Spain: Requena's bodegas, vinos and cava

Requena gave us a glimpse into the wine culture of Spain. It is a municipality in the Valencian comarca of Utiel-Requena which is said to have a viticulture tradition that is more than two thousand years old.

We visited the bodega or wine cellar of Torre Oria. Founded by the Oria de Rueda family in 1897, it's one of the most popular wine cellars in the Valencian Region and receives a lot of visitors. Tours are by appointment.

Our visit started at the palace-house of the wine cellar designed by Jose Donderis in the early 1900s. The cava (champagne) and wine-making process was explained to us before we proceeded to the production room, cava tunnels, and barrel warehouse. But the highlight of the tour was the cava-tasting which sent all of us buying bottles to take back with us to the Philippines.

After the tour, we proceeded to downtown Requena for lunch. Our host family had mentioned to us that the specialty of the place was chorizo and embutido so we made sure to order some. I was expecting the embutido to be the stuffed sausage we have here in the Philippines. But in Spain, it's actually a mixed dish of potatoes, longganiza, chorizo, adobado and costillas.

Spain: Paella in Valencia!

Where else to have paella other than in Valencia where it's from! That's right, paella is a Valencian rice dish which is quite popular here in the Philippines. They say the traditional Valencian paella is not made with pollo (chicken) but with conejo (rabbit). Yes, you read right, rabbit!

We were looking for a great value restaurant to savor paella in Valencia since it's quite pricey given that rice here is expensive. And we finally found our restaurant called NECO Buffet de Cocina Mediterranea. Not only did they have two kinds of paella served in humongous paelleras in their buffet. They had a host of other Mediterranean dishes and desserts as well, all for the price of 10€, not bad given that in most restaurants, paella could go as much as 15 to 20€. And that's just one serving! So the buffet was a great deal.

Spain: Have you tasted Filipinos?

It was amusing to find out that in Spain, there is a commercial brand of biscuits called Filipinos! The standard Filipinos biscuit is ring-shaped and coated in either white, milk or dark chocolate. It is said that the biscuits were inspired by the rosquillos of Iloilo and Negros hence the name Filipinos. Its manufacturer added a twist by coating it with different kinds of chocolate.

They also sell Filipinos Agujeros or the holes of the biscuits coated in dark or white chocolate, as well as Filipinos Bigsticks. I found it equally amusing that Filipinos are sold alongside popular cookie brands such as Oreo and ChipsAhoy! But it was not amusing that a former administration made a big fuss out of it by filing a diplomatic protest saying that the use of "Filipinos" for a commercial brand was insulting. The Foreign Affairs secretary reluctantly filed the protest saying that he saw nothing wrong with the use of "Filipinos" as a brand name and pointed out that Austrians don't complain that small sausages are referred to as Vienna sausages! I'm actually happy they chose the name Filipinos since the biscuits are really good! What do you think?