The Pamplona Pintxos Route and Olite

Monday 23 & Tuesday 24 September - Pamplona
We met up with our American friends, Cathy & Janet, and wasted no time in hitting the Pintxos Route.  On the menu tonight were three of the best in town: Cafe Otano, Bar Gaucho and Mo's Bar.

Jaime (the boss at Mo's) with the three lovelies!

There is an art to eating pintxos apparently: have a glass of something with one or more pintxos and move onto the next place.  We didn't have much of an appetite to start with despite the lovely creations on offer so only ate at Mo's.  Here we had a glass of Galician speciality wine, the very slightly sparkling Albarinho (divine!); we had pulpo en bano (octopus in a bath with potatoes and a smidge of wine and olive oil - yum!) and calves cheeks in a beautiful red wine sauce - really tender and beautifully presented.

Carrillera Iberico y patata (Iberian calf cheeks & potato)

Mick had a lovely chorizo creation topped with a quail's egg; Cathy had a mini hamburger (no ordinary burger though); and Janet had Airbags (she works for an airline which makes it a natural choice!)  These were chicken goujons in a lovely breadcrumb and dips.  We made light work of all of that before moving on only to find that places were closing.  We didn't realise it was so late (12.30am) so we said our buenas noches and called it a day.

Pulpo en bano (octopus in a bath - on the shelf) and Cathy's mini hamburguesa

Janet and the Airbag pintxo

Wednesday 25 September - Olite
We were sad that the girls were moving on as they're great fun but San Sebastian beckons, never to be the same again!  We decided to take the bus to nearby Olite, a little medieval town famed for its fairytale like castle, built by King Carlos III for his family as their summer retreat.

Birdseye view of town from the castle

So that was a lovely day and we finished that with a little pintxo in the town before getting the bus back to Pamplona.  We headed out a bit later that evening for a couple of drinks and pintxos at La Granja (another bar on the Pintxos Route) and had some fab, unadulterated boquerones (a firm favourite) and soaked up the very real buzz of one of Pamplona's busiest streets, Calle Estefeta.  

Thursday night on Calle Estafeta

 So, until the next post from Pintxo & Tapa, pasatelo bien!