Eating Out In Guardamar del Segura

Local And International Cuisine In Guardamar del Segura On The Costa Blanca

In Guardamar del Segura the choice of cuisine is extremely varied. You are bound to find a restaurant to suit your taste, and your pocket. You will find a host of restaurants serving a variety of dishes, starting at under €10 (around £7) for a three course meal. Eating out in the Costa Blanca is fun and there are pleanty of places to discover the traditional Spanish dishes.

International Cuisine

If you want a choice of international cuisine whilst in the Costa Blanca, Guardamar has a huge variety of fantastic restaurants to choose from. You could eat Greek, Italian, Hungarian, Chinese, German, American or English dishes and still eat at a different restaurant every night. If you like Chinese food there are some fabulous Chinese restaurants where you can have a four course meal for two with a bottle of wine included for around €15.

Local Valencian Cuisine

Guardamar del Segura has a fine mixture of restaurants serving traditional Spanish food and drinks. You will find restaurants that are geared towards tourists but also a large selection of the much more traditional Spanish restaurants where the locals eat.

The Valencian cuisine is based on a fertile 'huerta' or market garden, and fresh fish and shellfish caught from the Mediterranean. Fruits and vegetables are available at almost any time of year. There is an abundance of wonderful fresh food from which to base the many fantastic Valencian dishes.

Spanish Rice is the basis for many classic Valencian dishes as it is grown here in abundance. The famous Paella is a typical Valencian dish, whilst usually meat based with rabbit or chicken and greens it is common to find a seafood paella especially in coastal villages. Another typical dish of the region is fideuà it is similar to Paella but is made with noodles instead of rice.

There are other traditional rice dishes cooked to keep people happy and on their feet, including many savoury rice stews cooked in earthenware bowls. These are usually a more economical meal and include ingredients such as cardoons, beet tops, dried haricot beans, diced cuttlefish and cauliflower, or turnip cubes, pork sausages, spinach, chick peas or lentils. Other rice based dishes include arroz al horno, arroz a banda with fish and shellfish and arroz caldosa. Alicante has a rice stew variety known as arroz caldoset. The rice dishes are traditionally served with allioli a traditional side dish made with olive oil and garlic and often served with bread.

Other popular Valencian dishes are "Gazpacho", a cold soup of bread, tomatoes, garlic, salt, vinegar and oil, Olla churra, made from pieces of pork and black pudding, "Hervido" made with beans and potato and "Chorizo" which is a spiced pork sausage.

Many of the desserts have their roots in Arabic origins including rosegons, arrop i talladetes, and arnadí, pumpkin pastries or other sweetmeats made during local festivities, such as Easter buns and Sant Dionís sweets in October. Also there are an abundant variety of delicious fresh fruits, including strawberries, melons, oranges, grapes and cherries to mention but a few. Turrón is a fantastic nougat based confectionary from the area around Alicante and the chocolate from Villajoyosa is worth trying.

There are a selection of drinks worth mentioning. Tiger nuts are grown outside Valencia city are ground up into tiger nut milk "horchata" and served cool on hot summer days. This has become so famous that it is now bottled and sold throughout Spain. Another drink is agua de Valencia, a mixture of orange juice and cava, which has won many followers. The wines in this region are fantastic. Don't be frightened to buy a bottle of wine costing as little as €1 (or less) as often these are delicious.