Coffee and Horchata with pastry twists

Location: Cafe at Valencia railway station, Spain
Date: 27 June 2009
Details: Coffee, horchata and pastry twists

Notes: Firstly, please admire the inlaid marble penguin in the table-top. Guapo, si? This is a logo for a brand of Spanish beer.

The coffee smelled good but was entirely consumed by The Lion.

Horchata is far more interesting - a local speciality which all guidebooks advise the traveller to sample - it is indeed delicious. The drink made from ground rice and nuts flavoured with vanilla - sounds like a pudding but it's very tasty and probably to be consumed in moderation due to the calorific nut content.

Horchata recipe from Good Food TV >>

The crunchy pastry twists are from a packet I found in a Spar supermarket. Made with wholemeal flour, the packet proclaimed the health benefits of their product. Hmm. Yes, you might be consuming some dietary fibre but they still contained the usual butter and sugar! Still, dunked in the coffee and horchata, whether indulgent or healthy, they tasted great.

Hot Chocolate, Fartons and Hello Kitty Biscuits

Location: Valencia
Date: 25 June 2009
Details: Hot chocolate with fartons, and a novelty Hello Kitty biscuit

Notes: Fartons. Spanish for "dry iced bun stick" and nothing about that name for an English-speaker to snigger at, noooo not at all.

The delicious Spanish hot chocolate is an entirely different beast to the English stuff made with powder and hot milk. This is like a liquid pudding, possibly one of the many failed 'chocolate fon-dont' puds which line the path to Masterchef victory. Would be delicious with a nice English shortbread...

Sadly the Hello Kitty biscuit wasn't a quality product. Hastily acquired in the nearby El Corte Ingles supermarket in the Aqua shopping centre, it was over-processed, dry and boring. But The Lion enjoyed the enclosed miniature Kitty plastic toy.

This ice-cream parlour served hot drinks with a little packet of these Smarties-like sweets.

Tea with Chocolate and Mint Cake

Direccion: La cafeteria Dos Mil en Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote

Fecha: Enero, 2008

Notas: Una taza de té y torta de chocolate y menta.

Coffee and Carrot Cake

Direccion: La cafeteria Dos Mil en Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote

Fecha: Enero, 2008

Notas: Un café solo y torta de la zanahoria

Chocolate de Otoño y Ensaimada

Location: 'Los classicos de café', Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote
Date: February 2008

Notes: A very boozy hot chocolate ('otoño' - chocolate, crema catalana y nata) and ensaimada - a simple flakey sweet pastry rolled into a curl.