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Eating Majorca – Flanigan

Aug24

Restaurant: Flanigan

Location:Puerto Portals, local 16, 07181 Calvià, Illes Balears, Spain

Date: June 28, 2016

Cuisine: International Seafood

Rating: Good

Puerto Portals is one of those “high end” marina developments that seem to populate certain areas of Europe.
I quote the “high end” because I’ve seen way swankier. This isn’t Super exclusive boutique territory.

Flanigan is a large restaurant with an international manu. Prices are high because of the location. But it was close to the hotel and had pretty decent reviews.

The menu.

Two kinds of olive tapenade.

The view is great.

A light but very pleasant rose. We actually tried this at the vineyard the previous week.

Fruit cocktail in a glass.

Hake bites. What’s not to like about fried fish?

Fish soup. This is the rich shellfish stock fish soup, but this one had so much seafood in it it was like a bouillabaisse in that regard.

Very rich, but really quite excellent!

Caprese.

Simple pasta.

Their “star dish”, Lobster “pelao” potatoes and eggs. Basically shelled lobster on top of scalloped potatoes with a fried egg in there. Pretty excellent actually.

Apple with vanilla ice cream. More of a very thin tart tartine actually.

The aforementioned vanilla.

And a scoop of chocolate.

Creme catalana.

Flanigan isn’t anything avant garde, and it is most definitely overpriced for Spain, but it turned out to be very good food — and huge portions too. All in all a very nice meal.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: eating-spain, fish soup, Flanigan, Lobster, Majorca, Rose

Eating Majorca – Casa Michaela

Aug22

Restaurant: Casa Michaela

Location: Carrer d’Anníbal, 15, 07013 Palma, Illes Balears, Spain

Date: June 27, 2016

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: Mixed (A taste of Brentwood in Palma)

We ended up at Casa Michaela by fairly random means — using the TripAdvisor app to find an Italian restaurant that was open, well rated, available, and nearby.

The decor is pleasant and contemporary. Despite being very well rated, there was no one else eating.

These cornbread-like breads were nice.

And the little taste of gazpacho.

Then basil bread.

Ensalada de rucola y pistachos con pera y parmesano. Salad with pears, parmesan, etc.

Langostinos en crusta de sésamo con mayonesa de wasabi. This was an interesting one. It looked like a salad, but the shrimp felt more like fried — even if they were only coated in sesame. And there was a good kick to the wasabi.

Simple pasta for my son.

Pasta alla Norma “berenjenas ricotta ahumada y tomates secos”.

Risotto with lobster and pistachios. A very good risotto, particularly as I like white seafood risotto, and the pistachios added a nice crunch.

Potatoes and asparagus.

Fresh sea bass filleted table-side.
Simple white wine sauce. The usual kind of nice filet.

Overall, Casa Michaela was a bit more mixed. My dishes were pretty good, particularly the lobster risotto. Some of the others in my party weren’t as thrilled. The menu is pretty similar to many contemporary LA Italian restaurants. Majorca is a weird place (for being in Spain) as it’s so British. There are a lot of Italian restaurants. I guess the British like Italian. Why wouldn’t they? Italian is a great, but Spanish food is also fabulous — and Majorca is supposed to be Spain.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Casa Michaela, eating-spain, Italian Cusine, Majorca, Palma

Eating Majorca – Forn De Sant Joan

Aug19

Restaurant: Forn De Sant Joan

Location: Calle Sant Joan, 4, 07012 Palma, Illes Balears, Spain

Date: June 26, 2016

Cuisine: Spanish Tapas

Rating: Tasty kitchen

Forn De Sant Joan represents our first foray into Palma.

The location is on a pedestrian street not far from the water and the big Cathedral.

The interior is an attractive modern with traditional materials.

The menu. Unfortunately there were only 3 real eaters, and 2 were vegetarians, so I didn’t get to photo a lot of dishes.

These toasts came with a kind of olive butter.

Albarino again, always a great food wine.

Toasted crispy bread with tomato and olive oil.

Cold tomato and cherry gazpacho with cheese ice cream and confited cherries. A really lovely non-tomato gazpacho. Sort of like a vinegary tomato borsch.

Oyster, galangai emulsion, avocado and prawn powder. A slightly weird mix with the oyster.

Mini cornet filled with ceviche of sea bass and langoustines and coconut foam. This was really tasty with a mix of flavors and textures.
Battered langoustines with parmesan cream. The fry itself was pretty light, and what not to like about parmesan cream sauce?
Grilled Sea Bass, sautéed spinach with garlic and creamy parmesan sauce.

Beef cannelloni with parmesan-truffle sauce and shimeji. Rich, creamy, and delicious.

Vanilla and chocolate ice cream.

Overall, we didn’t really get to test out enough of the cuisine at Forn De Sant Joan, but they have a good kitchen doing innovative (for Majorca) dishes. Moving in the direction of San Sebastian at least.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: eating-spain, Forn De Sant Joan, Majorca, Tapas

Eating Majorca – BonSol

Aug12

Restaurant: Hotel Bon Sol Resort & Spa

Location: Paseo de Illetas, 30, 07181 Illetas, Balearic Islands, Spain

Date: June 25, 2016

Cuisine: Spanish?

Rating: Straight Outta 1975

When picking hotels by internet review I’m often tortured by the fact that most reviewers don’t share my taste. In addition, nearly every hotel, no matter how good, has its shares of negative reviews. Along these lines, Majorca turned out to be particularly problematic as I wanted a place near Palma with a beach — and the larger hotels were plagued by reviews lambasting customer service.

Not so with the Hotel BonSol, which has some really lovely on presence owners and a very loyal clientele. So loyal, I suspect many have been coming for decades and decades…

And they are British. And they eat in. There is some ridiculously cheap rate for full/half board at the hotel restaurant and it’s pretty much mobbed with the shall we say… senior… patrons. This is one of the strangest restaurants I’ve been too in years because it’s crowded, extremely “formal” (for a beach resort), with white tablecloths etc., yet sort of wham bang thank you ma’am.

The normal menu is one of those chose from the categories prix fix that used to be very common at European hotels in the 1970s and 1980s.

There is even this “fancier” version. And it doesn’t even cost more. The whole meal is always the same price (or included for most of the hotel guests). Notice the “gourmet” menu is in “French” (we are in Spain).

Frankly, looking at these menus, at the clientele, and at the food on the table I was terrified — sure I was in for an almost airplane level of food misery.

Even the Albarino was a bit different. Sweet. Still acidic, but with quite a bit more residual sugar than I was used to.

Brits on vacay!

Gazpacho Andaluz (cold vegetable soup). Things didn’t start off well. This was the most boring Gazpacho I had on the trip. It wasn’t miserable, but it wasn’t great either.

Fries.

Rice cubana (fried egg and banana). Huh? What’s this doing on the menu. Kinda odd.

Coquilles St Jacques en corbeille brick au whisky (scallops in brick pastry with whisky sauce). Looks a little fancier. Actually tasted pretty decent. Not amazing or anything, but surprising.

Pizza.

Filet of Hake a la Mallorquina. Hake in some sauce.

Carre d’agneau en croute d’olives sur gratin de pomes de terre et petits legumes (carre of lamb with olive crust. potato gratin and vegetables). Interesting. I haven’t had something exactly like this before, and it isn’t much of a looker, but it actually tasted pretty good. The sauce was very sweet, but I kinda liked it.

Stracciatella ice cream. Definitely from a very frozen tub.
Chocolate cake.
Flan and hazelnut ice cream. A tolerable middle grade flan is still pretty good.

I was actually surprised that the food here actually tasted pretty good. It’s kinda weird, and there are so many English targeted menu items that don’t even belong in Spain – plus the whole 30+ year-old vibe and the fact that the kitchen CHURNS it out (the place is huge). Still, it was kinda decent taste wise if not much to look at.

I just wonder if it was actually “fancy” by the standards of the day in the 70s or 80s, and it’s just remained as a sort of odd throwback with an increasingly budget focused approach appealing to an increasingly aged population — or was it just always exactly like this?

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Bonsol, eating-spain, English, Hotel Bonsol, Majorca

Eating Bilbao – Azurmendi

Aug05

Restaurant: Azurmendi

Location: Legina Auz., s/n, 48195 Larrabetzu, Bizkaia, Spain

Date: June 24, 2016

Cuisine: Modern Basque (Michelin 3 Star!)

Rating: My best meal in years

Our final starred restaurant of the trip is Azurmendi, located about 15-20 minutes east of Bilbao in the beautiful hills of Basque country.

Azurmendi Gourmet is the only restaurant in the Biscay province with three Michelin stars.

Azurmendi is possibly one of the most unique sustainable buildings of the modern architecture. It reflects the canons of the Basque identity and integrates photovoltaic solar panels and a geothermic system to produce electricity, harvests rainwater to cover a number of operations, recycles waste, etc. A charging station is available for electric cars. For all these reasons Azurmendi was granted the Sustainable Restaurant Award 2014.
There are resteraunts in them thar hills!

It has been built into a hillside surrounded by autochthonous vineyards. Eneko´s house, and he calls the restaurant, was conceived and built prioritizing sustainability, a foundation of his philosophy.

The architecture is subdued from the outside, fitting into the beautiful countryside.

But inside is stunning and dramatic.

Mixing the natural and the sculptural.

Plus cool fountains!

The formal menus today.

But first, we enter in “The Azurmendi Experience” which includes a series of amuses presented in different locations. Here some of the chefs begin with…

The welcoming picnic.

Garden vegetables cake (upper right), eel sandwich (left) and Txakoli punch (green ball in the foreground). Everything had a smooth, rich, harmony to the taste.

For act 2 we proceed into the kitchen.

Here we are presented with a hibiscus “potion” and

Hazelnuts growing on a little bonsai tree — except surprise, they were chocolate hazelnut.

And the vegetarians received this vegetable crisp with avocado mousse.

The third act takes us to the lovely greenhouse.

Quite magical.

The dry ice mist chills some of the amuses.
T

Morokil. A porridge of corn flower, formed into a sort of corn soup in this case.

Herbs, cookies, and cheese. Growing amongst the herbs.

A close up of the actual treat.

Our son received a bit of floral/vegetable “pasta.”

The in the cotton fields there was…

Asparagus cotton. Cotton candy like texture.

And growing from the rocks…

Mushroom leaf. A salty potato chip like thing that tasted of mushroom.

Finally the fourth act takes us to the dining room and our table.

The place setting.

There was a choice of two menus, we chose the Adarrak menu on the right.

And it begins with yet more amuses, frozen olive and vermouth. The yellow things tasted of olive, with a frozen ice cream bon bon texture. The little dark sticks were edible as well.

A cocktail of juice and vermouth.

Egg from our hens, cooked inside out and truffled. This gooey soft blob (eat in one bite) tasted of egg yolk and truffles — which meant it was scrumptious.

Chinese bun-like bread.

2003 R. López de Heredia Rioja Blanco Reserva Viña Tondonia. Couldn’t resist more Tondonia blanco.

Simple pasta for our son.

Oysters, tartar, and seaweed traces. Very much in the Azurmendi style, with the different bits of sauce and the sphere.

Vegetarians received this mini squash blossom and a beet tartar.

And we had this tempura ball.

Tomatoes… local varieties and anchovy. Even I, the tomato hater, loved this. So fresh tasting.

And tomato water granite!

Garlic mushrooms. A noodle spun about and with all sorts of earthy mushroom and garlic flavors.

The vegetarians received this alternate version.

Roasted lobster out of the shell, its crunch and mayonnaise. The lobster was prefect.

And “its crunch” was like a lobster infused crispy fruit rollup.

Vegetarians received this dish of artisanal grains.

2013 Castell d’Encús Costers del Segre Acusp. 89 points. As there wasn’t the kind of Burgundy I wanted on the list, and I like to stay Spanish, the Sommelier recommended this lovely young Spanish pinot noir.

“Castanetas” pork glazed in its juice with “Etxano” cheese. Some delicious meatiness, a sweetish sauce, and nice crisp from the cheese.

Cod tripe to the fine herbs. Second or third time I had the cod tripes. Sounds gross, but the dish was amazing. Creamy, with this thick gelatinous texture. Wonderful rich flavors.

Fried Hake, roasted red pepper infusion and parsley. The green blobs aren’t avocado, but parsley mousse or something. This was a perfect tempura fish, wonderfully moist inside and crispy outside. The red pepper “sauce” (almost a gel) was amazing, with a dashi-type flavor too.

Pigeon, green beans, and duxelle. A great bit of bird.

And a bit of foie gras and sherry PX!

A dish of fava beans and herb mousse.

Chef Eneko Atxa.

Born in 1977 and raised in the Basque Country of Spain, Eneko Atxa hails from a family that always placed value in good food and good eating. At the age of 15, he embarked on his career as a chef at the Catering College of Leoia in the province of Biscay. After graduation, he honed his skills in fine dining and began his journey into haute cuisine as a cook under Chef Martín Berasategui at his eponymous restaurant in Lasarte. He then continued on with greater responsibility at locally revered restaurants Etxebarri and Andra Mari. As these early years of his career passed, he began to develop his culinary personality and style, driven by deep curiosity and passion.

In 2005, Atxa’s path led him to open his own restaurant, Azurmendi, in a tucked-away spot of dense woods just 10 minutes outside of Bilbao. Since then, the chef has garnered a number of awards, including “Best Chef” by local, national, and international bodies, including the Fourchettes French gourmet guide, along with the “Most Beautiful Dish” by Lo Mejor de la Gastronomía in 2010. Just five years after opening, Azurmendi was awarded its second Michelin star in November 2010, becoming the first restaurant in the Biscay province with two Michelin stars — then finally 3!

Watermelon, coriander, and lime. Amazing dessert with its various chilled textures. Bright and refreshing.

Yogurt, honey, and five spices. Another lovely dessert.

Chocolate, peanut, and licorice.

And our son’s slightly “simplified” chocolate dessert.

Tea/coffee service.

Macchiato.

The petits fours come in a box of dirt.
Various infused flavors, gel, madeline-like pastry.

This gel and white chocolate green tea popsicle.

Ginger gels. Super refreshing and potent.

Macarons.

The menu.
And the bill box.

Azurmendi was a stunning meal. Everyone present agreed it was their favorite of the trip — and I place it as one of my favorites in the last decade. The location was lovely, the theatrics clever, each dish artful, but most importantly, they all tasted fantastic. The overall balance of flavors, temperature, and textures was uniformly good. Not every dish was as great as the last, but they varied from merely very good to revelatory. And even thought he combinations were often unusual, they meshed together in a delectable manner.

Really, there is a reason Elite Traveller has distinguished Azurmendi as the second best restaurant in the world this year (2016), and Opinionated About Dining as the best restaurant in Europe in 2015. This is current haute cuisine executing on all 12 cylinders, hand tuned by Enzo Ferrari himself — and it shows off the bounty, beauty, and creativity that is defining Basque Country as one of the world’s best culinary destinations.

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Azurmendi, Basque cuisine, bilbao, eating-spain, Michelin 3 Star, Michelin Guide, Spanish Cuisine

Eating San Sebastian – Fuego Negro

Aug03

Restaurant: Fuego Negro

Location: Calle 31 de Agosto, 31, 20003 Donostia, Gipuzkoa, Spain

Date: June 23, 2016

Cuisine: Tapas

Rating: Good, but didn’t try enough

Fuego Negro was another very highly rated tapas bar.

The name means “black smoke”.

But as they were only open for dinner, and we couldn’t actually get a table for 8 to house our giant party, we just popped in and sampled a couple items.

The menu.

Home made pickles. Olives, anchovies, peppers. I just love these fresh marinated gems.

Makcobe with txips. A kobe beef slider with pickles. A good little burger to be sure. About the size I like my burgers, actually.
Crunchy risotto of sheep & cuttlefish. Not sure what the sheep part was, maybe cheese. The cuttlefish is the pasta like stuff on top. The rice had a crunchy texture not too far off from cocoa crispies! Overall yummy though.

We didn’t try enough items at Fuego Negro to get a solid opinion, although clearly this is a good and inventive kitchen. The menu is fairly small too and I like how they list the dates for the dishes.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: eating-spain, Fuego Negro, San Sebastian, Spanish Cuisine, Tapas

Eating Basque – Local Fare

Jul29

In the mountains of Basque Country, a mere 15-20 minutes from the sophisticated tapas of San Sebastian you get these simple cheap restaurants that serve up correspondingly simple — but pretty tasty fare.

This post is actually a composite of 2-3 places which I’ve put together to show the typical (hearty) dishes.

Basic bread.

Often you get some salami on the table. This one was tasty, and certainly tasted of the pig. A little spice in it too.

I bought this bottle of Rioja off the list for E10! It wasn’t bad either.

Croquetas. These are the Jamon filled variety. A croquette is a small breadcrumbed fried food roll containing, usually as main ingredients, mashed potatoes and Jamon, maybe cheese, and mixed with béchamel. Even bad ones are pretty tasty. Good ones are great.

Queso. Some kind of semi curado probably.

Garlic prawns. Grilled prawns crusted in garlic olive oil. With a surprisingly “fancy” sauce presentation. These were great, and for a mountain town? Pretty surprising.

Fish soup. This hearty soup of shellfish shells and whatnot is delicious. It’s very similar (if not the same) to the similar soup in Southern France — and given that I found this one in Spain all of about 10km from the French border, I don’t find that exactly surprising.

NOTE: it was also served at about 212 degrees and that heavy ceramic bowl holds the fiery heat for what seemed like forever.

Salad. E8-10 euros buys you this monster of a salad with egg, white asparagus, potatoes, olives and tuna.

Or the fried whole goat cheese salad!

Omelet. Looks pretty much like in the states.

Steak frites. Pretty simple, also with padron peppers. Cheap though.
Fries. The Spanish love their patatas.

Some pan fried chicken breasts and fries. surprisingly tasty.

Chicken sandwich. Same deal on a giant roll for all of about E8.

Chorizo and fries. No grease here (just kidding), but lots of salty flavor!

Chorizo plate. Many places offer combo plates like this E8 beast: fries, chorizo, eggs, and even croquetas.

Lomo plate. Same deal, but with pork loin instead of ground spiced pig.
Vegetarian sandwich. About 20″ long!

The stuff at these places isn’t fancy or terribly varied, but it is hearty, tasty, and a good deal.

By: agavin
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Tagged as: Chorizo, eating-spain, Egg, fries, jamon, Spanish Cuisine

Eating San Sebastian – Borda Berri

Jul27

Restaurant: Bar Borda Berri

Location: Fermin Calbeton Kalea, 12, 20003 Donostia, Bizkaia, Spain

Date: June 23, 2016

Cuisine: Modern Tapas

Rating: Awesome New Wave Tapas

Borda Berri was one of the many tapas bars recommended by my foodie friends.

It’s located on a typical San Sebastian old town street.
The interior is tiny, with no seating. Outside there is a small table or two. While many pintxos bars have the food out on the counter waiting to be selected, Borda Berri makes you thrust in and order food in the same manner as you order drinks (and to the same people). They cook and plate back in the kitchen and call out when each dish is ready. I then dutifully returned to the bar to ferry them to our microscopic table.

The menu in Spanish and English.

Sangria.

Rosado wine.

At most there were two tables in the alley. Standing room only.

Gazpacho with watermelon, basilic and mozzarella. This was a stupendously delicious gazpacho. It’s hard to imagine it didn’t have tomato in it also, but there was a strong watermelon and basil flavor, along with the rich olive oil and the snappy vinegar. I so love good gazpacho. Too bad it gives me heartburn.

Toasted goat cheese salad. A lovely salad with a bit of sweetness on the cheese.

Bomba rice with wild mushroom. This was a nice mushroom rice, with that more paella-like texture. Probably one of the more boring dishes we had, but that’s not really fair in this company.

Cod Tripes and Pil-Pil sauce. Sounds gross right? Well the texture was solidly gelatinous, and probably not for everyone, but boy did it taste good. I ate almost two plates of it. Very rich.

Puntalette’s risotto with Idiazabal (Basque Sheeps Cheese). Wow, fabulous cheesy risotto. Everything you would want in a cheesy mass of rice.

Ravioli squid in its ink. Very tender, with briny sweet flavors. Yum!

Euskal Pork Ribs “Kebab.” This “Kebab” turned out to be basically a amazingly tender and flavorful BBQ babyback rib with a bit of sauce. Fabulous.

Borda Berri cooked up some really fabulous flavors. Additionally, freed from the confines of the pintxos format they serve fresher hot dishes in more of a small plates format. This is a little different, and perhaps a bit harder to just graze, but it provides for a more restaurant-like cuisine, even if the format is extremely bar-like.

Almost everything we had here was great, and fairly novel too. Just looking at these pictures makes me drool over the gazpacho, risotto, and lamb — and I could even mack down another plate of the cod tripes.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Bar Borda Berri, Borda Berri, eating-spain, San Sebastian, Spanish Cuisine, Tapas

Eating San Sebastian – Mugaritz

Jul22

Restaurant: Mugaritz

Location: Aldura Aldea, 20, 20100 Errenteria, Gipuzkoa, Spain

Date: June 22, 2016

Cuisine: Molecular Spanish (Michelin 2 Star)

Rating: Form over Function or Concept over Taste

Mugaritz is considered by many to be the most “adventurous” and modern restaurant in the world gastronomic scene. The effective “heir to elBulli.” Recently it placed #7 in a notable best restaurants in the world. It is helmed by Andoni Luis Aduriz, who cooked at elBulli. Like Ferran Adria the staff spends several months of the year experimenting.

The farmhouse-like location is situated in the countryside above San Sebastian proper.

Metallic animalistic sculptures grace the grounds and patio.

Cave to start.

The menu, regular on the left and vegetarian on the right.

Our first few courses (and the cave) were enjoyed outside on the patio.

Toasted mollete, anchovy emulsion. A kind of fennel bun with an anchovy flavored butter. Nice soft textures to the roll.

“My guts are growling.” Tripe with a cheese spread. I’m not a tripe fan, but these were sort of like crispy waffles with cheese. Only the fact that I knew it was tripe detracted.

Ceviche over a frozen turf. I didn’t taste any of these vegetarian dishes but it sure looks like a patch of sod!

Live cannellone. Sprouted chia seed with lobster ceviche. This tasted like a lobster roll mixed with a 1970s health food tuna sandwich (the kind with avocado and lots of sprouts). For some reason chia seeds are really popular in Spain right now.

Carrots wrapped in a baked veil. Looks like sushi.

Live pasta and anchovies, in vinegar. This was basically a boquerone wrapped in thin pasta. It was rather delicious actually.

After this we moved into…

The kitchen. Got to meet some of the chefs, and were informed that about 50-70 people work in the kitchen. Wow!

Our kitchen snack was:

Chicken chicharon. Basically a nice crunchy bit of chicken skin.

A photo of the gang.

Now seated at the table we tried:

2012 Albamar Rías Baixas Alma de Mar. 90 points. A nice crisp white.

Lemon oyster. No dish exemplified the problems with concept over cuisine more than this dish. Basically, it was some kind of pickled lemon stuffed with an oyster. At a technical level, getting the oyster in there was cool, but the lemon tasted like Mustarda — probably because it was a pickled fruit. Maybe there was even mustard oil. It’s an odd flavor, and not for everyone. Sour, vinegary, with a sharp almost chemical like tone. Then the oyster just added fishy/briny. Really not actually a pleasant flavor at all. Presentation, however, was great.

Artisanal sweet strip.

Clams glazed with lemon. This riffed on the mollusk and lemon again, but more successfully. Still, it was clam with lemon curds.

Chilled radishes.
Cooked Mother rice and…

Caviar. Actually a pretty successful combination. The rice had a very thick jelly/mochi texture.

Vegetarian Caviar. Probably actually a vegetable formed with alginate into small spheres.

Garlic inflorescence. A straight fibrous strand of garlic. Tasty but…

Made you feel like an herbivore!

Chilled radishes and mollusk milk. Like a clam/radish gazpacho. Bracing, with cool sharp flavors.

Fried trout. Although really more a fried anchovy. A very nice fried fish. Actually as good a small fried fish as I’ve had.

Tear-drop pea cloud. A dough not unlike a Chinese bun dough wrapped around what seemed to be salmon caviar. Mellow and subtle sweetness, a bit of brine. I enjoyed it.

Vegetarian ravioli.

Filled asparagus.

Red mullet in colora. Red mullet on a pork skin/fat crisp with what seemed to be chorizo oil melted over it. Interesting textural interplay of crunch, fish, and oil. The fish was excellently cooked, and not “fishy”, and the chorizo flavor was pretty dominant.

“Soup” with roasted vegetables. Corn meal and garlic that had to be mashed up.

With this.

Then bread was thrown into the “pot.”

And this gelatinous cube herbs and vegetables. Looks awesome.

The whole thing was mashed into a “soup.” Not exactly a soup, but an interesting smash-up.

2013 Ossian. 90 points. Same grape as Rioja blanco. Very very interesting aromatic wine.

Jerusalem artichoke seasoned with charcoal grill. looks pretty hideous, huh? Outside tasted of pure charcoal.

Inside was highly delectable. Very starchy, soft, almost like a risotto, with a bit of tomato/garlic flavors maybe.

Grilled cabbage marrows. Very soft, and also wrapped around by that char. Marrow chunks added some richness. Pretty tasty.

Grilled cabbage.

Lacquered sole and butter. Sole with edible bones and a butter “paste”. An excellent bit of fish. Rich and perfectly cooked. The crunchy bones were the best part, and fairly novel.

Ail glace. The paper was used here to squeeze the garlic juice onto the toast to make garlic bread.

Lis stew. Don’t know how this was a stew, or if the menu was wrong. It was yellow tomato and marcona almonds and some flowers.

Sweetbread and garlic. I’m not a big sweetbread fan, but again this dish worked. It was hard to tell the garlic gloves from sweetbreads, which was fine by me.

Vegetal bestiary.

A thousand leaves. Swiss chard carefully stacked. Basically a mille-feuille made from chard, served with a bit of grano and a meat reduction. The sauce and cheese were great, but the vegetable was a bitter green. The textures of all those folded layers was interesting, but that was about it.

Glazed lamb over salted leaves. This was a very tasty dish. A sort of high end lamb “lettuce wrap.” Sweet and miso-like.

Eggplant and miso. The vegetarians said this was great.

2006 Costers del Siurana Priorat Clos de L’Obac. VM 92+. Vivid ruby. Deep, smoky cherry and blueberry on the nose, with notes of black cardamom and gunpowder tea adding seriousness. Chewy in texture, with real punch to its dark fruit flavors. Becomes more floral with air, finishing with solid tannins and notes of candied rose and violet. If the Miserere deserves cellar time, this demands it.

Glazed shortbread. A meaty glaze on top of shortbread. The base was very dry and pasty. Combination was okay but the texture didn’t work well. Way too dry.

Yolks and artichokes.

The cheese. A fine cheese, probably a goat.

From bitter to sweet. This was an interesting combination of sweet and “savory” flavors. It was pretty good actually, if unusual.

Kombucha mother and strawberries. These were great. Basically odd textured strawberries and cream. Too bad they were so small (we each got one).

Drunken apricot and a fresh-cut julienne. Apricots and herbs. Almost ancient Roman in vibe, but successful.

Toasted soup of oxidized wine. Shaped like the Michelin man praying for a third star.

Sadly, he didn’t taste very good. Actually the marshmallow was fine, but it was coated in some very dry, very oxidized Madeira — I like my hyper oxidized wines sweet.

The room was constructed out of local pine.

Petit fours. The seven deadly sins. This tablewide tower came in multiple puzzle box segments.
Greed.

Envy (only 1 for the table!).

Wrath. Spicy!

Gluttony. You had to eat it with your fingers. Corn chips with white chocolate sauce.
Pride.

Lust. Funny jellies.

Sloth. White chocolate lemon balls if I remember right.

Let’s break it down.

Location and setting were lovely. Service was extremely nice at Mugaritz, but not as attentive as it could be. On at least one occasion I had to go get the wine and pour it around. Now this isn’t a serious fault, but at this level (2 star and gunning for 3) I shouldn’t have to think about the wine. Wine recommendations were excellent though, even though they were out of 2 things I wanted (older Rioja, blanco and tinto).

But how was the food? As you can see, it looks really interesting. Modern, yet not ultra “molecular” in appearance. Ingredients per dish are extremely few. Each course is conceptual and laser focused. Cooking is extraordinarily precise. All fine. The problem problem is that the concepts seemed to outweigh the experience on the pallet. Concept over cuisine. Many dishes just didn’t taste that good and only a few tasted great. They were memorable for their form and appearance only. An example of this would be the mille-feuille swiss chard. Cool concept. But in practice it was a bitter vegetable with an interesting texture, covered with a nice reduction and a bit of cheese. This should have been caught at the test stage and rejected for not being yummy enough. And there lies the crux. To me, given this single meal, it seems that Andoni Luis Aduriz prioritizes focus and creative concept above taste. Either that or he has a radically different pallet than the rest of us at the table. Dishes were very fresh, seasonal, and tasted intensely of their source ingredients, but the combinations were odd and some of those sources needed modulating.

So overall, intellectually very interesting but not actually that tasty.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Andoni Luis Aduriz, eating-spain, Michelin 1 Star, Michelin Guide, Molecular Cooking, Molecular Gastronomy, Mugaritz, Spanish Cuisine

Eating San Sebastian – Abakando

Jul20

Restaurant: Abakando

Location: Tolosa Hiribidea, 37, 20018 Donostia, Gipuzkoa, Spain

Date: June 21, 2016

Cuisine: Spanish

Rating: Nice seafood

Another evening, another San Sebastian restaurant.

Again follow a friend’s recommendation we headed to Abakando. This was the only non starred “white tablecloth” restaurant we ate at in town.

The interior is very modern.

Menu.

After visiting Rioja I’ve been discovering the pleasures of Rioja Blanco.

Homemade croquettes txangurro. Stuffed with crab and some of the usual béchamel.

Tomato salad country, tuna and romescu.

Seafood soup with clams, cockles and shrimp. That rich local soup again.

Seasonal mushroom ravioli, prawn and Idiazabal cheese sauce. Really nice and cheesy.

Mushroom risotto seasonal. We were given the impression by the waitress that these were tiny portions and ordered two each. They were huge and stuffed us.

Black rice with aioli begi-haundi. This one was great, with a nice sweet brine.

Hake and fries.

Hake in green sauce with Galician marine clam. This is a very traditional dish, wand was quite lovely — too bad were were all so full.

DO Castilla Suckling lamb baked at low temperature. Not the most attractive meat, but tasty.

Overall, Abakando was tasty, but it filled a strange middle ground. It wasn’t as amazing and inventive as the starred places, nor as fun and casual as the tapas/pintxos bars. Plus, we drastically over ordered and were really stuffed.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Abakando, eating-spain, San Sebastian, Spanish Cuisine

Eating Rioja – Terete

Jul15

Restaurant: Terete

Location: Calle Lucrecia Arana, 17, 26200 Haro, La Rioja, Spain

Date: June 21, 2016

Cuisine: Spanish

Rating: Great traditional lamb

We drove up to Rioja for a day to tour some of the wineries (of course), namely López de Heredia and CVNE, and happened to ask the marketing director at López for a lunch recommendation.

She sent us to Terete for the roast lamb.

The menu.

They have one of those wood fired ovens like at Botin.

And the place is huge!

Of course, having just come from López I had to order some of their wine.

2002 R. López de Heredia Rioja Blanco Reserva Viña Tondonia. 93 points. First whiff is of honey, candlewax, bruised apples.
On the palate, apples, honey, chamomile tea, and that amazing thick, waxy texture that is just to die for. Finish is loooong, with a mouthwatering acidity that makes the oxidized notes be in balance. Really a lovely wine.

The bread.

A typical Spanish salad, with eggs, asparagus and the like.

Marinated red peppers.

Tortilla Espanola.

White asparagus. Big fellows.

Greens.

What we came for, the roast lamb. I’m not sure there were any other ingredients. Maybe some salt. Basically lamb slow roasted in its own juices. But this was same damn fine lamb, cooked up the way its been cooked for thousands of years! Super tender and moist and full of flavor.

Whiskey cake.

You got to pout this on.

Cafe bonbon. Expresso and chocolate and sweetened condensed milk.

Overall this was a fun little lunch. The lamb was spectacular and that’s what we came for.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: eating-spain, haro, lamb, rioja, Spanish Cuisine, Terete

Eating San Sebastian – Atari

Jul13

Restaurant: Atari

Location: Calle Mayor, 18, 20013 San Sebastian, Gipuzkoa, Spain

Date: June 19 & 23, 2016

Cuisine: Spanish Tapas

Rating: The best traditional tapas we had in San Seb

San Sebastian is packed with tapas & pintxos bars, but the quality varies wildly from okay to awesome. We had the most success using recommendations from Foodie friends who had visited in previous years, even though a good percentage of the top bars were “mysteriously” closed for vacation.

Atari was on the recommended list and is located adjacent to the entrance to the big baroque church.

The interior is typical and there is an extensive patio as well.

El menú.

Typical bread.

I find Albarino, even this so-so one, to be a fabulous tapas

Atari has a counter full of pintxos. We didn’t really focus on these, but here are a couple.

Grilled tuna with cream of marmitako and vinaigrette.

Marinated white anchovies with crushed pepper. I just love these tangy little fish.

Fried green padron peppers. Salty but good.

White tuna pickled, green peppers, anchovies, and olives. This is a to die for set of marinated goodness. I particularly love the olives and the mildly spicy skinny green peppers.

Home-cured salmon with a horseradish cream. Like little sashimi cubes.

Salmon tartar. There was something sauced in here that led to a very interesting and addictive flavor.

Pate of foie gras on toast. Tasted as good as it looks.

Tomato salad.

Cod croquettes. Declared the best croquetas of the trip.

Patatas bravos. Above they appear as patatas frito.

This is the bravos part. Personally I prefer the orange potent sauce and covering the potatoes.

Fried calamari with confited garlic aioli. Great example. Nice chewy strips and great fry.

Scrambled eggs.

Some Rioja Blanca to step up the white wine.

Oyster mushrooms ravioli with foie gras sauce. We ordered 4 orders of these!

Grilled octopus with bravos sauce, potatoes, and onions. I feel bad about eating octopus (it’s a smart animal) but this one tasted so good — and actually the bravos sauce and veggies was even better.

Grilled foie gras with white chocolate and sweetcorn cream. Just amazing.

Rice of the day. Basically a chicken paella. I think it had chicken skin in there.

Hake with seasonal sauce.

Beef cheek with… (like mom’s beef stew — super tender)

mashed potato.
Plate of Spanish cheeses.

Overall, the group consensus was that Atari was the best “straight up regular” restaurant we went in the San Sebastian area. The dishes actually tasted better than most of the modern tapas. We weren’t comparing to the Michelin level restaurants, as it’s a totally different thing, although it was tastier than Mugaritz. haha. More on that later.

Basically the dishes are contemporary traditional, but the execution is superlative. Tons of flavor. Good ingredients. All that.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Atari, eating-spain, San Sebastian, Spanish Cuisine, Tapas

Eating San Sebastian – Zuberoa

Jul11

Restaurant: Zuberoa

Location: Araneder Bidea, Barrio Iturriotz, s/n, 20180 Oiartzun, Gipuzkoa, Spain

Date: June 18, 2016

Cuisine: Basque

Rating: Really tasty and effective (1 Michelin star)

We rented a lovely house outside of San Sebastian in the Basque Country town of Oiartzun — and turns out, it has a 1 Michelin star restaurant of its own, a mere 200 yards from the house.

Zuberoa is located in a charming 600 year old building! The same family has owned it for several hundred years and it was originally a tavern.

Above is part of the main dining room.

And they also have this lovely patio, which was packed on Saturday night and a smoker’s paradise.

The tasting menu.

Cava to start.

An amuse of foie gras with cherry reduction.

This was insanely good. The dollop on top was like a maple syrup foam and together with the cherry lent it a sweet, rich, candy-like quality.

Sea urchin royal to the fennel flavor. A sort of foam of fennel and urchin. Delicious too.

Lobster salad, its coral vinegar and lemon. Just a little lobster here. “Coral” must be the roe.

2006 Pazo de Señoráns Albariño Rías Baixas Selección de Añada. VM 93. Aged for 34 months on its lees in stainless steel tanks. Vivid yellow-gold. Highly complex bouquet of candied citrus fruits, almond paste, white flowers, smoky lees and minerals. Bitter orange pith and pear skin flavors gain sweetness with air and pick up an exotic floral nuance. Rich yet lively wine with superb finishing power and mineral-driven persistence. This singular wine is ready to drink and should hold well for at least another five years.

Poached cod fish to the olive oil with brandad, its skin sauce and its jelly´s crispy.

Spider crab and prawns ravioli in his broth. An awesome little rav.

Scallop, cauliflower and spring mushrooms (zizas) emulsion with brazed endive.

Confited cod fish chin, brandad and “Vizcaina” sauce. This part of the cod fish is super special and a specialty of the area. It has a particular gelatinous texture that is very prized. My extensive Chinese dining has prepared me for such culinary travels.

Egg yolk spring-like. A really delicious egg prep with a fascinating textural combination. The green was somewhat like a pea soup.

Roasted anglerfish and stir friend squid tallarine. Very nice piece of meaty fish. We googled the anglerfish and had quite the laugh at his hideous countenance.

Steamed hake with its pil-pil and pickled yellow peppers.

1981 C.V.N.E. (Compañía Vinícola del Norte de España) Rioja Viña Real Gran Reserva. JG 96. This was certainly a great older Rioja. No decant but allowed it to evolve over hours. Garnet color consistent with previous, very little fading. There is an earthiness and attractive mustiness on the nose with surprisingly bright raspberry and strawberry. Palate brings light cherry and raspberry, warm spring earth, and pleasing umami flavors. Still enough of a tannic backbone to lend sufficient structure to the melange. This bottle would have still had many years of life ahead of it. If only every bottle performed this well.

Fried hake and French fries was enjoyed by my son.

Roast pigeon, liver toast and turnip filled up with mushrooms.

Roasted lamb ribs. Some very flavorful tender lamb ribs. Almost like lamb/veal.

Peach and passion fruit “ crème brûlée “ with raspberry ice-cream.

Pineapple sorbet coat in fermented coconut milk..
Confited cherries, lemon thyme flavored with its own sorbet and Danish cookie. Pretty awesome fresh in-season cherry prep.

Chocolate, coffee, and banana set and orange nappage.

Alex enjoys his chocolate gelato!

Some finishers.

Overall, Zuberoa was really quite lovely. The food was varied, very Basque in style, and supremely tasty. While still modern in style it was a little less “wild” than the 2 and 3 star places we dined at, but in many ways this made it more approachable. Service was fabulous and they easily accommodated our varied party and even our young son. Plus it was quite reasonable by the standards of such an elaborate and fantastic meal.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Basque cuisine, eating-spain, Michelin 1 Star, San Sebastian, Spanish Cuisine, Zuberoa

Eating San Sebastian – Zeruko

Jul08

Restaurant: Bar Zeruko

Location: Arrandegi Kalea, 10, Donostia, Gipuzkoa, Spain

Date: June 17, 2016

Cuisine: Modernist Pintxos

Rating: Funky Zoo

At the zenith of craziness on the mountain of “typical pintxos format” is Bar Zeruko which serves up an individually plated bread of modernist pintxos.

This is awesome for 2 people popping in for a drink and a bite to eat — but on a busy Friday night with 7 people a meal is a bit of “an experience.”

Let me explain how Zeruko works. While some of your party crams around a spare stool or two — likely in 2-3 separate clusters far from each other — you elbow your way into the fantastically crowded bar. There, after trying your best impersonation of a hot 23 year-old 100 pound girl (doesn’t work so well at twice that age & weight not to mention the wrong gender) you attempt to gain eye contact with one of the two extraordinarily overworked bartenders. After accomplishing this miracle, you might order a drink and ask for a plate — albeit a tiny one. You then load up your plate with appealing looking confections without any regard to what they might actually be. If you are lucky the bartender will take back your plate and then proceed, after some extended length of time, to individually cook, plate, and dress each item. These will be serially thrust back at you and you can offer them to your companions to eat while standing.

How the staff actually manages to prep these things in such short order (meanwhile serving drinks) is also a miracle.

Oh, and how they keep track of what you ordered? You can pay much latter after multiple such orders and I never saw a pencil or other recording device. I suspect they “lose” 10% of all the pintxos served.

In any case, on to the food. Unfortunately the insane crowds didn’t really allow me to photograph the plated dishes, which is a shame because they looked rather lovely. Here are some in their larval formal, before cooking, prepping, and dressing.

Fruity gel ball? Hard to tell what this was other than it was sweet and had a somewhat jelly-like texture. It was good though.

Below was a peppers, cheese, and egg pintxos.

You can see mushrooms, sliders, and the like.

These foie gras wrapped in chocolate gel with truffles. On toast, of course. Rich and super yummy.
A seafood something on a dry ice cone. It’s really sad that I didn’t capture more of the creative and whacky output. Sigh.

Overall, I really needed to come back to Zeruko during a quiet lunch or something — with no more than 3 people. If I had, I’m sure I would have been able to pick, photograph, and sample their wares much more effectively. I actually tasted about 15 pintxos the night I went, and many of them were delicious, and most looked very cool, but the chaotic nature of the “scene” and the demand of two different groups of family to be supplied with new dishes made it impossible to document.

If you are in San Sebastian I recommend you try it yourself. Just don’t go with a big group!

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Bar Zeruko, eating-spain, pintxos, San Sebastian, Tapas, Zeruko

Eating San Sebastian – Akelaŕe

Jul06

Restaurant: Akelaŕe

Location: Paseo Padre Orcolaga, 56, 20008 Donostia, Gipuzkoa, Spain

Date: June 16, 2016

Cuisine: Modern Spanish Gastronomic (Michelin 3 star!)

Rating: Amazing. Playful and delicious

Akelaŕe is the first of the “big guns” in our dining schedule.

3 Michelin stars and helmed by Pedro Subijana, this is a world class dining establishment in every respect.

The view alone is a stunner, perched on the cliff tops of the amazingly beautiful Basque countryside about 15 minutes west of San Sebastian.

No drama here.

The dining room floats above the Atlantic.

The view from our table most decidedly set expectations.

Akelaŕe currently offers three different tasting menus, two current and one more of a “best of” from the restaurant’s long history (it’s the same age as me, having been founded in 1970 and climbed from 1 star in ’78 to 2 in ’82 to 3 in ’07).

Cava to start — always!

This “dish” served as an amuse for our 7 year-old son. It wins hands down for presentation. Sort of “bathroom” themed it consists of a number of playful items. A toast in which the “liquid soap” is used as a condiment. A cheese dish disguised as face cream, and a Shirley Temple in a cough syrup bottle! Great fun.

A tomato amuse. Even I, tomato hater that I am, enjoyed it.

A sort of ravioli, or unusual skin of food with one of those “caviar” not made from fish eggs. A kind of ajo blanco underneath. I remember it being delicious.

Reconstructed olives. These looked like olives, and somewhat tasted of them, but were reconstructed out of olive paste mixed with something else. They were delicious.
Fried zucchini “chips”.

Mussel fritters. Like a fried mussel, but in croquette-like ball form.

Bread, of course.

2012 Tricó Rías Baixas. 89 points. Light golden color; floral notes and lemon zest on the nose. Lively and fresh on the palate. Good acidity. Medium light body. This is pleasant to drink, very crisp and food friendly wine.

Cubed tear green Peas. The center batch is in an edible “plastic” bag.

Then a pea soup is added.

Lobster salad with Cider Vinegar. No shortage of lobster here! Particularly considering this is just 1 course in a big tasting menu.

White asparagus meringue. Smores anyone?

Pasta, Piquillo and Iberico Carpaccio, Mushrooms and Parmesan. This alternate version of the classic Italian carpaccio has the “meat” replaced with a pasta. It did look and taste pretty meaty, but pasta like at the same time.

Prawns cooked in “Orujo” Fire. Not quite sure what the fire part was, but this was a delicious prawn.

And in a very Japanese style, it also came with the fried head. Bugs of the sea!

This bread took on an “interesting” shape.

Hake in Seaweed steam. Plancton and Oyster Leaf.

Very thin and Light Beef Tartare and…

new Potato Soufflé and Aromatic Herb Bread.

The leaves and the Foie under the rain.

Okay the name was a little confusing. It had “salt and pepper” on top — except it wasn’t salt and pepper but I think a sugar and and some kind of chocolate maybe? Hard to say, but it was delicious and a huge chunk of foie.

2013 Ossian. 90 points. An unusual heavier Spanish white.

Rice with Snails and Periwinkles in Tomato and Basil film. Sounds funny, but was delicious. Tasted like some kind of Chinese fried race, maybe a snail sausage fried rice!

Whole-Grain Red Mullet with Sauce “Fusili”.

One of the fusili, which was some kind of corkscrew of sugar? filled with a broth. Interesting. Wasn’t oily or fishy like many red mullet preps too.

I’m not sure what this dish was. May have been mushroom.

“Desalted” Cod Box with Shavings. It just comes in the box.

It was plated like this and basically like a nice piece of cod.

Sea Bass “UMAMI”.

The “Umami” was this separate grouping of stuff that you could put on the seabass to add, you guessed it, umami. I think it was made of anchovies and other bits like that.

2006 Bodegas Muga Rioja Gran Reserva Prado Enea. VM 92. raised in large oak vats for a year, followed by three years in small, used American oak barrels): Dark ruby. Highly fragrant scents of redcurrant, dried cherry, pipe tobacco, leather and rose oil. Lively and precise on the palate, offering deeply pitched red fruit and floral pastille flavors and a hint
of black pepper. The youthfully tight finish features excellent clarity and lingering spiciness.

Roasted Pigeon with a Touch of Mole and Cocoa. The thing on the left was a kind of cookie with spiced pigeon meat inside — delicious.
Closer picture because this pigeon was SO GOOD. Just amazing. Tender rare meat, and an awesome rich mole sauce.

Carved Beef, Tail Cake “Potatoes and Peppers”.

The Tail Cake in focus. Like a meat tiramisu.

Some dessert amuses.

Melting Cupcake. Like a semi-fredo.

Xaxu and Foaming Coconut Ice Cream. The styrofoam looking stuff tasted like coconut gelato.

Gin & Tonic on a plate.

The Broken Jar of Yogurt, “Gatzatua” and Berries. This won the cool look award for the night. Everything was edible! It was made of yogurt too.

The different Apple Tart. I don’t know what the “plastic” was made of, but it was edible (and good).

The inside was basically a perfect crunchy apple tart like pastry. Really quite awesome.

Some various petite fours.

This was an amazing meal. The style at Akelaŕe seems to be playful reinterpretations of classic French/Spanish/Italian dishes. It uses modernist techniques, but not so heavily as to distort the dish into unfoodlike forms. And most importantly, the dishes retain solid flavor profiles with balance. They don’t always taste exactly like you’d expect, but they taste good and in the “frequency range” of whatever dish roll they serve in the meal. I.e. a savory, while perhaps having sweet notes, still tastes like a savory. As general rule the dishes are also complex, involving multiple ingredients working in harmony, but the chef has a fabulous sense of pairing and I don’t remember anything with a jarring or off-putting combinations as is sometimes a problem in extreme modernism.

Setting, as you can see, was magnificent, as was service. Not only were they extremely attentive, but they easily dealt with several different dietary rule sets, including our young son.

Certainly a worthy three star experience. Akelaŕe is crafting cutting edge food that sings on the palate.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Akelare, Akelarre, eating-spain, Michelin 3 Star, Michelin Guide, San Sebastian, Spanish Cuisine

Eating San Sebastian – Baztán

Jul04

Restaurant: Baztán

Location: Portu Kalea, 8, 20003 San Sebastián-Donostia, Gipuzkoa, Spain

Date: June 16, 2016

Cuisine: Pintxos

Rating: “Straight up” Basque Tapas

I’m choosing to use Baztán as a sort of light introduction to San Sebastian tapas — in part because of its normality.

San Seb is packed with Pintxos bars. Dozens upon dozens of them and they vary wildly in style, quality, and crowds. Baztán is a pretty typical type.

First of all, the offerings are dominated by straight up pintxos (stuff on pieces of bread). These, for the most part, sit on the counter. You grab a plate (or 2) and load up as many as you like, then hand it to a bar keep along with your drink order. If something needs heating he’ll do that. Most things here don’t and usually they are eaten pretty much as they sit on the bar. Let’s look at some examples.

Salmon and cream, salmon and anchovies, tortilla espanola, fried fish, seafood salad and anchoives, egg, peppers & anchovies, etc.

Peppers and olives, seafood salad, octopus, cheesy scallop, ham & goat cheese, fried thingy, chorizo, egg, and pepper.

More salmon, mushrooms & eggs, gazpacho, peppers, etc.

More fried stuff, black pudding!

Sangria.

Flan. Quite a nice one actually.

And lots of pictures of the bar.

More.

And even more.

There are some funny things on bread, like stacked meat balls, a couple sausages and even skewered French fries pinioned to the toasts! See the chorizo and fries on the right!

Here are the meatballs. Some shrimp, steak tartar etc.

The desserts.
Straight pintxos like this is a funny cuisine. First of all, if the bar is crowded at all it’s sort of a nightmare: Nowhere to eat, very hard if you have a large party. 1-2 people, no problem, you just grab some stuff when you order your drink. 8, that can be a challenge! There is also no particular rhyme or reason to the distribution of plates (sometimes they are at the bar, sometimes you ask the bartender) or a mechanism for getting his attention so you can pay, order, etc. I found it much like a crowded club bar.

Then there is the pintxos themselves. They certainly taste very good, and you can pick what you want to try by looks and in small increments, but I soon tired of all those slices of thick French bread. I’m not the sort to eat 10-15 slices of bread! So I ate about 2 and then resorted to eating the toppings off. Felt kinda like eating the fish off the rice at all-you-can-eat sushi.

Still, this was a fun and tasty experience, and a good intro as we delve later into more exotic tapas/pintxos formats.

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By: agavin
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Tagged as: Baztán, eating-spain, pintxos, San Sebastian, Spanish Cuisine, Tapas

Eating Barcelona – Hoja Santa

Jul01

Restaurant: Hoja Santa

Location: Av. de Mistral, 54, 08015 Barcelona, Spain. +34 933 48 21 94

Date: June 14, 2016

Cuisine: Modern Mexican

Rating: elBuli Mexicana

Ever since Jak 3 caused me to have to give up the reservation I had at elBuli, I’ve wanted to experience the legendary Adria cuisine. Supposedly the Spanish style of this is most closely reflected in Albert Adrià’s Tickets — but seeing as that was nearly impossible to get a reservation for, our party of 8 went instead to Adrià’s modernist Mexican, Hoja Santa.

The Barcelona frontage.

On a parklike street.

The interior is casual and slightly kitchy. The website describes the restaurant thusly:

We love Mexico, and the way its gastronomy is a fundamental part of the country. HOJA SANTA is a homage and compliment to this culture, for this reason Albert Adrià and Paco Méndez have collaborated on an adventure into the creation of a restaurant in Barcelona, to share the flavours and traditions of Mexico. The name HOJA SANTA came from a journey made by the chefs Albert and Paco to Oaxaca. Here they were inspired by the Oaxaca leaf which also goes by the names acuyo, momo, hierba santa or tlanepa and is often used in cooking in the region.

Margarita. An unusual one too with a complex blend of fruit and herby flavors.

Margarita with salt foam. The traditional salt crystals have been infused into the foam.

Passionfruit and chocolate. Another interesting drink.

Pickles. Marinated onions, carrots, cucumbers, etc. Real nice crunch and a strong vinegar flavor.

Banana crisps and leaves. The crisps were quite spicy with a punchy “green chili” flavor. The leaves were sweet and crispy, almost like basil. Very enjoyable.

Chilled mango with herbs. More interesting fruit / herb combos.

Green chili. A delicious bright (and quite hot) tomatillo based salsa.

Cantine olives. The “classic” elBuli modernist olives, with a slight twist. In case you haven’t been to a Jose Andres or Adrià restaurant, these are olive puree suspended in calcium alginate spheres. The juice pops in your mouth. These weren’t just olive, but had a bit of tasty chili in there too.

Cornbread with chia and coffee caviar. The cornbread is the corn shaped thing. The caviar had a hint of spice. Extremely light and fluffy with a bit of taste of char. Very interesting. As a side note, they seem to love chia in Spain.

Avocado gazpacho. As good as you would imagine, and drunk right out of the avocado skin.

2014 Parés Baltà Syrah Penedès Rosé Radix. 90 points. Very unusual “powerful” deep red Syrah rose. Extremely nice and perfect with this cuisine.

Chicken skin caesar. A little bite size “caesar salad” on a bit of fried chicken skin. Neat.

A vegetarian replacement, one of those little edible packets filled with stuff.

Barbecue Jicara. A Jicara is a Mexican round pot, and this refers to the green corn shell. The meat was some kind of unusual cut and very soft, rich, and succulent with a bit of spices.

A vegetarian version with a corn “bowl” filled with some kind of white root vegetable.

Make your own quesadillas. Some gooey melted cheese.

Fresh corn tortillas.The cheese is scooped into the tortillas.

Ceviche under a frozen pond. A mix of cold balls of some kind of fish, radish or similar sorbet, flowers, etc, in a lovely cold lime broth. Very interesting dessert-like array of textures and temperatures, but with the ceviche flavors.

Pinenut pipian with white asparagus. Very nutty with a paste of pinenut (much like tahini) and the fresh white asparagus (the season is just wrapping up). Lovely.

Stuffed squash blossom taco. Pretty much the taco version of the classic Roman ricotta stuffed squash blossom.

Pipian papanteco with king crab. This rich curry-like sauce was made from who knows what. It was thick and delicious. There were also chunks of pistachio for texture and blobs and blobs of king crab. This was an awesome dish. The only disadvantage was a blob that landed on (and stained) one of my favorite shirts. We shall see if the dry cleaners can get it out.

Vegetable salad. Mixed marinated vegetables.

Fish taco. Fried hake nuggets and cucumber in a taco.

I wanted a red on the softer side to complement the food well and the excellent somm recommended with very unusual but really awesome Spanish Grenache — nothing like the typical deep purple Grenache, but more ruby/pinot like.

2012 Viñedos Bernabeleva Vinos de Madrid Bernabeleva Arroyo del Tórtolas. VM 92+. Brilliant ruby-red. A highly perfumed bouquet evokes Asian spices, raspberry, potpourri and smoky minerals. Extremely tight on the palate, offering vibrant red fruit and floral pastille flavors and a jolt of blood orange. Opens up slowly on the finish, which clings with excellent tenacity and silky, harmonious tannins. This one should age slowly.

Pistachio pipian with sea cucumber. This somewhat similar sauce to above was more tangy. The sea cucumber has an odd texture like always, but that didn’t matter with the yummy sauce.

Onion with…

Some kind of sauce.

And a second sauce, with some chili in it.

Morels with Ocosingo cheese cream. Wow these were good. Fresh morels in a kind of cheesy cream sauce.

This was a meat dish, and delicious, but I can’t remember exactly what was in it. There were these noodle like things too. Possibly it was: Cochinita pibil infladita (slow roast pork).

Puffs with some vegetable substitute inside. Airly and supposedly delicious.

2013 Acústic Celler Montsant Braó. Moving up to a beefier much more purple Grenache.
The chefs at work in the kitchen.

Meat empanada. Delicious.

Foie gras and duck taco with Manchanteles mole. Amazing taco. Super rich with that big blob of foie but tons of flavor.

Veracruzana style Skate.

Here is the salsa Veracruz, with that tangy tomatillo flavor. The skate texture is “odd.”

Bresse quail, “Like Water for Chocolate.”

Then covered in ashed mole of roses. Awesome dish. In many ways a classic chicken mole, but with a nice subtle rose flavor and totally awesome.

Ashed mole of roses with vegetables.

Herbal popsicle. Delicious and refreshing. This kitchen uses a lot of herbs in non traditional (by conventional Euro/American standards), but obviously drawing from Mexican tradition. However, the Romans used these kinds of pairings all the time.

Pumpkin seed palanqueta. A tad dry.

Margarita with coconut cloud. Another light and delicious dessert.

2013 L’Olivera Cooperativa Costers del Segre Rasim Vimadur Negre. Some dessert wine.

Corn, chocolate, and cajeta. The “corn” was actually corn ice cream in corn shape. Pretty awesome.

Dragon fruit, lichi, and red pickly pear. Interesting frozen bonbons!

Mayan zero, coffee, cheese, and cinnamon. Little bits of puffy flavor.

The check came in this Mexican painted gourd.
Overall, an awesome meal. Decided very serious Mexican in flavors — actually a more formal type of Mexican we don’t get that much of in LA (where we have so many casual and Baja style places). It probably draws more on traditional high end cooking from Mexico City and Oaxaca, but then introduces modernist plating and techniques. These however, served onto to make the dishes more fun and playful, as they didn’t distract at all from the complex but harmonious flavors. Even the 2-3 vegetarians in our party loved this meal — and they normally don’t like Mexican. So double thumbs up!

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Barcelona, eating-spain, elBuli, Hoja Santa, Mexican cuisine

Eating Barcelona – Catalana

Jun29

Restaurant: Cerveseria Catalana

Location: Carrer de Mallorca, 236, 08008 Barcelona

Date: June 14, 2016

Cuisine: Catalonian Tapas

Rating: Excellente!

Not only was this place recommended on Chowhound, but my parents independently “blundered” into it and loved it.

So I had to go back and try it with them.

Very “typical” super upscale Barcelona Tapas bar scene with a gorgeous wood interior.

And lots of sit at the counter space.

The layout of “white” salad (consisting of stuff in mayo).

A lot of the tapas are out in a halfway prepped form.

And more.

And seafood.

And veggies.

And pinchos (stuff on bread) like these croqueta.

On anchovies and peppers.

Or walnut cheese spread and pineapple.

Or these amazing salmon and cream cheese.

And of course, Jamon.

Or Jamon with other stuff, like peppers.

Mushrooms can be selected and cooked up together.

More types, including mushrooms with Jamon (capitalized because in Spain, Jamon is a proper noun).

Boquerones en vinagre. One of my favorite traditional tapas. Super fresh here with that nice tang.

Crab salad on toast. Like an upscale spanish version of a Subway “seafood salad” sandwich.
Salmon and cream cheese or cream fraiche. Awesome.
Jamon.
Tomato bread.

Steamed shrimp. Super fresh and tasty with that bright briny flavor.

Sautéed mushrooms. Colon sweeper! Yummy with garlic and olive oil.

Asparagus with sea salt.

Duck cannelloni. This is the raw form. They cooked it up.

To this amazing, rich, béchamel wonder! Soft and creamy.

Coconut flan. To die for.

And cappuccino.
There was even a dessert bar.

Overall, Catalana was fabulous. Very straight up, nothing too modernist or anything, but really good, really fresh Catalonian tapas and a great atmosphere.

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Barcelona, Catalana, eating-spain, Spanish Cuisine, Tapas

Eating Barcelona – Ca l’Isidre

Jun27

Restaurant: Ca l’Isidre

Location: Carrer de les Flors, 12, 08001 Barcelona

Date: June 13, 2016

Cuisine: Catalonian

Rating: Awesome, best we had in Barcelona

This traditional family run Ctaalonian resteraunt I found off Chowhound and was recommended by many as one of the best in the city.

Classic city exterior.

A classic but updated interior.

The Menu.

A round of Cava to start.

Followed quickly by some Albarino. This crisp white from the corner of Spain above Portugal has turned out to be one of my favorite start whites and is a perfect tapas wine as well. This specific bottle was the 2013 Tricó Rías Baixas.

Bread with tomato. My son likes this classic.

Croquette with chicken and ham.

Anchovie from Cantabria. The salty kind.

An elaborate bread box.

Bread. Olive and rosemary I think.

Seabass tartar with parsley oil. A lovely “western” tataki or even a poke if you like. Soft fish and nice parsley notes almost like a pesto.
Toasts to go with the tartar.

Tomato salad with onion, capers and tuna. Classic Catalonian salad.

“Gazpacho” Vegetables cold soup with lobster and sea fruits. Before the soup…

And after. This turned out to be one of the best gazpachos I have ever had. It wasn’t super vinegary, but had an exquisite balance.

Simple pasta for “the boy.”

And accompaniments of cheese and red sauce.

Olive oil.

Langostin raviolis with lime and ginger vinaigrette. Deliciously light and aromatic with a serious spa vibe from the flowers and herbs.

Morel mushrooms with duck liver cream. Rich and stunningly delicious. Fresh morels too, in season, and that duck liver sauce… oh my.

2013 Ferrer Bobet Priorat Denominacio d’Origen Qualificada. An unusual blend for priorat, big and grapey.

Fries. You can find them at almost any Spanish restaurant, from street corner to Michelin 3 star.

Grilled wild turbot with potatoes and garlic.

Codfish with “romesco” sauce.

Beef tartar. Surprisingly spicy. Lots of capers too. The meat was very good but the spice was a touch distracting.

Roast baby goat with small onions. Very tender (for goat) and decently strong.

Fillet of beef grilled.

Fries and crisps (for the tartar).

A selection of Spanish cheeses!

Vanilla ice cream.

Apricot tatin with milk ice cream. Very nice “cobbler.”

Eggs with chocolate fondant and sabayon with rum. The sabayon was inside the egg with the chocolate at the bottom. Yum! Didn’t quite get that interesting Marsala/citrus blend that my favorite Zabione gelato gets – but still deliciously eggy.

Catalan cream with burned sugar. Consistently a little looser than creme brule. Same flavor, but I prefer the firmer custard (or even flan).

Chocolate soufflé with vanilla ice cream. Several of us thought this was the best chocolate souffle we have ever had. It was VERY intense though and perhaps needed even more ice cream (not pictured).

Coconut milk ice cream with toffee. These not only looked cool, but were awesome — ice you like coconut ice cream (which I do). Basically coconut ice cream rolled in coconut and then (optionally) dipped in toffee.
Gels and little cakes.

There was some contention in the group about Ca l’Isidre, with the pescatarian contingent not feeling the love and the rest of us thinking they knocked it out of the park — particularly with the starters and desserts. This is basically classic Catalonian as far as I can tell, with a touch of modern prep and presentation. The execution and ingredients though were really top top notch. Many dishes (like the gazpacho and morels) were really singing.

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By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Barcelona, Ca l'Isidre, Catalonian cuisine, eating-spain, Spanish Cuisine

Eating Barcelona – Mian

Jun24

Restaurant: Mian

Location: Carrer de Girona, 49, 08009 Barcelona

Date: June 12, 2016

Cuisine: Chinese

Rating: Tolerable Chinese

On this Sunday night we didn’t have a prearranged reservation and so did a quick internet search not long before. Having had a bunch of straight Spanish food we picked a place that appealed to be “Asian influenced tapas.”

Mian turned out to be more or less straight up Chinese food with portion sizes adjusted for the Spanish market. But my loyal readers know, I’m a fan of Chinese food so let’s see how this Barcelona version stacked up.

Fairly modern interior.

The menu.

We ordered this rose, which turned out to pair well.

Seaweed salad.
Curried shrimp rolls. These springroll like things were one of the better appetizers. Hot and fried, they had a nice mild curry flavor.

Xiangsu battered ribs. Little pork riblets deeply fried. VERY fried, and with lots of gristle and bone. tasted pretty good though.

XLB. The classic pork dumplings. Coating was way too heavy and the filling had very little flavor.

Shrimp dumplings. Better than the pork, but still not amazing.

Vegetable Noodles. Sort of a lo-mein. Passable.

Beef noodle soup.

Vegetable fried rice. Ok.

Shrimp noodle soup.

Garlic eggplant. A mushy somewhat mediocre version of this dish. Not that garlicky or spicy. Not horrible or anything, but nowhere near a great version — and I’ve had some great versions.

Crispy noodles with seafood. Edible, but not like the amazing Elite Seafood version.

Mapo tofu. MSG laden non spicy version of this classic. If I’m going to take the MSG hit, I’ll go for it like this. Or make it myself.

Sir fried chicken. Simple, but one of the more effective dishes.

Beef with scallions. Soft and tasty meat. Pretty good.

Duck Conbao. Not bad, not great.
Egg fried rice. Is what it is.

So Mian ended up being a middling Chinese place — kind of like Westside Chinese with slightly smaller portions. Prices were reasonable and it was fun enough, but they used lots of MSG and I had a big headache an hour latter. So, since I’m spoiled with great Chinese it was just acceptable — because Chinese is rarely so bad as to be awful.