ログローニョのタペリア - Taperias in Logroño

「ログローニョはサンセバスチャンに負けず劣らずピンチョスが楽しめる街だから、必ずローレル街へ行け」とサラゴサのイタリア人給仕君に教わっていたので、我々は2晩ともそこに繰り出してワインとタパスのハシゴにいそしんだ。

海外では食事の量に閉口するとこが多いので、スペインのタパス、ピンチョスはまさに日本人には有り難い食習慣だ。我々の主眼はパンが土台になるピンチョスや揚げ物ばかりのバルより、小皿料理がいろいろ楽しめそうなバルを捜すことにしていた。まず客で賑わうお洒落なLa Fontana、魚類がいろいろありそうなEl Palillo、とりわけ盛り上がったのはガリシア風タコが売りのLa Unversidadで、その後も巡礼路に入ってタコを食べる機会は多かったが、ここで食べたタコのマリネは抜群に美味しかった。

唯一残念だったのが、2晩目火事騒ぎで通りの一部がしばらく封鎖され、興味ありながら行き損なってしまったTastavinかな。

“When in Logrono, go to Laurel Street because tapas there is as good as San Sebastian” told us the Italian garçon in Zaragoza restaurant, and we were fidel to the suggestion finding bals for tapas and wine in this interesting street.

Once in abroad, we Japanese often suffer from the amount of food we have to deal with in lunches and dinners, and the Spanish habit of biting small plate tapas becomes a great relief. In this trip, our strategy was to avoid bals where only pinchos with bread or mostly fried material lined up, and rather focus on variety of cooking on small plates. La Fontana was refined and busy, El Palillo had choices of sea food, and La Universidad specialized with octopus in particular had wonderful marinated octopus. It was actually the best among many octopuses we later had in Gallicia.

One bal we missed though was Tastavin which was very tempting but there was a fire nearby the second night and the street was partially blocked out for a while.