Aug 31

Aug 31 They Eat... Pinchos in Logroño

Logroño is the capital of the La Rioja province and is most famous for the Pinchos (tapas) crawl. There are two main streets for this (Calle Laurel and Calle San Juan) and we made sure to go to both. It was well worth the five hour road-trip to come here.

Must Have Pinchos from Logroño

I don’t know why it took us this long to share a post about food .. I think it’s because we were always too busy eating! This is the perfect first foodie post as it isn’t focused on one restaurant, but many many restaurants / bars that we went to during our pinchos crawls in Logroño.

If you end up in Logroño, remember these are Spanish eating hours. Most places don’t open up till 7:30-8:00PM and they close a bit past midnight. Enjoy and get ready for your mouth to water!

Patatas Bravas

Ian is a massive fan of potatoes in general, so of course, he loves patatas bravas: Potatoes + Sauce. The sauce is usually a mixture of red (spicy tomato) and white (garlic aioli). The best place to have it: Bar Jubera: Calle del Laurel, 18

Lecherillas aka sweetbreads

One year for my birthday, I asked Ian to barbeque the weirdest meats he could find at the supermarket and Veal Sweatbreads was one of these items. It had a great creamy flavor to it and I think once you get over the fact that its an organ meat (or pretend that isn’t true), you will love it. Head to Pasión Por Ti at Calle del Laurel, 5. They have an extensive menu of other dishes, including grilled meats.

Cappucino de Hongos

I apologise that the photo may not be that appetizing, but I promise you, this is delicious! It is a “Mushroom Capuccino”: a low temperature truffled egg with boletus/porcini and mushroom cream. You can get this at Bar Donosti (Calle del Laurel, 13). We also had some amazing morcilla at this place (see next photo).

Morcilla

We are big, big fans of black pudding and this is the Spanish equivalent: blood sausage generally stuffed with ground pork, pig's blood, rice, onions, and spices. It is cooked many different ways. Back in HK, our local tapas place (Carlos’s aka Candela - 23 Main Street, Yung Shue Wan, Lamma Island) would bake this up with eggs and chorizo. In Logroño, we had it simply grounded up at Pasión Por Ti and whole with jalapeño at Bar Donosti. Side Note: If you get a chance, you must visit Burgos where morcilla originates from. We loved La Comidilla de San Lorenzo (Calle San Lorenzo, 29).

Croquetas

The most typical croquetas most people recognise only have potato in it, maybe some jamón in it. On Calle Laurel, you can also get them with squid ink inside. You can get croquetas in almost every bar so I don’t have a specific recommendation (I also forget to write down where I had this one - sorry!)

Tortilla

The spanish omelette is a dish you will find anytime of the day. It is always served at breakfast time. The most standard is egg with potato, but we have had it with peppers in it, or in the picture shown, morcilla. I know, we cannot get enough of morcilla.

Champignons (Mushrooms)

The most popular way to eat champignons in Logroño is basically grilled up in lots of garlic, oil, and butter. We were excited to try this at Bar Soriano but it was closed when we went. Instead, we had these at La Cueva De Floren (Calle de San Juan, 42). You can see there is bread on the bottom (as is standard with all pinchos) and a little shrimp on top as well. Personally, I know we should be drinking wine with it, but beer is just as great!

Jamón

You were probably reading through this post thinking, why has jamón not been mentioned yet? Fact is, there is so much to eat in Logroño that we didn’t have as much jamón during our pinchos crawl. This doesn’t mean we didn’t eat any during our time in Spain. In fact, we pretty much ate it every chance we got. Here is the insider tip: eat jamón bellota. This type of ham are black iberian pigs who eat sweet acorns known as bellota. This causes the ham to get a very delicious nutty flavor.