Annual Tapas Competition – Round I

Every year in November, Toledo mounts a tapas competition, “La Jornada De La Tapa”. Bars and restaurants create their own special tapa, and our job is to trawl from place to place until we cannot squeeze in another morsel for fear of bursting out of our seams.

Of course, a glass of wine or beer is mandatory with every sampling, I leave it up to you to imagine the state of the judging panel by the end of a 3-hour assessment round. But someone’s got to do it.

The tapas are priced at €2 this year, and there are 82 participating bars and restaurants in Toledo.

This tapas contest is serious stuff, you understand – here are the leaflet and the voting slip.

My (already a bit tipsy) co-judges Olga and Carmen

Oh, the anticipation 😉
Steak cooked in soy sauce, with foie gras and and fig salsa.

Fried Iberian pancetta, chickpea stew with vinaigrette. Sounds like a weird combo, but it was delish!

I didn’t take pics of all the tapas we snarfed, but the one below was the definite winner for me:

Glazed Iberian pork with hummus and onions. The meat was melt-in-the-mouth tender and the flavour out of this world.

We finished off with cake, of course:

‘La Malquerida’ has probably the best carrot cake I’ve ever eaten anywhere. And I’ve eaten a lot of carrot cake in my life 😉 This one’s very moist and not too sweet, and I even love the frosting, which I usually just scrape off.

We’re planning on another tapas judging expedition next Sunday. I hope to be a bit more consistent when it comes to taking photos of those lovely creations before gobbling them up.