as he said this to the three Asian people. I can't remember the name, but we ended up in this so cheesey it was funky 50s style cafe.

Melinda ignores the cheesey colour scheme and decor to examine the menu which consisted of burgers, pizzas, fries, those kinds of things. 

The booth wasn't the only cheesey thing in that place!

My club sandwich was also cheesey

Bright and early, we got up and took the 1 hour bus to Sanseb, and arrived, ready for pintxos breakfast! Except no one else was ready and what we ended up having was substandard and disappointing. 

I wonder if it was leftovers from the day before.

Continuing on the theme of disappointment, we walked from the Old Town to La Concha where we got to admire the gloomy cloudy sky over the Atlantic.

St. Mary's bathed in morning gloom

The gate as we left the Old Town.

Not so many people wanted to go sailing

:(

D:

Despite the weather, we're still going to be tourists, dammit!!!

Eventually, I declared that, cloudy or not!, I was going to lie on the beach dammit and we all decided to go back and gear up. In the time spent gearing up, the town had also geared up and we could finally start the task of eating to our hearts' content. First stop, La Cuchara de San Telmo.


This place had been talked up (and how!) by Pooey and it lived up to the recommendation! The mood had been pretty sombre up until then but after a few bites of delicious food, I did say to Mel, "Hey! Look at that huge smile on your face!"

Crowded, even though it was about 12:30.

Waiting for the pintxos with our cidre and bread

First up! The pork cheek! Mmmm, it fell apart with some prodding from our forks.

The foie a la plancha. As good as this was, I was miffed that part of our foie was burned *huff*.

King Scallop - seriously, one of the biggest single scallops I've ever seen!

Grill rock octopus. A bit salty :( 

As much as we would have been happy to stay at La Cuchara, we decided to stroll around. I can't remember the name of the next place we went to, but it was near St. Mary's. 

Kalimotxos rears it's head for the first time! An excellent cheap and nasty drink to wash down our delicious pintxos. 

Oh noes! Eating the foie before photography! It was not burned and hella delicious. 

That night, wemet up with Patri who is now working in SanSeb (!!!) and after a night of repeated walking to a bar, ordering pintxos, long cidre pouring, and dancing cycles, I declared Spain my spiritual home. There are no photos from this period of time, for which we should all be thankful.

With mild hangovers, we got up the next morning, checked out of the hotel, and went to the Old Town for pintxos brunch and shopping before meeting up again with Patri again who was going to drive us back to Bilbao. Before that though, we took a look at her digs - a building that was set up to house visiting academics to the research institutes of Sanseb.

OHMIGOD, THIS IS THE VIEW FROM THE SHARED ROOFTOP TERRACE

Really, that's a view to turn a frown upside-down

 

Big smiles all round!

For dins, Patri had booked us in at a local place that had been recommended to her. Always happy to try out local places, we were treated to a feast of epic proportions.

The starting queso y jamon plate. *food gargle*

The mixed salad.

The octopus (pulpo)

The grilled fish

The food coma clearly stopped me from taking a photo of the dessert, a bowl of orange ice cream in liquer. Believe it or not, we then went to a series of bars and ended up crawling home at an ungodly hour - Spanish style!