Alicante Hive Open Days - an opportunity to eat amazing local food (work in progress)

Yes, I know that I like to eat, and sometimes dinner takes precedence over training. But being here in Spain, in Alicante, for Hive Open Days, was also a pretext to indulge in some different kind of food, with one meal better than another.

I will start with the main event, a cooking lesson with a local chef, aiming to learn how to do paella alicantina.

We starting with a break, making a plan, having a drink and preparing the ingredients.

As we were cooking 3 kinds of paella, vegetarian, with chicken and with seafood, we prepared the chicken, prawns and calamari rings first. Chicken in cubes, a whole calamari cleaned of skin and the central tube was cut in rings, with the side wings and the body cut in small squares and arms.

We got the olive oil just right, not too much, not too less.

All the ingredients were cut and ready, bitesize, big enough to not dissapear during the cooking.

We got the fire, and bit by bit, the prawns were done, quickly, on both sides.

The chicken was pan seared, but not cooked completely.

The vegetables were cooked first, before the meat and seafood, to not mess with the oil too early.

The rice was mixed with the grated tomato, the garlic and a special sauce called Salmoreta. I checked in the shop, and it is quite expensive for a small jar, around 5 Euro.

Oh, yes, the place is called Alicante Tasting Club, you can find it easily online, and I recommend it, you will have some great fun and a decent meal. We topped up our drinks again, and we were also shown how to do Tinto de verano, an interesting 2 color cocktail using wine and a lemon or lime based juice. The ice cube is essential for your success in there.

This is the local sauce used as a secret ingredient in the rice dishes.

The cooked rice, resting in a small mountain, is now equally spreaded around the pan, 5 millimeters thick, and then the ingredients are arranged nicely, so every portion has some of it.

Same procedure applied for the seafood paella.

The decoration for the vegetarian paella, with some anchovies hearts, a local cucumber/melon thingy that I forget how it was called.

Than the broth was added, enough to cover it, but you still need to see the rice in it.

The broth for the chicken paella in here.

Final stage, the seafood paella.

Final stage, the chicken paella.

Final stage, the vegetarian paella.

The whole group, enjoying the fruits of our labour.

This is the name of the place, if you are interested.

First day in Alicante, using scissors to cut some nice pizza.

Day 1 at Hive Open Days, the tapas plates waiting for us.

The dinner with our Hive friends, at a tapas place called 100 Montaditos.

Nice offer of 2 for 1, we ate a lot of snacks in there.

Second day lunch, during the conferences.

Bread and some stuff to put on it, tomatoes and a white sauce that I did not try.

Arroz con vegetables and arroz con pescado.

Late dinner in the second HOD Alicante at Mish Mish restaurant - mixed meat platter.

Lamb skewers and trimmings - Mish-Mish

I dare to say that this is some kind of Empanada. Flat bread looking and some meat inside of it.

Tabarca Island - Los Pescadores restaurant - a plate of fresh seafood

Some local version of rice/paella.

Microbrewery dinner - special beers served here.

Some schnitzel with eggs and chips

Patatas Rompehuevas

As you can see, the food here is quite interesting and tasty. You may put some extra kilos, or not, depending on how much you are willing to walk around the city. We walked quite a bit, over 10.000 steps each day. My legs are feeling it a bit already. But over all, I enjoyed the food, even if some places are a bit expensive. I went to the local market, some meat, ham and sausages are crazy expensive.