Buenos dias! It is Friday 7th June and we are in Bilbao, sole reason to visit the Guggenheim, oh and see the huge flowery Jeff Koons puppy so not a sole reason I suppose. We got here last night, quite late and spent most of today at the Guggenheim and in the surrounding areas. Bilbao was described by one of my colleagues (not Spanish) as the Sheffield of the North and another one of my colleagues (who is Spanish) when asked for recommendations, said go to San Sebastian (a resort about 50km away). Apparently Bilbao was also known as El Botxo, The Hole, as it took a bit of a predictable downturn after the decline of its steel and ship building industries. It was then saved and completely transformed by what is described as The Guggenheim Effect. In addition to the Guggenheim there is also the food, Bilbao, being in the Basque Country (not Spain per se), is famous for its regional cuisine and king (or El Rey) amongst those seems to be the pintxo (pronounced pincho) small tapas type mouthfuls.
Last night we attempted to do as the Bilbaons do and go out late, we managed to stay up until midnight (admittedly only 11pm UK time) and then I flaked. It was very quiet everywhere, most of the bars by us seemed to be shut and pretty much all of the restaurants. I suppose it's not the capital and times are hard in Spain so maybe some places only open on Friday and Saturday when they can be a bit more assured of trade.
We spent a few hours in the Guggenheim (stand out experiences: the building itself of course, nothing prepares you for how beautiful and totally bonkers it is outside, the atrium inside, an incredible common-sense defying space of curves and seemingly free floating sculptural elements, the Richard Serra sculpture collection entitled 'The Matter of Time', the Anish Kapoor installation Tall Tree and the Eye, that stands outside in the pond and, of course, the Jeff Koons puppy. So actually with the exception of two things I can see the best bits again every day we are here!). Alex would love the building as would you, you particularly would like the puppy I think!
This is the Anish Kapoor, Tall Tree and the Eye
This is the Richard Serra, The Matter of Time
The weather here is not good, it should be around mid 20's and sunny, it is barely getting out of the teens and is neither sunny nor even bright. Rain has been common and we experienced that first hand today. The bad weather is particularly galling given it was about 24C and bright sunshine when we left Stanstead airport on Thursday afternoon with a forecast of a hot and sunny weekend for London.
We wandered into the heart of Bilbao which is very close by. The city is probably not much bigger than Leeds and is incredibly easy to get round. The river curves through the heart of the city and makes it picturesque with its many bridges and high sided walls hugging the river as it snakes through the town. It is Friday afternoon so everyone was standing outside having their lunchtime glass of wine and smoking like chimneys (obviously it wasn't raining at this point).
We picked our lunch spot purely on the basis that it had the biggest, noisiest crowd around it and we table hogged to make sure we got a seat outside under the awning. The bar was called El Globo, the Globe and I popped inside to get us a couple glasses of vino blanco whilst we were waiting. Fortunately we didn't have to wait very long before a couple moved on, it wasn't the two old ladies who I had been hovering near to no useful effect. They had obviously finished long ago and were sat smoking with no intention of moving, just gassing and watching the world go by.
I had picked up the May/June local guide when I was in the tourist information office and lo, there was an article in there about the bar/cafe we had randomly chosen, here are a couple of choice extracts:
"When 16 years ago, a couple decided to open up a bar called El Globo they applied common sense to their business: let's set up - they thought - a place where people will feel comfortable, listen to good music and sample the pintxos that we enjoy eating, yummy pintxos, with good quality and a good price"
What more can you ask for? I was also particularly impressed by the section that ended:
"...And well, if you manage to find a space in their heated open air terrace with waterproof tarpaulin, you will reach the highest levels of happiness"
Seems a lot to ask for from a bit of tarpaulin and a few outdoor patio heaters but hey, who am I to contradict them?
Of course we ate, the pintxos laid out on the bar were amazing, i wanted to just start at one end and work my way down - actually that's probably not far off what we did end up doing! Fortunately the chap behind the bar (guessing he was probably the owner, the article said he was a solicitor before they opened the bar, he looked that sort) spoke very good English and was able to tell me what the various little treats and delicacies were without me having to laboriously translate every label using my rough guide phrasebook!
Gazpacho - it was OK but it wasn't as garlicky as the one I made last year. They don't seem to go in for that much seasoning here as a whole. The pintxos are from top left to the right:
- black pudding coated in crushed peanuts
- crab topped with melted cheese
- ham and cheese mix topped with parmesan
- two little slices of goats cheese topped with onion jam
- deep fried artichoke (or mouse as we know it) with crispy parma ham
The black pudding was incredibly smooth, it reminded me of the texture of that stuff we had at the Fat Duck that was practically just whipped blood. I thought it would be too rich but it wasn't at all, the peanuts worked really well with the flavour and there was a hint of chilli too. Of the other ones the artichoke/mouse was probably my favourite. The artichoke was so soft and creamy with a hint of lemon, not at all like those hard, spiky, cardboard things we seem to get at home most of the time.
After this we had a short break and another glass of wine (actually what the waiter brought was one of glass of wine and a coke, obviously my accent is as incomprehensible to them as theirs is to me!). They are only little mouthfuls so of course we had some more.......
Gaz picked these, there was a salmon one with a kind of creamy tartare sauce flavour under the salmon and on top of the bread. Then the one at the front was a puff pastry shell filled with cream cheese and topped with walnut, more jam and a little cheese crisp. These were nice but very rich, they love taking savoury ingredients and whipping them up with cream and what not to give you something quite heavy. We also had a couple of warm pintxos as part of this second attack;
These were exceptional, the left hand one was stewed oxtail or ox cheek with tomato and the right hand one is goats cheese topped with a roast tomato and an anchovy.
By now it had really started raining. The amazing canopy was springing quite a few leaks and we were all very thankful for the patio heaters! The rain was coming down very heavily and was accompanied by thunder and lightning too. Obviously quite a rare occurrence as all the locals were photographing it. We had to sit with our bags and shopping on our knee as the rain was running right through the middle of the outside seating area and creating a number of quite substantial little rivers.
Before the downpour started our intention was to head off and try somewhere else, there was no point in that now so, yes you've guessed it, we had another glass of vino blanco and ordered more food. This time Gaz fancied the croquettes. They were ham or squid and our nice waiter offered us a mixed plate. Mr H turned his nose up a bit at the squid ones but said he would try one and if he didn't like them I would have to eat them all. We were both expecting bits of tentacles and whatnot so were quite surprised when they turned up and looked like this:
The squid ones are the blacks ones at the front that look like chocolate truffles. BTW the reason everything is pink is because it was quite dark by now with the rain and the pink light was reflecting off the patio heaters! The cheese and ham ones were far too rich so as it turned out the squid ones were the favourites.
