Chocolate Brownies

120 gr. dark chocolate
230 gr. butter
480 gr. sugar
4 eggs
140 gr flour
a pinch of salt
half a coffee spoon of baking powder

Heat the oven: 180- 200º. Melt the butter in a saucepan on a low flame. Mix it with the sugar in a dish. Add the eggs; again on a low flame, melt the chocolate previously cut into squares, and add it to the mixture. Then, add the flour, mixed with the salt and the baking powder. Grease a tin and pour the mixture. The best tin is a 20 x 25cm, made of clay.
Bake it around 30-35 minutes. Usually it shouldn't be very cooked. Cool it down and sprinkle icing sugar. Cut it into 5x5cm squares.
Dedicated to the chocolate lovers all over the world.

Where could I go wandering?

Well, it depends on your mood. If you feel like something quiet, stop reading this. This walk is for those who love crowded places, at least sometimes...
The Boqueria Market is one of the most famous all over the world; probably it has to do with the fact of being in a Mediterranean town, such as Barcelona, where fruits, vegetables and fish are so easy to get. In Spain many towns have been founded around markets. In fact this market might come from the XIII century, although it probably had another name: Saint Joseph market. The
The current metal deck comes from 1914.
But the point here is that anything you might be searching for your last recipe, can be found here. From oriental food, to sea food, food books, wine shops and any kind of fruit. Do you need "lichis" for that wonderful romantic dinner? There you have. Maybe a special kind of olive oil or a new pan... everything is easy to find.

The fruit and the fish & seafood stalls are especially beautiful.

Not only can you buy food, but also you can eat it. Some of the stalls are bars where you can eat your "pincho" or your "tapa" as if you where in the street. My choice was the "Bar la Boqueria", red wine and cuttlefish.

However, one of the most famous is the "Pinotxo", remembering the traditional fairy tale.

Paris in Barcelona

Some restaurants are especially for the bon-vivant guide. We have written about tapas and sandwiches, but we can't forget the places you would search in order to impress somebody (your boss, your girl/boyfriend, your sister in law...). The Flo Brasserie belongs to this group. In fact, Flo is a chain of Brasseries which can be found all over France (Paris, Toulousse, Nancy, Nice, Reims, Metz). On the top of the Printemps Galleries in Paris Boulevard Haussmann, you may find one of those, under a beautiful art nouveau domed glass ceiling 16 meters high; useful after an exhausting shopping day.
In 1982 the Flo expanded abroad, and the city they chose was Barcelone. Hidden, at Jonqueres Street, really close to Urquinaona Square, there is a "morceau" of Paris, adapted to the Spanish kitchen (that means, more olive oil- less butter). The first time I went to this restaurant, I had just arrived from Paris, and it seemed we hadn't moved from "le quai d'Orsay", until I tasted the great Fideuá. The first French touch is the seafood stall outside, in a corridor which leads to the restaurant. The warm atmosphere was created by the architect Antonio Moragas. We are talking about sophisticated cooking, at very affordable prices.

Seafood is one of the best choices. Well... it's expensive, but it's worth it. I must say it has nothing to do with Britanny's or Galician seafood, especially for the price, much higher; however, some oysters can be tasted, in case you can't afford the whole Parrillada (lobster, crawfish, prawns, clams, razor clams and mussels), although it would be a pity.
Some people don't like seafood (really????); for them, and for anyone who would like to eat something else (take this choice if your uric acid is beyond the limits), there are great dishes, such as the catalan Fideua, or the Black rice. The cuttlefish ravioli were wonderful; another good choice is the curly endive salad with figs and duck confit.
Usually, after having eaten all this, you should call up an ambulance. For those who haven't had enough, as myself I'm ashamed to say, there's a wide range of delicious desserts. From the lightest to the heaviest: pinneaple carpaccio with chocolate, mango mousse and berries or... gratiné figs in a crepe.

Imperial Carinvs

Suggestive name for a very suggestive wine. This wine comes from Cariñena, a traditional wine-producing region in Aragon, in the North East of Spain. Some years ago the wineries from the area started being aware of the quality, and became D.O. ( Denominación de origen ).
This is a high class wine is from Bodegas San Valero, whose efforts in improving the production are giving their results with surprising wines, which have a very competitive price. Being all wines with strong character, Imperial Carinvs is a great choice to deepen into these wines knowledge. The varieties of grapes used in this wine's elaboration are Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. There's also Carinvs, a younger and cheaper choice for an every-day meal.
Here you have some information taken from the web site of the winery.

Bright cherry red colour with aromas from ripe fruits and with spicy and balsamic hints. Rich in flavour in the palate, juicy and well structured, with ripe tannins and a long finish where oak and fruits combine perfectly. This wine has been aged for 14 months in new casks made of American and French oak (50% each), and its ageing has been completed in the bottle for 23 months.

Chèrs Christine et Jean François,...

This one is about pizzas... But not the kind of pizza Homer Simpson loves: true pizzas, luxury pizzas,... those which are part of the Mediterranean Food.

I had always thought that the pizza making started a long time ago in Italy, so I was surprised when I discovered it became famous just in the 19th century. Before, it was done in Napoli, but that was all. However it is likely to come from a kind of flat bread from Persia, brought to Italy by the first greeks. After the Second World War, it became famous all over the world, although all the Italian emigration to South America had already exported it to the other side of the Atlantic Sea.
Nowadays pizzas are eaten everywhere: you can choose among hundreds of different kinds, usually adapted to the part of the world it has been made. Italian pizzas are the most famous; if you have ever gone to Italy and left without tasting a pizza in any "pizza al taglio", you don't know what you're missing.
In Spain, Italian food has also been famous for years. In Zaragoza there are some restaurants with good pizzas. Very famous is el Trastevere, in Francisco de Vitoria; it started working a long time ago, and still keeps the success, despite the opening of new restaurants; in fact it's a chain of restaurants called Trastevere, La Tagliatela and Il Pastificcio that you may find in many places in the East of Spain, such as Tarragona, Barcelona or even Malaga. Pasta Italia
is another group of restaurants which, although it has reduced its quality and increased the prices, it's still reasonable. The good point is that here you can take a vegetarian menu.

I can't finish this text without praising my favourite Pizzeria all over the world and beyond; never before had I eaten so great pizzas. La Pizzeria du Port is located in Sainte Marine, a cute little village in Britanny, not far from Quimper. The from the port you can enjoy a wonderful sight of Benodet, while you're eating a pizza done with love by Jean François. Anyone who's tasted them agrees: they're the best. Maybe it has to do with the air and the atmosphere, but these pizzas are really tasty, and the pastry is especially thin. You can't leave the place without eating at least once there!

Well, and if you want to do the pastry, you only have to mix flour, salt, water, butter and some baking powder; it's your choice what you want to put over.

Don't open a new one, please

Really close to the heart of Zaragoza there's one of the restaurants everyone knows, everybody has at least once eaten, and nobody dislikes it. "El Antiguo Tabernillas" (Inocencio Jimenez) is a well known place among the lawyers, architects, journalists and workers around since 1954; the environment, the food (tapas and some traditional food) and the location have driven to success this restaurant. In 2001 the owner decided to open another restaurant in another centrally situated street (Ponzano St.). The place was more comfortable, with more room between the tables, and I would dare to say, it was more "restaurant" than the old one, which seemed a bit more seedy. However, I still preffered the old one, more typical and as crowed as usual. I'm afraid the prices also helped, as the new place was a bit more expensive, and I usually keep my head above the water.
But (there's always one "but") a new "Tabernillas" has arrived to town.

Located right in the middle of the shopping zone of Zaragoza (Madre Vedruna), this restaurant pretends to be as good as its predecessors, but nothing could be further from the truth. First, it seems it has been opened the following day the old restaurant closed: no repairs have been done, but some painting and two new lamps. It seems they wanted to open really quickly, but with a unwise result. Secondly, the waiters were not qualified enough; it took them like half an hour to come to attend us. But the worse, the really unforgivable fact was the bad food, no other adjective could fit better; too cold, too strong, too vulgar. I ate some deer, a choice of which I would have usually eaten every last crumb, and I couldn't finish it, so heavy it was.
The best choice was my sister's who asked for some typical vegetable only eaten in this region (borraja, borage), although my grandmother would have certainly cooked it better.
Yes, I'm afraid I'm like Mr. Longanice: I preffer good old places to the new.