We decided to have the “All i Pebre”, because you can eat paella in many places trough out Valencian region but Albufera Natural Park is the heart of this traditional fisherman’s dish.

The fishermen in the past lived from the land and so what they could get hold of went into the stew, for example eels from the lake and potatoes, peppers and garlic from the land.

Eeels, as in London, are found predominately in Albufera and are the main ingredients in this traditional valencian dish that rivals paella, although is compliments paella if you order it as a small “tapa” dish as starter. You can however order it as a starter or as a main course.

The thing is that this dish is synonymous with the region and is typical only here, so you must try it. The ingredients combine to give the dish a peculiar, but sweet taste with the peppers, garlic and potatoes together with eels making a excellent quartet.

“All i pebre” literally translated means “garlic and peppers”.

“El Palmar” is a small town of 700 inhabitants in the Valencia district, situated in the heart of the Albufera natural park. It has more than 30 restaurants, so you can imagine what the majority of the people here do for a living… in the month of June, every year, there is a “All I Pebre” competition where all of the restaurants compete and this is a good time to try the dishes.

El Palmar is small town and it’s better to leave the car in one of the free car parks just outside of the town, and in two minutes you can walk to the center and the numerous restaurants.

We have provided a link of the 10 best restaurants on Tripadvisor, obviously we couldn’t try all of them but we were in the mood to!

On this occasion we went to “Ca Mateu”. The dish was fantastic, the service likewise and the general ambient was ok, we would recommended.

And after our gastronomic experience and took advantage of the fact we were in the heart of the natural park we did the traditional thing and paid for a local boat trip on the lake. If you can arrange it, try to book a boat trip around sunset, as it’s not so hot and the colors are spectacular.