SPANISH FOOD TOUR in Alicante, Spain! (Tapas, Street Food, Not Paella, Beach Snacks & More!)

You're not allowed to say paella, that's a big no-no. The view is just amazing. This is really good. It looks absolutely supreme. Welcome to the city of Alicante, located in the Costa Blanca and the southeastern coast of Spain. We are starting this food tour off with some necessary fuel and making our way through the city for some delicious Spanish regional and classic dishes. Our first stop is going to be one of the many cafes in this residential area of Alicante. We are staying in the Carolinas Altas, which is a bit away from the hustle and bustle of the city center. This area has some wide sidewalks and many of the cafes and restaurants utilize the wonderful weather to set up tables for some early breakfast. Buenos dias. We're going to start a little food tour here at the crack of noon at a little cafe for Spanish breakfast. We're just having a little bit. Standard cafe con leche. What I notice here is the coffees are often a little smaller, but very affordable. Assume this is under two euros, which is very nice. Then we have two items. One thing that you see everywhere throughout the city are these empanada-style filled dough rolls. They had a couple of them. This one is filled with chicken. If I like anything, it's starting a day with a good hearty breakfast. Very nice. It tastes like a little bit of a chicken stew. Slightly soupy flavor. It is warm. They warmed that up. This makes me very happy. All right. When I looked up typical Alicante breakfast, a lot of the results said usually coffee or tea along with something light, either a sweet light pastry like this chocolate one with flaky layers and filled with chocolate inside. We saw a variation like this offered at most cafes that we went to, but a few of the cafes told us that this next thing is a very classic breakfast dish in the city, which is a toasted baguette-like bread with grated or blended tomatoes, a little bit of salt, and of course, some Spanish olive oil. This is like an iconic breakfast here, and a lot of cafes have it. As you can see, we're at a different one. So let's give it a try. I expected that crunch. It's crunchy, but it's also light and fluffy inside. You know, I hate when bread is too hard. I like like softer bread, but with a nice crust. It's so good. We're off to a good start. Now time to make our way to the city center. What I love about a lot of the Spanish cities and towns, there's always seats for socializing. There are these little parks, like this is a pretty small little park in the center, right? But they have the seats angled towards each other, and in the evening, they're packed with people just sitting there, talking, chilling. There, there, there. There must be at least 50 in this park. There's a ton for a very small park. I think that's amazing. It's very social. It's nice. And we continue to the Alicante Central Market in search of a few things. We're gonna go into the Central Market. I feel like a lot of Spanish cities have this, and it looks so pretty. The buildings look very historic. I'm excited to go in and see what they have. And I'm looking for this one type of tuna, so we'll see if they have it. This market is way bigger than I expected, and it seems to be the place for fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat and fish. There were rows and rows of butcher stalls with an assortment of meat. There were a bunch of the iconic jamón ibérico for sale, by the slice, or an entire leg. We made our way to the lower level, and our noses were immediately hit with the smell of salty fish. This is where a lot of the seafood and fresh fish stalls are. The market just kept going. And towards the back, we found a lot of delicious-looking bakeries with pastries and cakes. Oh, it all looked so, so good. This market felt like the fresh one-stop shop with everything. I like how on the side of the market, they have these like stalls, and there's little bars, mostly with bar stools. And you can have little snacks and drinks. And I think it's just a very Spanish way of life and tapas lifestyle. Even here on the market, you can do that and probably get super fresh stuff. And I think it's very nice that they offer that. We did end up buying a few things, but we were looking for this one specific thing, and fortunately, there were several stalls that offered it. So we're right outside the central market. As you saw, we went in there, and there's everything. We thought it was just gonna be like a meat market in the top, then you go underneath, and there's more fish and fruit and vegetable and all this stuff. But we decided to go for something that is pretty iconic here. Never tried it before. It's mojama de atun. So that's pretty much like tuna jerky. It's this dried, salted, cured tuna. And apparently how you eat it is with olive oil. So we had to buy an olive oil right here in the market. Then we drizzled it on really nicely. And this is supposed to be eaten like that. Also sometimes with almonds, but we'll give it a try like this. Look at this. It's a very thick piece of tuna. He cut it right then and there from this big block. And he asked how much weight we want. We're like, I don't know, just like six slices or so. This is around 80 grams. It was around like five euros, but I'll give this a try. Like whenever I think of tuna, like canned, it's very fishy. But when you get like proper sushi, it doesn't taste very fishy at all. And this has that flavor. It comes apart nicely though. It's not too chewy. Being dried or whatever, it almost tastes meatier. If you wouldn't tell me this is tuna immediately, it might take me a second to figure it out. So the tuna is apparently very traditional to this region, but the guy at the fish shop, he obviously had more fish. And what also looked very nice was the salmon. Yeah, this one looks a bit juicier. We did not put olive oil on there, but it's already glistening, looks slightly fatty. This one is very good quality. It's the same price, like 72 euros per kilo. At least like low temperature, one or two degrees, he said, I think. And I'm just gonna give this big slab a try. Do not eat all that. We only have four slices of that. Do not eat all of it. That's so good. I mean, it's not dried, so it's more of the traditional salmon taste, but a very good quality. Very different to the dried tuna, but it's just salmon. Damn, I want to put this on another baguette. Tuna and salmon is probably my two favorite fish. As Phil and I battle out for those last fish slices, a quick word from this video's sponsor. Quick shout out to today's sponsor, Surfshark VPN. If you are like us and you are traveling a lot, but at the same time are constantly online, whether it's doing social media, researching, gaming, or watching too much Netflix, you need to protect your data. Surfshark VPN ensures your privacy by keeping your info encrypted, masking your IP address, and even lets you access geo-blocked content from literally anywhere in the world. Want to watch that show only available in Japan? No problem. Plus, one account covers unlimited devices, so you are protected on your phone, laptop, tablet, all of it. Check out our description and go to surfshark.com slash DeannaPhil or use our code DeannaPhil at checkout to get four extra months of Surfshark VPN. Big thanks to Surfshark for keeping us safe out there, and now back to the video. We walk through the city center, passing many restaurants and shops. We walk down this pedestrian street with cute mushroom statues throughout. I live here now. There were a lot of tapas bars, clothing shops, and stores along the street. We continue a bit further, but Phil is really fascinated by the girth of this tree. Look at the girth of that thing, and the crown is humongous. There's multiple of them, and they just look epic. So like a jungly huge tree. I like it. Anyways, continuing outside the center attractions, the city has a very clear grid layout with a lot of buildings about five to six stories high. While this is not the most beautiful part of the city, the city center does have charming corners with historic buildings that have been very well-maintained. Also, we can't forget the iconic waterside promenade. I absolutely love the palm trees lining the street. It's so pretty. And this is all right next to the marina. Marina right in the city center. Very convenient for the rich that live here. And apparently, judging by the amount of boats and yachts, there have to be quite a few. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a bit peckish at this point. So it's time for a nice tapas bar. We check out this one tapas bar that had great reviews online. We got some front row seats at the bar and had to scan a QR code for the menu. And I ended up ordering a nice local red wine for some filming courage. All right, so we're here in Alicante at a nice tapas bar. It feels very cool. There's like this nice bar and you have a whole bunch of like just different meats in front of you. We honestly didn't know what to order, so we just got the recommendation. And look how pretty. It's beautiful. Yeah, so this is apparently what this place is known for. The first dish we tried is called piruleta, which translates to lollipop. But this one is a savory version. This one included ham, cheese, and chicken all wrapped up together and cooked on both sides and then topped with a sweet tomato jam. So it's some very fatty meat, mixed chicken with pork, and then the jam on top just gives it a nice contrast. Party snack for lunch here. The second tapas are called chupa chus. We're just eating a bunch of lollipops for lunch today. These balls included Iberian sirloin with duck breast and wrapped with brie cheese, then topped with this sweet almond paste along with caramelized sunflower seeds. It's very nice. The flavor is much different than what you expect. It's like a hearty meatball. So both of these dishes are basically like a mix between savory and sweet. That's really good. It's also very sweet topping. I think it's an almond butter. That's awesome. I really like it. I don't know if you can tell, but it's like lunchtime and the tapas bar is getting very busy right now. So it's a little hectic. Both hectic and delicious. When we entered the bar, it wasn't too busy, but about 30 minutes later, it was packed. We were in and out of there in less than 40 minutes. So it's getting busier as it gets a little later in the day. This is lunchtime. I have a buzz on already from wine, but it was really good. I'm happy. After some midday wine and tapas, it's time for some coffee to keep going. We came up to this rooftop bar. It's called Convistas. That's me. It's this nice view above the city. I think it's on the 26th floor and you get a perfect view of the castle, the fortress. What is it called? Santa Clara? Santa Barbara. Barbara. Santa Barbara right there. I have a coffee con leche and Phil has a cappuccino. Salud. This looks much better. You can see like you're above the city. You get a good perception of the city of Alicante. You can also see the mountains in the north in the background there. I'm having coffee to sober me up because you just drink wine with lunch here, right? Am I right? They're playing the best song here. A Spanish version of Tracy Jones' Fast Car. 10 out of 10 so far. And that's enough of tipsy D. She needs to go to bed. But yeah, this bar has a great view of the Santa Barbara castle and a good view of the city and beaches. However, I think we'll get an even better elevated view later on. And even though it's not the best weather day, we figured we should at least touch the sand. We have this only house front here at the beach because behind it is the big rock with a fortress on it. So these are like the only apartments that look over this beach that is closest to the city. I think the beach itself is quite nice. It's definitely usable. It's not the biggest. I think the big beach town is behind that peninsula and we might check that out. There were some brave people in the water and some massive seagulls patrolling the beach. Hola! We're doing another food taste test and we are trying Taron de Alicante. It's this nice nougat everywhere. It was pretty much saying that this is a very popular thing and you need to try it. It's nougat with almonds pretty much. Yeah, so we picked that up at the market before. It's the Alicante hard nougat of supreme quality. We didn't get the cheap ----. We got the supreme version and it looks absolutely supreme. Looks like this. Yes, I will take small piece. By the way, we look at it we're sitting at the beach here which is a very nice vibe. The boardwalk, look at all this. It is busy in the evening but it's kind of siesta time right now and we're doing a snack. Yeah, look at it. It has this like edible paper around it and we already broke it. It's very hard. It's not messy at all and I'm curious what it tastes like. So, let's give it a try. Oh god. That's so hard. All right, so this one's pretty hard. We got the hard version. There's different types and I think these are very popular at like Christmas market in times. I'm actually surprised because when I hear nougat I'm thinking of Easter or Christmas candy like nougat eggs with soft nougat cream in there but it's so hard, check it out. It's like boop. Yeah, honestly not bad. I'd say this is a hiking snack. And that's not the only beach in Alicante. There are multiple ways to get to the other beaches in the city and we chose the convenient tram. It was only a short 15 minutes to what people say is the best beach of the city Playa de San Juan. This is the first time stepping on the beach here. This is the big long beach strip resort. Oh my goodness, that's amazing. Turn it around, look at those mountains there. It looks freaking epic. So, this is the whole long beach. Wow, look how wide this is and you got that John Deere tractor up in there. All right, I have to say my initial impression is way more positive than I thought and compared to the city center this feels a bit more special with the environment, just the huge beach and the mountains. To be honest, when I did my research I assumed that this is the tourist area with all the resorts. So, I was like, ah, we probably shouldn't stay there. We should stay in the city center. What I love about it are there these huge boardwalks that you can walk down. Even if you're staying at one of these resorts you just cross the street and there's a boardwalk for everyone. It's not like private, legal. So, everyone can enjoy the beach and it's nice. That's normal in Europe. This area definitely feels like a beach town. We spent one of our afternoons just walking around the beach and to the streets a few blocks inland. So, San Juan, Playa de San Juan it really feels like a big beach town. You have these parallel streets here to the beach front. At the beach front there's a couple restaurants and a big boardwalk and there's this tram connection all the way which is kind of nice. But aside from that is all these high rises. It feels like the typical Cookie Cutter beach town, kind of. We were looking for a nice Patatas Bravas plate to snack on but during this time a lot of the restaurant kitchens were closed until dinner time. So, we went to a familiar place that was open. Buenos tardes. We are here at a very popular chain throughout Spain. It's called 100 Mataditos. They're known for their little sandwiches mostly but they have some of the classics and we are here at the beach as you can see. Pretty close there. So, Phil actually ordered these. He ordered a little tiny sandwich. It's a burger actually, sorry. A little tiny burger. Okay, I'll save you all some time. These two things were not that great. This mini burger for two euros was okay and to this pulled pork mini quesadilla thing which was also two euros was also just okay. I got finally some Patatas Bravas or Patatas Bravioles. This is a Racion, I think. So, it's seven euros. It's not a tapas. It's just chunky fried potatoes. Then topped with a spicy and a garlic sauce. The potato Phil has to eat a potato. It's okay. And that seems to be the theme whenever we find ourselves at a 100 Mataditos. Maybe we're just not ordering right. If you enjoy this chain, what do you order and what do you recommend? We think we're gonna love it and then we're just like, yeah. Let's just say it's not blowing you away. Yeah, but it's a nice spot. It was comfortable to sit and chill for a while and enjoy this nice beach area. I'm really glad we came out here because this beach area has a very, very different vibe than the city center. And it's pretty epic and I love the mountains in the back. We're gonna actually take the car hopefully tomorrow to explore a little bit more. But for now, we're gonna go back to the city center and continue our food tour. Also guys, if you like to eat like we do and if you like to travel to nice places like Spain or other countries around the world, consider subscribing to our channel. Every support is highly appreciated. And if you want to further support us, you can do that at patreon.com slash dianandphil where we make additional monthly videos for certain tiers. A big thank you to our family tier patrons. Ethan Mitchell, Heather Kuffner, Hessan Metro, Tarek Malkosh, Ushi Aizart, Lee Lim, Jessica Saransak, Debbie and Ray Gordon, Jamie DeVries, and Yao Nupe. Thank you. At this point, you have four options before your late Spanish dinner. The first option is a nice siesta to sleep off that lunch wine. The second option is to climb up the Santa Barbara Castle to get a beautiful 360 view of the city. All right, so we're at the top of the Santa Barbara Castle and it was just about a 30-minute walk, hike up here. It wasn't that bad, but I think you can take a car, you can take an elevator even up here. It's a nice 360-degree view of the entire city, which I love. I'm surprised it's very layered, very garden-y, very beautiful. Yeah, it's very pretty. And the view is just amazing. So it's definitely highly recommended to go up here if you visit. Totally worth it. It's also free, so you can just come up here. It's nice. The third option is to go to one of the few open restaurants or cafes for another Kaffee con Leche to fuel yourself into the evening. You can take the German out of Germany, but you can't take the Kaffee und Kuchen site out of the schedule. And at this point, I think I enjoy coffee and cake time more than Phil. He always goes for something savory, like this Pisto Attun. And then there's option four, which is renting a scooter or car and exploring some of the surrounding areas. We were here for multiple days and rented both to explore Costa Blanca. During this time, the roads were not very busy, so the scooter was so much fun to ride around and see these beautiful mountains, small towns, and coastal beaches. And just quickly stopped by the infamous Benidorm. In our short time there, we were approached by a lovely hammered English gentleman who was practicing his Spanish with us. We stopped by charming towns like Altea. At one stop, we tried a nice blue cheese tortilla de patata. The blue cheese was very strong, but I kind of liked it. Am I becoming my father? Anyways, on our way to our last and furthest destination, we were stopped by this intense-looking cycling race. At some point, we joined the race and finally made it to Denia. All right, we stepped out in Denia. Denia is like this middle-sized town, I think, like 60,000, I want to say. I'm not sure. There's a lot of old people. They were all German so far. I was like, why are we visiting this area? He's like, it's supposed to be a good price in Iceland for heldness. And then I immediately hear like 10 groups of German people. So they're after the deals. This is a coastal city with a direct ferry to the famous Ibiza. We'll have to save that for another time because we need to make our way back to Alicante for our late Spanish dinner. All right, so it's dinner time and we came to a very residential area here in the northeast of the city. And we came to a little place called Arroceria Casa Ana. It's after eight. They open at 8 p.m. A lot of places close between four and eight. You know that by now. And we're starting with three different croquetas. These are a popular tapas found throughout Spain. And it's a deep fried filled roll. I'm going to start with this one. This is blue cheese. It's already oozing out. It's so soft on the inside. Wow, that's blue cheese. Queso Azul. Let's see. Hope it's not super hot. Yeah, recommend to give these a moment to cool down before eating. Wow, that blue cheese flavor. Very strong. I love it though. I like when the cheese is a little bit stronger, especially like fried form. My eyes are only watering because it's pretty hot. These were two euros and 30 cents each. And we ordered a blue cheese filled, a jamon filled, and a mushroom filled croquette. And out of these three, there was a clear winner. For me, it's the blue cheese one. Dang, that blue cheese one's really nice. And I'm not a big blue cheese person in general, but when it's deep fried. Nice. So it's definitely later than we normally eat, but it's already day two. And I feel like I've adjusted to the Spanish schedule. I'm just having wine during lunch. So taking a little siesta and then having wine at dinner and I think it'll be good. Yeah, I'm noticing what's going on with that. The next dish we ordered is very common in the South of Spain. And that is fried eggplants covered with cane honey. This version is topped with black sesame, pumpkin and sunflower seeds as well. Doesn't sound fully like a potato chip. No, it still has like the eggplant squishiness, but a nice like crisp edge around it because it's been deep fried. Eggplant being one of my favorite fruits. I enjoyed this dish so much, especially with the seeds. Phil was not that impressed, but fortunately the main course came out. This may look like a paella, but it's not a paella. There are so many rice dishes in Spain and this one we ordered is called arroz alicantino. It includes arroz bomba, which is a short grain rice along with chicken, squid, mussels, shrimp and crayfish. All cooked in a seafood and meat broth. This is cooked together on a burner and then finished off in the oven to get a nice crisp on both the top and bottom. This is my type of stuff. I love rice. Rice dishes are my go-to, so this is like perfect for me. The rice really soaks up the broth and meat flavors. The rice is moist but not mushy and the edges of the pan have a nice crispy texture to the rice. And I too love rice dishes, so here we go. I'm gonna put some of this rip on there. I hope it's boneless. A little bit of aioli. Good scoop right here. Taste that seafood broth. You have the crisp. Yeah, that's why I like the baking at the end because it has this nice crunch on the top. The rice tastes a little bit like the ocean in a good way and it's so juicy. I love me a good rice with some juices like pan de risotto, paella or arroz. They're all good. It's our own rice dish. So nice. For this dish in particular, I really enjoyed the flavor and the seafood, although it's always quite some deconstruction work to get your food. And I think Phil had fun trying the different seafood. All right, so that rice dish was absolutely awesome and it's not a paella, very important, but it's just as good. It's amazing. Yes, so that was our food tour in Alicante. We ate so much and we are gonna continue up north a little bit in Spain before we head back to Germany. Don't forget to use our link in the description and discount code dnfill to get four extra months Wow, so we're walking through the city in the evening and some of these streets are so quiet. It's Friday night, so it's popping. There's a lot of people out partying, but even then there's some really peaceful sections as well.