[pim]

We had perhaps the least successful tapas crawl in Spain in Pamplona last week. Place after place we went in was quite disappointing.

A French chef who was with us -who's perhaps a tad too exigent about ingredient quality- didn't eat even one bite, and basically turned his nose up at just about everything I put in front of him -but for two or three dishes I could hardly blame him, in fact.

The one place we had a few good dishes was called Otari, on the busy St.Nicolas street. We had some good pulpitos -though they were closer in size to calamari- and a good pulpo, simply cooked with a bit of piment d'espalette.

It might have to do with Pamplona being the only major town in the Basque country that is landlock. I don't know.

[Wilfrid1]

My Pamplona experience precedes food boards, so I have no names of places - but I did find one excellent tapas bar which brought out huge trays of freshly prepared seafood all night. They set them on the bar; you helped yourself. Somehow the staff kept track. There were some surprises too, like a strangely shaped battered thing on a skewer, which turned out to be a shrimp wrapped around a just-set boiled egg.

But generally Pamplona couldn't hold a candle to the bigger cities. It also shut down around ten; much earlier than typical of Spain.

If it's not too late, please avoid Burgos, which has even slimmer pickings.

[pim]

a couple photos from the better dishes in Pamplona..





The rest is on my Flickr.