In my previous post, I started to chronicle some of my food adventures in San Sebastian, Spain - the star gastronomic city of the proud Basque country; a bit low on the radar for anything else other than food, this is certainly a to-visit destination for foodies coming to Europe.

There are numerous ways of experiencing Basque cuisine: in restaurants serving up classic Basque food (often with special week-end offers), in other food venues like sagardotegi (Basque cider houses) from which one can enjoy both a nice txuleta (steak) and natural cider or, if price is not an issue, by going to modern gastronomic venues by this and that chef.

Easily the most popular and the most affordable way of enjoying delectable Basque treats, however, is by going for pintxos, the elevated Basque form of the popular tapas culture that evolved from southern Spain. Indeed, it is with pintxos that the Basques have dominated Spanish cuisine and which has earned their fame across the rest of Spain for stylized presentations (not necessarily with "sticks" or pintxos, in Spanish) that elevate their food.

Being that it was my second time in the city, there was no way I was gonna let the opportunity to go for some nice pintxos pass (indeed, I ended up sampling quite a bit). Indeed, I got to be more selective with my choice of places now by surveying the favorites (scouting online reviews, in advance, as well). And need I say that it was a tasty and colorful journey.

This the first of many filler articles to come. Filler articles are short posts that I could quickly scribble and compose to keep a steady stream of information sharing when I'm busy writing blog posts as well as other things. As my hands are full in writing blog posts now (there are at least 3 under work), I decided to give the filler thing a go.

First, a short update on what I've been up to -- currently recovering from the short 2-day trip to Budapest that I did last weekend (more on that on a coming blog post) while also prepping for another trip for this coming weekend, an official one, this time to Spain... in the Basque country (up in the northern Atlantic coast, near the French border). Since I'm somewhat excited to do this trip (even if I've been there before, a couple of years ago), I'm writing a filler to share something which I'm looking forward to -- food-related, of course!

The Basque country (in particular, San Sebastian, one of its two main cities) is an important gastronomic center not just in Spain but also in Europe (boasting of being the city with the most Michelin-starred restaurants per capita in Europe) - a fact that manifests in their participation in developments on modern cooking (nueva cocina or cuisine nouvelle) that can be sampled in their fine-dining posh restaurantes as well as in more accessible food options such as pintxos - the Basque equivalent of the Spanish tapas.