Palma Pintxos, Mallorca

Pintxos at Tast Union

We checked out a few restaurant options for the Saturday night of our trip to Palma, but with none of them appealing, we decided to do some bar hopping instead.

The first place that we visited was Tast Union. Grabbing some seats at the counter we were a little unsure of the etiquette, but the form seemed to be that you helped yourself to plates from the pintxos counter (that either came in single or double servings). We also ordered a couple of dishes from the tapas menu.

Prawn, whitebait and salmon

The pintxos at Tast Union were really, really, good. Not only did every plate look amazingly appealing but there were also so many tasty combinations of flavour in every single bite. I particularly remember the courgette, jamon and garlic mayo pintxos (photo below) and an anchovy and jamon number with basil oil.

Chorizo in cider and cured sheep's cheese

Slightly less successful than the pintxos, for me, were the tapas that we also ordered. The chorizo in cider wasn't a patch on the version from L'Oculto. I'm usually a big fan of manchego style cheeses, but here it was easy to be eclipsed by the pintxos.

Courgette, ham and garlic mayonaise

Realising that we were somewhere very good we had a couple of extra pintxos rather than moving in case we ended up somewhere disappointing.

Tast Union
Calle Unio, 2, 

07001 Palma, 

Illes Balears,

Spain

When we did finally tear ourselves away we crossed the road and headed up a small side street and straight into La 5a Puñeta, which was equally great but in a completely different way. Where Tast Union on the main drag was polished, this place felt a lot more like an authentic local bar that hadn't changed a bit in the last ten years,

The small restaurant was filled with families and young locals looking to get their pintxos hit. Plates of food were brought out from the kitchen and placed on the bar. The crowds then descended to help themselves and if you didn't get in quick you were likely to miss out!

I remember trying the tortilla from the photo above which was really salty, but it worked very well.

Payment seemed to almost be on a honesty system where you went up to the counter on your way out of the bar and showed them the number of cocktail sticks that you had and told them how many glasses of wine that you'd drunk. Proving that honesty system do work when I realised I couldn't have paid enough, in my faltering Spanish I asked them if they'd charged us for the carrot cake (which they hadn't).

Carrot cake

I was pretty surprised both places charged the same for their pintxos at 1.75 EUR a pop. They are absolutely both worth a try. Tast Union won on presentation and just edged the flavour combinations for me. La 5a Puñeta wins on atmosphere and the fun factor.

La 5a Puñeta
Carrer de les Caputxines, 3
07003 Palma
Illes Balears
Spain