We thought maybe we’d had our fill of rice dishes for a while once Tastarròs concluded. True, but we had not had our fill of Valencia’s natural attractions. The rice-growing village of El Palmar, just six miles south of the city on the #24 bus (emtvalencia.es), sits on the shore of the Albufera. That’s the Arabic name for a big, shallow lake that was once a saltwater lagoon. Judging by the prevalence of Phragmites reeds on the shores and in small reed islands, the lake still gets some saltwater inundation. Several kinds of ducks, bitterns, egrets, and herons use the reeds for shelter. Some local residents thatch their roofs with reeds. The lake teems with eels, bream, and mullet.
Hm-m-m-m … rice and fish. Sounds like the makings of arròs a banda, the local fish paella. There’s a lively fishing industry in El Palmar, but when the locals aren’t fishing or growing rice, they’re either operating small boat tours or working in restaurants. We visited to patronize both of those professions. After all, rice-growing doesn’t start until they drain the fields and plant in May.
Getting out on the water
Lots of people offer boat tours, but we stumbled onto Natura Albufera (albuferapaseosenbarca.com) when we walked into town from the bus stop. For €5 each, we could go on a 45-minute ride through one edge of the lake in a flat-bottomed wooden boat that would hold 20 people. We signed up and listened to a guide show us maps and photos and explain the ecology. When the time came, we made sure to be in the front of the line to grab seats in the bow for taking photos. It was a low-key trip, punctuated by the flurry of ducks in the reeds, an occasional large heron flapping overhead, and the sight of fish weirs. Serene.
The tastes of El Palmar
While awaiting our boat trip, we discovered the restaurant El Palmar (restaurantelpalmar.es), which stretched from little cafe tables on the town’s main street through a sequence of tiled dining rooms to a patio out back on the canal where locals tie up their boats. It was precisely the ambiance we were seeking. Moreover, one of the less expensive menus of the day offered a dish we wanted to try. All i pebre, literally “eel and pepper,” is a soupy dish of eel segments with potatoes cooked in a spicy paprika sauce. The eels are small, so it’s easy to bone the pieces as you eat. That’s the dish below on the left.
The platter next to it was our paella valenciana that served as the main dish of the day’s menu. Seems we weren’t tired of rice after all, especially at the source. Our menu also included a salad, bread, some croquettes, dessert, and a bottle of wine to split. That cost each of us €15, or about $16.25 at the current exchange rate. The eel dish was tasty and interesting, the paella quite authentic with its crusty rice on the bottom.
