According to a study done by a research group for the Cervecerias of Spain, the most popular aperitif of Valencians is a glass of cold beer and patatas bravas. Excellent — that just happens to be Hola Valencia’s choice, too.

Beer (70%) was followed by cola (50%), vermouth (24%), wine (19%) and sangria (17%). I’m surprised to see wine so far down the list — Valencians drink it all the time. Just last week I was at a restaurant, where a burly crew of construction workers were sharing a bottle … at 8am!

Patatas bravas (49%) beat out olives (46%), nuts & dried fruits (34%), cheese (29%) and calamari (27%) as the perfect accompaniment for a drink.

Valencians commonly congregate after work for a drink or two around 7 or 8pm. The bars in the city center can get full, especially on the outside terraces. So, where should you go for your beer & bravas? Here are a couple recommendations:

El Gau del Rall - for ambiance (location)

Close to the city center, El Gau del Rall is tucked away in a small courtyard on Calle del Mar and serves up both great bravas and the perfect combination of tourists and locals. The terrace seating merges with that of another bar, Sol i Lluna, which doesn’t serve warm tapas — so make sure to sit at the right table!

El Café del Mar - for taste (location)

This small bar is a little on the grimy side, but it’s got the best bravas we’ve eaten thus far in the city. It’s located right on the back side of Santa Catalina. Make sure to bring an ambivalent tolerance for loud, drunk regulars.

Valencia Plaza - for convenience (location)

Despite its location at Tourist Ground Zero, Plaza de la Reina, this bar is worth a stop for its tasty, cheap bravas and beer. The staff is super friendly, and multi-lingual.

Cafe Almar - when at the beach (location)
After a long day of swimming and sunning, what tastes better than a huge, cold beer and spicy bravas? Nothing. At the end of the Malvarrosa beach, restaurante Almar serves cheap bocadillos and the spiciest bravas we’ve had. It’s good value, given the beach-side location.

Can you suggest other great places in the city to have beer and bravas? Please leave a comment or post in our forums!

[via 20minutos.es]

Getting tired of paella, fideua and gazpacho? Then head down towards the Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias for your next menú del día at restaurant Wok Quing (location).

You won’t be disappointed. Weekdays, the lunch buffet costs €8 per person, and is stocked with sushi, chicken, calamari, and everything else you would expect. What you might not expect is the ability to create your own wok dish from about 100 ingredients and have it cooked right in front of you, with the sauces of your choice.

The restaurant is extremely popular with locals, and for good reason. In addition to the wok, you can also have your ingredients grilled — one of my creations was this grilled salmon with mushrooms and onions:

Although preparing your own wok dishes was a lot of fun & delicious as well, some of the already-prepared food wasn’t all that great — the calamari in particular looked as though it hadn’t been touched in 6 days.

But the worst part of the meal was exiting the restaurant into 40° C heat, 5 kilos heavier and already sweating from the effort of shoveling so much wok-food into our jowls. I think the next menú del día will be a popsicle, followed by an ice cube.

This time we’d like to take you to El Bicho Raro: a cute neighborhood bistro serving French cuisine.

For €11, you can choose between 3 set menus:

Or you can mix & match, picking one item of each color to make your own combination. Bread, drink and dessert are included.

Ok, let’s step inside:

Freshly made bread, still warm.

I chose Beefsteak, Ginger/Soja Rice and the chorizo and artichoke salad for my meal:

Mike had the dorade (fish), potato gratin and cold spinach soup.

The meals were excellent, though the plates might be a little smaller than you might expect for €11. Still, there wasn’t much to complain about.

Ahhh almost forgot, the desserts: Chocolate Cake and Creme Brulee.

El Bicho Raro
C/ Conde Montornes 9
46003 Valencia
Tel. 96 392 49 20

Location on Our Valencia Map

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Welcome to La Pappardella, the sister restaurant of Al Pomodoro (my first Menú del Dia after moving to Valencia). The layout and prices are similar to Al Pomodoro but the Pappardella’s location is slightly better since it’s right around the corner from the Micalet.

If you go in the afternoon, the Menú del Día is the way to go - for €9 you get two plates, bread, a drink and a dessert. The food was excellent, but please don’t ask me what the dishes were called — I forgot to take a picture of the menu. But the pictures should make you hungry, even without knowing what you’re eating looking at.

But before I start with the food, here are some interior shots of the two-story loft-like restaurant:

I recommend making reservations for both lunch and dinner. There’s usually a line. And request a seat upstairs, at the window, where you can do some serious people watching (just like the lady above is doing).

Sexy pop art.

Silverware lamp.

Now the food:

What a feast!

If you needed any extra incentive to return, they offer a bonus card which can be used at both restaurants:

Eat 12 menús and the 13th one is on the house. We should have had them stamp just one card, to fill it up faster.

Calle de Bordadores, 5

963 918 915

Link: La Pappardella

Location on Our Valencia Map

Asian food makes me happy.

I just don’t understand why people would go to a fast food chain in Valencia. You can get a filling meal for the same price like you would pay for an Extra Value Menu. Rong Hua is one of the alternatives, in a prime location on La Paz.

For only €6.95 you get an appetizer, a side dish, a main course and dessert. I call this value.

I’d recommend the Chinese salad instead of the Wan-Tun Soup.

Both rice and noodles were yummy and even better were our main courses: Chicken Almond and some kind of Bamboo Beef with Mushrooms:

My standard dessert .. Flan:

Drinks and coffee do come extra but if you are on a budget and can hold back this is a great deal. Beers where reasonably priced as well.

I didn’t take a note of the street number but believe it is 52. Please correct me if I am wrong.

La Paz 52
46003 Valencia
Tel. 96. 394.3509

Location on our Valencia Map

Tasca de Russafa is a huge place, popular in the evening for their tapas. Our first time there, it was so packed that we had to leave again. But, we soon came back to try their menú del dia.

All the food was freshly cooked and yummy. And their desserts … mmm … but you’ll see for yourself:

I had the Gazpacho Andaluz:

again … fresh! A lot of restaurants will serve you Gazpacho out of a Tetra Pack!

My second plate was Pechuga Roquefort - chicken breast in a fantastic Roquefort sauce:

Mike’s first plate was macaroni, fresh from the oven:

And for the second dish, he chose a veal steak:

And now the promised desserts. Flan and mousse au chocolate:

All this, including a beverage and coffee, for only €8.50 makes you think you should do menú del dia everyday. It can’t be cheaper to buy and prepare it yourself.

Tasca de Russafa
Calle Cádiz 48
46006 Valencia
Tel. 96 381 85 30 (if going at night, it’s not a ad idea to make reservations)

Monday it’s closed!

Location on our Valencia Map

Yes my lady, look again. This restaurant is called 100 Montaditos for a reason. You can choose from 100 toppings for your montaditos, which are little sandwich buns/baguettes. They look like this:

If you never had tapas before, this is a great and affordable way to try and sample different types. Most of the toppings are tapas dishes and, yes, you can choose from 100 different ones. So there will be something for every taste.

We went on a Wednesday, when they have a special: everything for €1. And on Sundays beers for only €0.50. But generally these little buns start at 1.15 each, so it’s always affordable.

We decided to get the €12 "twelve montadito" special. Chips and another side dish come with it for free.

The restaurant is located in Plaza de la Reina and offers outside seating with a great view. Inside, it can get very busy because people might bump into you while placing or picking up their order.

Talking of placing an order… to do so, you have to fill out one of these forms:

You enter the number of various montaditos you want, choose the type of bread (N = white bread / I = dark bread) and drop it off at the bar. Don’t forget to write your name on it. Once your order is ready they will call you.

Yummy! I’d suggest ordering 4 per person. If you’re still hungry, you can always order more.

100 Montaditos
Plaza de la Reina 10
46001 Valencia, Spain

Location on our Valencia Map

Link: Cerveceria 100 Montaditos

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It takes a special kind of confidence to come to Spain as a foreigner and open a restaurant called “Tapa2″. But that’s exactly what a couple of young guys from Britain and Germany have done.

Last week, we decided to try out Tapa2, which recently opened near the Mercado Central (location). The concept is “haute cuisine at an affordable price”.

The restaurant is small — it can fit about 25 people — and sparsely, tastefully decorated. There is a limited menu, which one of the chef/owners will take the time to fully explain. The guys are clearly enthusiastic about their work, and extremely friendly.

Basically, you can choose between vegetarian (€6), fish (€7) and meat (€7) dishes, all of which are interesting. For Jürgen and I, 4 plates and dessert were enough to satisfy (keep in mind, we’re big eaters — 3 plates might be enough for “normal” people).

And the food was fantastic. Now, it must be kept in mind that I’m from Ohio, where the fanciest meal available is at Outback Steakhouse. I’m not conditioned for small portions of meticulously arranged liver pâté, quail egg and foamed peas. And even though there was no Bloomin’ Onion, we were extremely happy with the food. Even the liver.

Dessert was excellent, too.

So, if you want to impress a date with your exquisite taste, or are in the mood for an excellently prepared & presented meal, we definitely recommend Tapa2. It’s also nice to support a couple young chefs giving it a shot. Best of luck guys!

Tapa2
C/ Cardá 6, El Carmen
963 921 470
Link: Tapa2 - Official Website
Location on our Valencia Map

This statement is of course very subjective, since I’ve only been to 3 different horchaterias since living in the city.

The origin of the horchata can be found in Alboraya, a town bordering Valencia. And Alboraya’s Horchateria Daniel is the place to be. Huge and extremely popular, it’s also the birthplace of fartons - baked goodies to dunk in your Horchata.

I preferred sitting outside.

They also have a take-out counter - what you see in the cups is not beer, but Horchata!

Yummy fartons filled and covered with chocolate.

I drank a big class of horchata and munched down 5 fartons — 1 chocolate & 4 regulars:

And, yes, we skipped dinner.

Horchataria Daniel is easy get to since it’s right across the street from the metro station "Palmaret"

Avda de la Horchata 41
46120 Alboraya
Tel. 96 185 88 66

Link: Horchateria Daniel

Location on our Valencia Map

If you like books, don’t miss this year’s book fair being held in Viveros Gardens (location).

We went today, and spent about an hour wandering about the 81 stands. Just about every bookstore in Valencia has a presence here, from Libreria Patagonia (yea!), to Futurama Comics (hurrah!), to El Corte Ingles (boo!)

Just about every genre is well represented, especially books for kids. There were esoteric books, antique books with gilded pages, and historical tomes about the Valencian Community. With the weather in the city currently so serene (sunny, warm, light breeze) and the beauty of the surrounding garden, I could’ve spent all day browsing. It’s not only buying or reading books… just being around them kind of makes me happy. Kind of weird, I guess.

The festival runs until the 4th of May, so you still have plenty of time to go. Here’s a question to our Valencian readers — I enjoy crime novels (libros negros), and I’m eager to read a good one set inside Valencia. I tried asking a few of the vendors, but was met only with perplexity & shrugs. Can anyone suggest a good crime/mystery novel set in the city?

The Bookstore FNAC gave away free books.

Link: Fira Llibre