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

Palma eats: three places to try

Ca'n Joan De S'aigo

Here are three places we discovered on our weekend in Mallorca that are worthy of a mention.

The first is Ca'n Joan De S'aigo. We stumbled on this café on our first afternoon in Mallorca as we were waiting to meet up with the host of our Air BnB apartment and returned three times during our stay.

Open since 1700 this place has gone through the phase of looking faded and has come out as a classic with tiled floors, marble tables and some interesting pots and mirrors dotted around the place.

Ensaimada

On our second visit we all tried the ensaimada, a traditional Mallorcan pastry made with an enriched dough. The pastry has a layered quality like filo but was much softer and less brittle. I've seen some recipes say that ensaimada are made with pork lard, but I never would have guessed based on the taste.

On our third and final visit I had a cup of the strawberry ice cream. Incredible value at just over 2 EUR this was the taste of summer with a beautiful strawberry flavour. Having seen other tables try the ice cream I'm definitely pleased that I got to sample some before leaving Palma.

Strawberry ice cream 

Ca'n Joan De S'aigo

Carrer Can Sanç, 10, 

07001 Palma, 

Illes Balears

Jamon y queso

On our first night we visited the nearby Molto Barra and were the first people through the doors as they raised the shutters at 19:30.

We ordered a bottle of Mallorcan red wine. We thought we should try a local wine and the barman commended us on our choice saying that Mallorcan wine has been going through a bit of a resurgence recently.

I was keen for my first taste of jamon so we ordered a plate of jamon y queso. What appeared was a plate of thick sliced Serrano ham, a sheep's cheese similar to manchego, toast rubbed with garlic and then covered in fresh tomato, olives and a few pickles. It was bloody brilliant and it only cost 9 EUR. I still think that must be a mistake, but as it was an off-menu item we've got no idea what it should have cost.

A Punt, Mallorcan Red

Molto Barra 
Carrer del Pes de la Farina, 12,
07001 Palma,
Illes Balears

Mike and Ed outside Mercado Gastronómico San Juan

On our Sunday stroll north of the city centre we found ourselves at the Mercado Gastronómico San Juan. The former abattoir which has been converted into a cinema, supermarket and upmarket food court.

(I was a bit surprised at how upmarket the place was. The prices were higher than several restaurants we'd visited in the centre of the city and while not being in a bad area, it wasn't the most well heeled either. However, it was definitely popular with the locals who arrived en masse to enjoy Sunday lunch.)

Inside the mercado

I started with a chorizo tortilla which came with a skewer of padron peppers on top. Padron peppers were a staple tapa when Becks and I were in Madrid and Seville so I was pleased to be able to taste some on this trip too.

The tortilla wasn't quite filling enough, and tempted by lots of people with boards of croquetas y rebozados I decided to order six to try. My Spanish isn't the greatest so my selections were a bit of a shot in the dark but I went for flavours I recognised as 'cheese', 'chorizo' and 'squid'. The tastes were a bit 'acquired' for me but the locals seemed to be hoovering them up.

Tortilla

Mercado Gastronómico San Juan
Carrer de l'Emperadriu Eugènia, 6,
07010 Palma,
Illes Balears

Palma, Mallorca: a civilised boys' weekend

Palma's cathedral

A few weekends ago Ed, Mike and I jetted off to Palma for our first boys' weekend since our adventure in Lyon at the end of 2015.

Friday was a complete washout with torrential rain all day. We made the best of it by hopping between a few nice bars, but I was beginning to wonder what we'd done. Had we chosen a dud destination?

Parc de la Mar / Lagoon in front of the cathedral

Ed and I woke up early(ish) on Saturday morning and headed out for a run along the coast. The sun had come out and a beautiful walled city was revealing itself. Any thoughts that we'd come somewhere duff were completely dispelled.

Palma has a compact centre with lots of narrow streets and small squares. It was perfect for exploring on foot and we were never far from somewhere that we recognised so it was easy to get back to our apartment any time that we wanted to.

Inside the merchants hall

We started Saturday off by walking down to the cathedral and then doing a loop of the Parc de la Mer / lagoon. We continued our drift west and stumbled across the Lonja de Mallorca, the beautiful merchant's hall with its spiralled columns and high ceilings. I saw a sign saying that there were great views from the roof, but unfortunately none of the corner stair cases were open to enable us to get up there.

After a coffee stop in a pleasant little square near the merchants hall we found ourselves in the Santa Catalina area and when we saw the local covered market I immediately wanted to go inside. There were lots of locals shopping at the stalls selling meat (fresh and cured), fish and fruit & vegetables. There were a few places to stand around and eat and drink at stalls preparing some of the fresh produce.

Mercat de Santa Catalina

After a lazy, and incredibly good value fixed priced lunch, we spent the afternoon drifting round more of the historic centre of Palma and checking out the few bits of Gaudi architecture that we stumbled across (below).

On Sunday morning Ed and I repeated our run along the coast on an equally bright and sunny morning. We saw people setting up for what we guessed was a local 5km or 10km race and quite a few other people out exercising on the path along the coast.

Gaudi designed opticians

Having pretty thoroughly explored the centre of town on Friday and Saturday we decided to head north from the centre. We had breakfast in Plaça d'Espanya and then continued north through the Parc de les Estacions. We were drifting without too much of a plan and came across the bull ring in the backstreets. There were high fences all the way round the ring and it had the look of somewhere which might be abandoned, but it was a very impressive structure so hopefully it doesn't fall into disrepair.

Bull ring

We made our away across to the San Juan Gastronomic Market for lunch before making our way back into the centre to grab our bags and then to take the bus back to the airport for our flight back to London.

Thanks Palma for the great weekend!

Colourful streets of Palma