I haven’t gone on any amazing trips yet, but I did do something pretty cool. Everyone knows that Spain is known for its tapas: little bites of food like appetizers. My friend and I went on a tapeo: going from restaurant to restaurant eating tapas. The city I live in, Tarragona, hosts “Tarraco Tapes” every spring and fall, perfect for bingeing on tapas.

For two weeks during the fall, Tarragona does “Tarraco Tapes” where restaurants prepare a special tapa. There were over 60 restaurants participating, meaning a wide variety of tapas! We started about 5 in the afternoon, but most places didn’t start serving until 8 at night.

Basically, at each restaurant you pay €2.50 for one of their tapas and a drink. We ate at eight different restaurants throughout the night. You eat your tapas, enjoy your drink, and engage in conversation with your amics. So here is my rundown of the places I tapeo-ed.

Capuccino (Plaça del Font): Ravioli cruixent de botifarra del perol

At this restaurant, the tapa was a ravioli filled with botifarra (a type of Catalan sausage) and it was drizzled with a soy sauce-esque sauce. This was probably one of my favorites of the night and I could have eaten about ten more of these!

Denominación de Origen: Divinity!!!

A simple tapa, consisting of pork meat on top of a piece of Galician bread. There were also peppers on top, but since I’m picky, I picked them off and let the others eat them. There wasn’t anything super special about this one, but the meat did taste really good!

La Fàbrica: Autumnus

This was your basic hamburger that was served with a cracker underneath. I didn’t eat them together, but I ate the cracker first and then the hamburger. It was good, but nothing that stood out in my mind.

La Nova Taverna: La bomba

This was perhaps one of the coolest tapas of the night, and also one of the bests. It was basically meat wrapped in potato and then topped with bread crumb-thingys. There was also a pipette with braves sauce that you could put into the ball to make it spicier*.

*(not really spicy at all)

Piscolabis: El mos de Piscolabis

This was definitely an interesting combination. We ate a sausage wrapped in a bread with caramel drizzled overtop. It also had chestnuts. Chestnuts are super popular here during the fall. I don’t really like nuts so I had to try to eat as little as I could. The sausage was really good, but I ended up making a giant mess because I accidentally pulled the sausage out which then made the bread crumble.

Take Away Sushi: Ebi Fry

So we were definitely a little concerned about going to get tapas at a sushi restaurant, but it actually turned out well! It was basically a giant prawn/shrimp with some sauce and toppings. It was super messy though, and there weren’t any seats, so we had to eat it standing up. Still, it was still very tasty.

Tòful: La Tofuleta

Don’t be fooled by the name! There was no tofu here. This tapa was a mini-hamburger that had different ingredients in it: tomato, vegetables, onion, etc. (although I picked off the things I didn’t want, of course). It was a decent tapa, but not my favorite of the night.

Txantxangorri: Mangonguilles amb sípia

Say that name five times fast! At everyone’s favorite Basque restaurant, we ate meatballs with cuttlefish. This was probably my least favorite of the night. I thought everything tasted quite strange, but everyone else seemed to like it. Even though I didn’t enjoy the dish that much, I still highly recommend the restaurant on any other night!

This was definitely a great experience! I think they do it twice a year, so I am hoping that I can do it again in spring. It was quite funny, too, because we had to navigate around anything that had too much fish, tomatoes, and cheese because some of us are picky eaters! If you ever get the opportunity to go out for tapas (and not the “go to a restaurant and order patates braves, tortilla, and croquettes” kind), you should definitely seize the opportunity! Remember not to take things too fast and enjoy life the Spanish way!