Pinchos

 

Aka pintxos. The Basque version of tapas.

I confess we were not as blown away by the pinchos in San Sebastian as we had hoped to be. They were fine but nothing to write home about (he says while in the act of writing home about them). Our favorites were a fried pastry with a thrillingly black interior of octopus paste, a salad of smoked salmon and avocado, and pork from pigs raised on acorns. More about pork later, I'm sure; this is Spain...

The first place we ate pinchos in Bilbao, we hit the jackpot. Shrimp and fish on a skewer, marinated and grilled; similarly prepared shrimp and octopus; anchovies and other little filets of fish plus slightly spicy peppers on a slice of baguette (or the Spanish equivalent thereof) -- all killer.