Paella

On Sunday October 28, 2007, we visited our friends, Susan, Pedro, Laura and Sarah, in Denia. For lunch, we had a delicious chicken paella (take-out from a local restaurant, El Farallo) in its traditional pan. Paella (also frying pan in Valencian – from Latin patella) is a rice dish cooked with saffron and olive oil and garnished with vegetables, meat and seafood (it is nearly impossible to find paella without some sort of sea animal as an ingredient - and all of these animals have parts left intact!). I learned that the rice in paella tastes so good because it is cooked in a large pan, hence, spread flat for each grain to absorb the flavor. I heard that Vicente's mom makes the best Paella around here!

The sizes for paella pans vary from 10” to 52” (they use larger ones for the festivities but only via special acquisition); and to cook in these large pans, they use special burners and tripods to hold the burners – if you don’t use burners, the food on the outer rim of the pan does not get properly cooked. Paella is the main dish for picnics, family and community gatherings (like the ones at our apartment building) in this region as we have pizza or subs. The most famous paella cooking is performed during Fallas in Valencia (a Valencian tradition to celebrate St. Joseph Day on March 19th). There are many myths about how the paella was originated. The most plausible one seems to be the one with mixing the leftover rice dishes into one! In Middle East, there are rice dishes prepared similarly, but not festively.

The most exotic part of paella is saffron and it is unbelievably expensive. The spice is derived from the stigma of saffron crocus flower. Each flower has only 3 stigmas so about 40 flowers yield 1 ounce of saffron (1 acre of plantation yields about 10 lbs!) and the price varies from $20.00 to $45.00 per ounce depending on its grade (there are 4 different quality grades). For a paella dish to serve 6-8 persons, you might need to use only about 1/10th of an ounce.

Anyways, we later discovered the restaurant for the best prepared traditional paella in the region: Puig Mola Restaurant.

Finding the place was an adventure in itself! Following the directions as we drove, we often doubted that this could possibly be a famous place and anyone would take the trouble getting here just to eat paella... In disbelief, we finally found the place and noticed the fancy cars parked around. So it was true: it was a well-known restaurant and people do come here just to eat paella. The restaurant was located in a small town called Puig Mola near Barx (about 15 km from Gandia) and surrounded by total of 6 visible houses. Perched on a hill, it had a spectacular view of the prairie below and surrounding mountains above (including the one that I had hiked before with some friends).

Yes, it is definitely worth the trip if you can. The traditional chicken and rabbit paella was the best at this restaurant among the ones we had tried in Spain. For the seafood paella lovers, El Farallo Restaurant was the best by our experience. Both places require a reservation. At Muig Mola, they need to know how many in your party so they can prepare your food ahead of time.

Puig Mola Info: Puig Mola Restaurant Barx (Valencia) Phone: 96 280 7008; 606 073 131
El Farallo Info: C/. fenix, 10 Las Rotas Denia (Alicante) Phone: 96 643 0652