Note the teeth.

Tonight we ate sheep’s brain served in its own skull.
The waiter told us they chop off the head, cut it in half down the nose and roast it. After we ordered, we downed most of our bottle of txakoli in preparation.

The head arrived, eyeballs and tongue intact. It didn’t taste as bad as it sounds, but it won’t become one of my fave Spanish dishes. The outside was firm and the inside significantly softer, like a piece of seared tofu. Something about the texture bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I remembered this morning: the texture reminded me of undercooked scrambled eggs that made me sick at summer camp one year.

Jackie, with squids and Txacolí

We also ordered the chipirones — squids cooked in their own ink. They smelled very pleasant and tasted like grilled calamari with a rich sauce. I gladly finished those off.

The dishes capped an adventurous day of eating. We grabbed some pinxtos (tastes) in Bilbao’s old town — gourmet bites featuring ingredients like seared foie grois and lobster atop slices of French bread. People bar hop in the evenings, eating pinxtos with friends and washing them down with small glasses of beer, wine or sidra (cider.) We had one of each during the evening.

Stop 1: sidra, pinxtos: fried calamari stuffed with lobster, salmon and salmon mousse, jamón iberico with mushroom.

Stop 2: Mahou (Bud Light), pinxtos: baccalao (salted white fish) marinated in olive oil, pulpo ala gallega (octopus with olive oil and paprika)

Stop 3: Bottle of txakoli, chimpirones en su tinta (squids cooked in their ink), cabeza de cordero (sheep’s brain)