Counter Intelligence: Ración is Basque country

San Sebastian's old town may be the most food-intensive neighborhood in the world, with street after street of pintxos bars and taverns and roaring restaurants, and hundreds of counters heaped with shellfish, hams and roasted meat — the answer to a tapas lover's sweatiest dream. You stumble down the crowded streets of this Basque city, stopping in one bar for its anchovies, another for its famous cuttlefish, another for the delicious spider crabs, washing each down with a glass of cider or thin, acidic Txakolina wine.

By Jonathan Gold

May 25, 2012