Gibraltar ~ How to peel an onion

After leaving our beautiful villa in Sotogrande we headed to Gibraltar for a few days to check out my parents' new neighbourhood. We had lunch down by the pretty little harbour before settling down for the night.

Pops in very appropriate nautical stripes

The next day we mooched around Main Street - which is the centre of the little town. It's quite small, but has a lot of people milling about in the Summer. It's still owned by Britain today, so it's got a real homey feel to it, it's official language is English but many people are bilingual so we still tried (poorly!) to speak a bit of Spanish to the locals.

The next day we popped over to Casemates Square for lunch. This area back in the day was actually once the centre of public executions. Luckily not any more, there's just little cafes, the odd bar and a great fish market in the mornings.

For lunch we started with a Spanish favourite, gazpacho, which is a lovely and refreshing cold Andalucian soup. The ones I have had are normally made from tomato, cucumber and onion, and it's eaten a lot in Span and Portugal.

We then had some delicious plump black olives with fresh anchovy. A lot of people don't like these salty little fish, but I love them (they're actually a magnificent addition to a spinach pizza).

For my main I went for the swordfish special, which came with a fresh and zingy bean salad, pesto and finally topped with rocket. Normally I wouldn't go for swordfish as it's quite...erm fishy. Well you know what I mean, really fresh fish shouldn't be too fishy should it?? Well this one wasn't - it was meaty, juicy and tasted like it had been plucked from the sea that morning.

Tomasz went for a simple tagliatelle bolognese, and my parents had the calamari. These little babies were divine - my favourites are the whole mini squids where you can eat the tentacles. Yum. Luckily it's a custom in our family to always give each other a bite of what you are having so you can sample a bit of everything. I think it's a great system, especially if you have food envy. I'm always looking for a great calamari recipe to try out - does anyone have one to share with me? Please let me know!