Considered the gastronomic capital of Spain and located at the Atlantic coast of the proud Basque country (Euskal Herria), San Sebastian is a city that is proud of its cuisine. Taking inspiration from both French and Spanish sides of the Basque, the local environs and, most importantly, the season, Basque food is famous for highlighting the best ingredients from the area and of the season and manipulating it into real masterpieces, often impressive to look at and even better to taste.

Being that it was my second time to visit the city (having been there for a few days a couple of years ago), I had an idea about what I was plunging into - an amazing pintxos culture in La Parte Vieja (Old Town), a wide selection of seafood (some of which are not found easily in the Mediterranean) and the Spanish penchant for wine and enjoyment but little did I know that I would be in for much more. Having refined my choices on where to go (both from experience and from the internet), I was in for a weeks' worth of treats!

In this post, I'll chronicle mostly my adventures with Basque cuisine, in the more general sense, and particularly with my encounters of Basque dishes in restaurants - I'll reserve my review and selection of pintxos (an even more elaborate aspect of Basque cuisine) on another post. 

This filler is gonna be really short. :)

Last night, I went out with some colleagues from this workshop I'm attending in San Sebastian to sample the nightlife of the city (which like most university cities also boasts of Erasmus parties). In one of the places we went to, I came across this nice drink - Satanas (Satan, in Spanish) which was really devilishly good. We took the shot without asking what it was first and found it surprisingly nice and I got a second shot because one of the guys didn't want his. 

They say every man has his poison right? Workaholics and aspiring scientists have their coffee, Brits and South Asians have their tea, Japanese have their sake, Germans and Czechs have their beer, Russians and Poles have their vodka and those down near the Mediterranean have their wine.

Yet for a few others, bohemians like Hemingway and van Gogh, Oscar Wilde and Charles Baudelaire, absinthe (often stylistically referred to as la fèe verte or "The Green Fairy") has long served as both muse and poison (like literally in the case of van Gogh).

Made from three main ingredients, namely fennel, anise (which impart the licorice flavor) and wormwood (the active ingredient that supposedly causes the hallucinogenic effects), it's modern resurgence during the 1990's saw the rise in popularity of the spirit - most of which comes from the Czech republic where thujone (the chemical in wormwood) is legal and is not regulated. As such, no trip to the Czech republic will be complete without experiencing this wonder. 

Who am I to decline a rencontre with la fée verte?

Trying out beer (pivo, in Czech) is probably one main reason to travel to the Czech republic. The country not only boasts of having the largest beer consumption per capita in the entire world but also of being the source for some of the world's most popularized brews -- Pilsen and Budweiser, two crisp lagers that are chugged in more places than one can enumerate.

I myself was never a beer fan - I found beer back home terrible (and could only drink some brews like Red Horse and San Mig's Cerveza Negra) and while the options in Italy were slightly better (Peroni, Nastro Azzurro, Heineken), it was easier to prefer wine. This changed after learning about Belgian beer (in this specialty pub I found in Naples) and after going to Belgium itself. Hands down, Belgium won my heart with beer (from the commercial brews to the rarer trappist ones made by monks) and I always thought it would be hard to challenge Belgium's standard.

After trying my first mug of Czech beer (a Pšeničné pivo or weissbier with a slice of lemon), I was won over - this place could give Belgium a run for its money.

Still, four days and four nights of chugging beers (and one can really only drink so much) doesn't make one an expert and what this experience of beer degustation really just did was pique my interest on the subject. That being said, I believe I still picked up quite a few things about Czech beer from my first hand experience of going around the country and drinking all the beer that I can --  one's gut can only hold so much liquid and, further, since I was traveling alone (for personal security).