Category: Spanish

This is my fourth installment of The ‘Dines List, a series of rambling reviews that extol the virtues of sardines and other tinned seafood, which I eat quite often. The goal is to review new and interesting tinned fish and shellfish I discover in my travels (or friends send me as gifts), and also to win over the sardine-skeptical.  Sardines in particular are very healthy due to being pure protein and full of omega-3 fatty acids.  They are mostly environmentally friendly since they are tiny little fellers who are low on the food chain.  And they are surprisingly delicious — far tastier and less “fishy” than the uninitiated might think.

A few years back, sardines started going viral for being “hot girl food” (check that Vogue article if you don’t believe me!), which really raised their profile and made these humble little fish both trendy and sexy.  Well, I am neither hot, nor a girl, nor sexy, and rarely am I trendy, but I’ve been flying my fish flag since I was a poor college student decades ago.  Now I eat them because I like them, not because I have to.  I guess I’m just ahead of my time, like with the whole loving superheroes thing, ever since I was a little kid in the early ’80s, long before they were cultural icons.  Awww, I’ll never be a cultural icon.

(But good grief, there is already some backlash against the whole tinned fish trend, and I blame the criticism on the fact that women have embraced it.  Let people — and especially women — enjoy things!  Be curious, not judgmental!)

Anyway, back in 2021, I wrote my first riveting installment of The ‘Dines List, which I titled Canned Sardines 101, listing and reviewing some of my favorites and providing advice and recommendations for the ‘dine-curious.  Then I started getting geographical with The ‘Dines List 2: Mission to Morocco!, where I only reviewed Moroccan sardines, and The ‘Dines List 3: Postcards from Portugal, where I only covered Portuguese tinned seafood.  As you might guess, these countries along the Mediterranean Sea have huge fishing and canning industries, as well as a culture and tradition of dining on ‘dines.  I wrote about Portuguese sardines way back in March 2023, so it was only fitting that I’d get around to Spanish sardines and other tinned seafood eventually.  Spain and Portugal produce the most serious gourmet tins, and I’ve been trying as many different varieties as I could in the meantime.  So with all due respect to the legendary Miles Davis, welcome to The ‘Dines List 4: Sketches of Spain.

I found Vigo hot spiced sardines in sunflower oil at Mazzaro’s Italian Market in St. Petersburg, a place I always recommend and rave about.  As sardines and other tinned seafood have become more popular and trendy, Mazzaro’s has dramatically increased its tinned seafood selection with a lot of higher-end Spanish and Portuguese brands that you won’t find at everyday supermarkets.  These Vigo sardines are some of the cheaper ones at Mazzaro’s, for $2.99.  I’ve also seen them at Walmart, but just the big Supercenter near me, not the smaller Neighborhood Markets.  Does anyone else think of Vigo the Carpathian coming alive inside the painting in Ghostbusters 2, whenever they see this Spanish food brand?  No?  Just me?  It can’t just be me!

Once I drained most of the oil, these definitely weren’t as pretty, so maybe you get what you pay for.  I either ate these bad boys straight out of the tin or dumped them on top of a salad.  I recall them being perfectly okay, but I’ve had better — read on to see some of them!

I bought these La Española sardines in “oil – spiced & piquant” at Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery, an awe-inspiring Italian market and deli in Los Angeles’ beautiful Santa Monica neighborhood.  Bay Cities is a West L.A. icon that has been open since 1925.  I bought several sandwiches and a bunch of snacks there on a work trip in April 2025, including a few different La Española tins, since I’ve never seen this brand for sale anywhere in Florida.  That way I had food for my hotel room and for work lunches, since I never rent a car in Los Angeles.  At some point, I’ll get around to writing a Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery review, because it deserves one.

These were larger sardines — firm and meaty, not super-spicy, but just fine for eating out of the tin in a hotel room like the most depressing film noir antihero ever.  I don’t remember finding the pickle and carrot slices pictured on the outer box, but they may have been under the ‘dines.

These Jadran sardines with hot pepper are interesting, because they seem to be harvested from the Adriatic Sea (between the boot of Italy and Croatia), but the box specified they are a product of Spain — perhaps processed there.  I think I bought them at either the huge International Food Club out on L.B. McLeod Road off John Young Parkway (a super-fun place to browse and discover treasures) or at Tima’s House, the small Euro-Balkan market in Longwood.

They weren’t the prettiest sardines ever, but I have plenty of silvery beauties coming up:

I added them to a nice salad, so isn’t this a work of art?  Dig the jammy hard-boiled eggs and beautiful pickled onions I made myself.

I’m pretty sure I picked up these Serrats small sardines in olive oil when they were on sale at our friendly neighborhood Fresh Market, because I don’t like paying full price for the fancy Spanish and Portuguese sardine brands. 

These were attractive, silvery fish, packed tightly and beautifully in their tin.  (I had already drained the oil here.)  I think more people would like sardines if they all looked this nice and orderly, since people eat with their eyes.  But did they taste good?

I served them on some lightly toasted Cuban bread with more of my homemade pickled onions from a different batch and some sliced tomatoes.  As you can see, they fell apart a bit as I removed them from their tight tin, but these were very good.

Fresh Market is where I’ve bought the vast majority of my Matiz sardines as well.  I am nuts for lemon desserts, but not as big on lemon in savory dishes.  Still, I had to try these Matiz wild sardines with natural lemon essence.

Trust me, they looked a lot less blurry in real life.  I don’t recall them tasting super-lemony, which was fine with me, but they didn’t make a strong impact on my memory, which means they weren’t mind-blowingly amazing or mind-blowingly awful.  I probably wouldn’t buy this variety again as a result, but I never regret trying anything.

My next Matiz product was their wild spicy sardines with piri piri pepper in olive oil, also from Fresh Market:

My only experience with piri piri peppers so far had been in hot sauce from Nando’s, the South African grilled chicken chain I tried in Chicago and still need to write about.  If Nando’s opened locations in Orlando, it would be a license to print money, but you can buy Nando’s piri piri-based hot sauce  (they call it peri peri there) and “Perinaise” at Publix and Fresh Market.  Just one look at these ‘dines made me think they would have a nice, vinegary, tangy bite to them.   

I had these with some rice after draining most of the oil, and sprinkled them with some crispy fried jalapeños.  They were a great little lunch, and barely spicy at all on their own.  The little included pepper is usually like an empty sack of seeds and never terribly pleasant to eat, but do I try every time?  YUP!

I had an even better feeling about these Matiz wild small sardines with sweet piquillo peppers, because I always think smaller sardines taste better and have better textures than the larger ones, and piquillo peppers make everything better.

They looked nice and silvery in the tin after I drained most of the oil.

I don’t even remember what kind of dark, crusty bread I ate with these little ‘dines, but I spread some cream cheese underneath them.  They were excellent, and for a change, the little peppers were pleasant to eat.  I always appreciate a piquillo pepper, though.

I liked these so much that I tried another tin on a different nice salad:

A while back, an old friend mailed me these Donostia Foods sardines in spiced sauce, and I knew they would be awesome.  She runs The Back Yard restaurant and bar in Baltimore and started their imported gourmet tinned seafood program, which sounds like a big hit.

I knew that despite a nondescript box, these would be special sardines because they included olive oil, tomato, carrot, cucumber, red pepper, onion, “spices,” and salt.  They were some of the most delicious ‘dines I’ve ever had. 

Here they are on a cracker with a wee cornichon from the tin.  This was a well-balanced bite of food!

I am lucky to have true and dear friends in my life, and sometimes they even hook me up with tinned seafood.  I hope you all have people like this in your own lives.  My best foodie friend and his wonderful girlfriend surprised me with these Los Peperetes sardinillas (small sardines), which he had read raving reviews about.  She was already in Spain, and he sent her on a special mission to track these down for me.  Can you imagine going to that trouble for someone you haven’t even met yet?  They are awesome, and so were these Los Peperetes.

Look at how beautifully packed these tiny sardinillas are!  Los Peperetes did an artful job.
Even the tiny tails were lightly crispy.  Yes, you can eat the tails, and you won’t choke or anything.  I like them.

I had to include this photo to show that there was a whole second layer of tightly packed fish below the top layer.  It was the gift that keeps on giving!  These were really something special.  I ate them plain at first, to get the full effect without any other distracting flavors, but I still have one more tin that I’m saving for a special occasion (or maybe a nice treat if we lose power during hurricane season).  You can’t ask for better quality sardines than these, or better quality friends than mine!   

The same dude surprised me a different time with this assortment of imported Spanish tinned seafood from Conservas de Cambados, which blew my mind.  This freakin’ guy!  What a mensch!  I had never heard of this brand before or seen them for sale locally, but I recently saw them for the first time “in the wild” at the aforementioned Mazzaro’s Italian Market in St. Petersburg.  I was absolutely blown away by his generosity and excited to dig into each of these.

There was only one tin of sardines in the box, but I knew they would be great because they were small.  Luckily for us, the label tells us the tin contains fish (sardines, in fact)!

This was up there with the Serrats and the Los Peperetes for gorgeous presentation.  I definitely think more people would eat sardines if more tins looked like this:

Here they are on some toasted Cuban bread… or maybe this was a Cusano’s hoagie roll, which I make a special trip to Gordon Food Service to buy.  There were a bunch of these little guys!  I might have added some lettuce, tomato, onion, and a splash of vinaigrette after the photo op, but I wanted to photograph them in an unadulterated manner first.

Wait a minute, ye scurvy scalawag!  This next thing isn’t a sardine!  I know, I know — it is line-caught Spanish white tuna belly, also from the Conservas de Cambados assortment.  I love tuna in all its forms: raw in sushi or poke, seared as a posh appetizer or entree, or even the cheap canned stuff in a tuna salad sandwich or tuna melt.  I hardly ever eat canned tuna because of the mercury, and because the smell of regular canned tuna makes my wife gag in a way that sardines (luckily for both of us) do not.  But this was a rare and decadent treat, and this was the best place to include it. 

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it looked a hell of a lot more appetizing than the cheap “chunk light” tuna in natural spring water that I grew up eating, and packing the fish in oil rather than water makes it smell a lot less offensively fishy.   

After draining the oil, I enjoyed it on some toasted Cuban bread with a light slathering of Duke’s mayo underneath.  I make really good tuna salad (and chicken salad, and egg salad), but this was such a luxurious product, I didn’t want to dilute the flavor with any other distractions.  As you might guess, it was a cut above any canned tuna I’ve ever had in my life.  It just tasted rich — not necessarily fatty, but not “fishy” and definitely not dry.

The Conservas de Cambados gift box also included a tin of line-caught Spanish white tuna in olive oil, which I forgot to photograph, but it was also really good, I assure you.  And the other tins in the photo above were scallops and two different types of octopus, which I will tell you about later.

As long as we’re talking about delicious Spanish tuna, this is my most recent discovery from Bravo Supermarket, the Latin grocery store chain with multiple locations here in the Orlando area: Conchita Fritada de Atun, or Zesty Tuna Fish Dip.  It was essentially a tuna paté blended smoothly with tomatoes, pimento, onions, pickles, “spices,” rice flour, and sunflower oil.  It might look like cat food, but it tasted luxurious and was absolute heaven to eat, meow meow.  I dipped some toasted pita bread wedges in it, and I loved every moment.  It was cheap, too — had to be $2.99 or at most, $3.99.  It would be easy enough to make something similar, but this was better than it had any right to be.

Finally, these aren’t sardines either, but huevas de merluza, or hake roe (hake being a whole different kind of fish).  I had never heard of this Spanish company Agromar, or even hake, but it turns out they are medium-to-large fish related to cod and haddock, so nothing like the little dudes I’ve been specializing in writing about so far.  But I do love fish eggs, whether they are masago (orange capelin roe), tobiko (orangey-red flying fish roe), or ikura (that much larger salmon roe that pops in your mouth like popping boba) in sushi, or caviar, that ultra-decadent delight.  And these were spicy too, so how could I not try it? By the way, I bought this at the best place to buy fancy tinned seafood in Orlando, Hinckley’s Fancy Meats in the East End Market food hall.  I reviewed Matt Hinckley’s wonderful sandwiches a few years back, and he is definitely a master of smoking and curing meats, making patés and rillettes, and so much more.  But since then, he has branched out into curating and selling some very high-end, fancy tinned fish and shellfish from Spain and Portugal, so check out his staggering selection and order some.  Yes, he ships!

These definitely didn’t look anything like what I would have expected, though.  Not tiny round eggs, and not anything like bottarga, that intensely flavored, decadent, Italian salt-cured roe sac from a grey mullet, either.  The box refers to them as “medallones” (medallions), and I guess they look like that… or sliced Vienna sausages.  At first, I didn’t know what to think, but I will try anything once!

These hake roe medallions are some serious gourmet shit, and what do I do?  Serve them (just to myself, because my wife would have wanted nothing to do with this) on Ritz crackers, which are the best and most versatile crackers.  I’ll dip Ritz crackers into smoked whitefish salad or chopped liver, spread them with cream cheese and guava paste, or crush them and bake them into the best buttery-salty-sweet pie crust ever.  Or I’ll put hake roe on ’em! Were they tasty?  Sure.  They weren’t spicy at all, not salty, or even “fishy,” but they were pleasant.  Can I describe the texture?  No, not really.  It really wasn’t like anything else I’ve ever eaten.  Am I glad I tried them?  You better believe it!  Would I get them again?  Probably not, only because there is a wide world of seafood out there, and I’d love to try some different impulse buys from the vast selection at Hinckley’s Fancy Meats before doubling back.  But if you’re buying the next round, stalwart Saboscrivnerinos, I will happily enjoy some future huevas de merluza tapas with you!

That’s all for now, but I have a huge stash of more sardines and other tinned seafood to review, from Spain and other seas and ports around the world.  In the meantime, whether you read this piece while sardines are still in style or discover it long after the tinned trend has come and gone, you can always rely on The ‘Dines List for detailed descriptions and unbiased reviews of humble (and occasionally not so humble) tinned fish.  And coming soon, we’ll venture into the wild waters and delicious depths of tinned shellfish, so get ready to see me flexing my mussels.