We arrived in Malaga, Spain, early this morning, which outside of Barcelona, is Spain’s oldest and most important port. Founded in 700 BC by the Phoenicians, like most Mediterranean ports, it was fought over for hundreds of years. It was under Moorish rule from 711 – 1489 until it was taken back by the Spanish Catholics. And in keeping with most Mediterranean ports we’ve visited, it’s simply picturesque.
Disney offers cruisers a variety of excursions, or Port Adventures, as Disney calls them. A lot of people are not fans of booking excursions through Disney, citing a high price point, but I’ve never found the prices to be out of whack. Sure, there are some expensive Port Adventures out there, but I won’t book them if they are too pricey. However, one of the benefits of booking through Disney is that the ship will not leave port without you if you’re not back on board when it’s time to leave. So if you elect to book your own excursion, make sure to be back on board before the ship leaves without you!
For our stop in Malaga, we opted for a private excursion through a wonderful tour company Leslie found called Tapas in Malaga (tapasinmalaga.com). The tour included four stops at various tapas bars around town, for snacks and drinks, along with a lovely walking tour of the town, narrated by our tour guide, Laura. I wasn’t aware there would be a walking tour and, despite the heat of 37C today, it was a nice addition. Also in the tour group were a number of other fellow cruisers from the Magic, including a couple and their son from New Jersey and a mother and son from the Netherlands.
Our first stop was delightful. Among the fare was goat cheese with caramelized onions, black pudding (blood sausage) deep fried with cheese, chorizo and tinto. Tinto is a drink similar to sangria, but much simpler to make. It’s red wine with lemon Fanta. It was a delightful and refreshing drink for a hot September Spanish day. Laura asked the group if we trusted her with making the food choices, in an effort to give us as authentic of an experience as possible and I’m glad we did. Laura hit the mark right out of the gate with these first choices and I found myself wanting more. Tapas are challenging. It’s a bit like when you go to a fondue restaurant. It’s all these small bits of food and you don’t think you’re going to get full, but in the end, you’re stuffed!
Having our appetites whetted, we were all ready for more as we moved onto to the next cafe. This time around, Laura went a little more traditional with her choices, which included gazpacho, baby cuttlefish sauteed in ink, anchovies in olive oil, vinegar and parsley and tuna belly on a bed of broad beans with serrano ham. And more tinto! And Spanish olives and bread. At each meal, bread and Spanish olives are the freebies on the table. While Les and I enjoyed this sampling, I don’t know that it was as popular with our fellow tour mates. Tapas are small bites that are meant to be shared by everyone at the table, and as a result, the meal becomes a bit of a social experiment. So when Laura ordered gazpacho, I was a but stumped how we were all going to share soup without also sharing a fair amount of our DNA. Luckily, our gazpacho was less like soup and more of a dip. It was thick and delicious and easy to dip bread into. Laura advised double dipping was not frowned upon when it comes to tapas. I could only think of George Costanza and how he would not have enjoyed this lax approach to the double-dip.
After a check for any impending gastronomical explosions, Laura took us to our favorite place of the afternoon, KGB. This cleverly themed restaurant is definitely new school and the chef knows what he is doing. We started off with the patatas bravas, which were small new potatoes that were partially hollowed out and refilled with a cheese and cream mixture, with a little bit of bacon and were amazing. Next, were the Flamenquines, which was a layer of ham, topped with green peppers, topped with egg and onion, then rolled into a log, deep fried and cut into slices, similar to sushi. Again, fantastico. But the winner, winner, baby pig dinner was the suckling pig slider. If you’ve ever had pork belly, this is that, times 10, on a bun with a little mustard. I could have eaten these all day long. And instead of tinto this time around, all the food items at KGB were accompanied by a locally produced white wine, a moscato called Botani. So tasty, we decided to take a bottle back to the ship for the reasonable price of 16 Euro.
Last on the list was a stop at La Queseria to finish with some fine Spanish cheese and a dessert wine. First, I’ll get the bad news out of the way. The dessert wine was akin to drinking raisin syrup. Unlike the gazpacho, it was thick and not so delicious. Other than that, the cheese course was great. We had goat’s milk cheese, a nice Manchego, a bleu cheese, a cream cheese and a cow’s milk cheese that our hostess Laura had some difficulty describing, but landed on the name “titty cheese”, because, “the cheese, once finished, is in the shaped of a boob, a titty.” And after all, I suppose that’s where all cheese get its start, so an appropriate label, nonetheless. The cheese course was a delicious and fun way to end the day.
And with that, our time in Malaga was over and after a quick trip back to the ship, it was time for a nap before heading off to dinner at the refreshed Animator’s Palate. AP is one of the rotational restaurants that puts on a show, where the dining room transforms from black and white to color. The only problem I had with AP during previous visits was it was always cramped. The redesign has opened the dining room considerably, giving it a cleaner, more open feel. Unfortunately, after having such great food while ashore today, tonight’s dinner was only average, with an overcooked piece of red snapper on my plate, which was fine, as hunger was still a distant memory. Although, that didn’t stop me from having the cookies and cream ice cream sundae.
It’s now a little after 11:00pm and we’ve just passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, leaving the Mediterranean Sea behind and saying hello to the Atlantic ocean. It’s time for two sea days before our next port of call, Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
Yummy for everything except the dessert wine. I have had some of those seems like they are all gross.
One would think that you vacation purely based on food…
Jen – not solely, but let’s say food does play a MAJOR role…