My Escapes Spain Valencia Frenetic Valencian Escape! Eating and Drinking in Valencia

Eating and Drinking in Valencia

Spain is a great place for eating around and Valencia is in fact one of the best cities to do so... It's considered the home of the paella!
Savvy budget travelers can enjoy the delights of Iberian cuisines - with little exploration you will find even simpler specialities quite affordable and even healthy...

Spain's top national dish, the paella originates from Valencia... (Yet, I skipped it this time).

Of course, just like in other parts of Spain, in Valencia you can find plenty of bacon and other meat product-specialized shops.

The most restaurants I came across were around the Town Hall area, after getting out of the Xàtiva metro station. If you want a more romantic place, then go north to the Old Town of Valencia.

You can find just about anything there from traditional local foods to a variety of fast food restaurants and ice cream sellers. Lots of sweets-selling shops, boutiques, but I generally avoid eating much sugar.

So I decided to try the local pinchos... I told myself I had a "pinch of pinchos"!

They were served cold and cost me 5 euros, which I found expensive, considering how tiny those slices were.

It's literally slices of bread (similar to the French baguette) with sea food on top. Some of the seafood didn't taste at all fresh, so I had to discard part of this meal.

The restaurant looked costly also because of the central location, so every tiny piece of food they were selling was high-priced.

Later, on Carrer Don Juán de Austria I came across a Pans & Company restaurant (these are almost everywhere in Spain and sell bocadillos).

The Pans & Co network is headquartered in Barcelona and they are present in about a dozen countries (including Argentina, India, Italy, Portugal, Saudi Arabia).

The bocadillos sold at Pans & Company can be considered only slightly traditional food, since bocattas or bocadillos are a breed of Spanish sandwitches.

I asked to change my fries for a salad - healthier, I generally swap fries for something green.

There's a McDonald's near the Cathedral - strategically-placed (as usually). Of course, they have toilets, but you need to enter the code on the bill at the entrance...
Otherwise, finding public toilets in Valencia can be a headache.

OK, so I tried the Valencian McDonald's too and below you can see what I got: som McNuggets, a green salad, a Filet-O-Fish (I just can't eat those meat sandwitches at McDonald's).

One particular thing that surprised me in Valencia was the fact that they had a load of sweets-selling shops. Fully-filled candy shops and lots of deserts sold here and there...

We know sugar ain't healthy, but once in a while you can allow yourself a few delicacies! At least while you're on a trip - it's not a sin and a few cookies won't ruin your health!

The variety of sweet products is immense... there are lots and lots of pastry products. For example, croissants are almost everywhere! (But these are sometimes sold with ham and cheese, they're not necessarily intended as "sweets"!).

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