Wednesday June 24
Yes, the contrast was ludicrous, but what could we do? They had Bass Ale on tap. We got the least obnoxious thing on the menu, a couple of hamburgers (Holt's with bacon) with french fries.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Madrid-Barcelona, Barcelona, again
Tuesday June 23
After a late start and an odd lunch (tapas at el Quim de Boqueria, in the big market, where we ordered by look and ended up eating okay octopus and what turned out to be ensalada cap-i-pota, "head and leg" of pork, i.e. headcheese salad), we spent some time by the pool, as our legs (and heads) were exhausted. Around five, we went up to the Parc Guell for an evening stroll around the crazy mosaics, a peek at the Casa Gaudí, and a beer under the palm trees with the green parrots. But we had no dinner ideas, so we gave up and headed back to Madrid-Barcelona.
After ordering a bottle of Martivillí Rueda, we started off with another thing we'd seen at that other table the previous night, "Festival de closca/feast of shellfish," a bounteous dish of steamed mussels, clams, vongole-style clams, and shrimp, with a whisk of parsley oil. There was also a nice plate of xipirons fregits, fried squidlets as good as those at La Trucha. Our mains were Llobaro (sea bass) a la brutesca, and tonyna amb tomàquet confitat i crema de rulo/thick tuna steak with "crystallized" tomato. The tuna was not red in the middle, as ours would be, but was still tender and juicy.We ended up with a little dessert, a semifred de torró amb xocolata calenta - just sound it out and you'll figure it out. It was luscious.
Looking back at our two and a half weeks here, we seem to have had fish or seafood every day, and just about everything was fresh, tasty, and carefully, even elegantly, prepared. We were also lucky in that the euro had slid down to $1.40, which meant that a 15-euro set menu - which contains not just tourist food, but things the Spaniards eat themselves - came to around $21. In fact, some of our best meals - at La Fabrica, Cuca Fera, La Cuineta, Degusta, Madrid-Barcelona, or La Trucha - didn't go over $90 for both of us, with wine and everything included.
So thanks, ASMOSIA! We loved Spain, and we hope to go back again.
Madrid-Barcelona, Barcelona
Monday June 22
On to Barcelona.
We had had the nice desk guys at our hotel call for reservations at some chi-chi place that only had an answering machine, and when we walked a few miles to get there, we found them not open. So we hiked back to our alternative (always have an alternative!), Madrid-Barcelona, and were glad we did.
We don't know why the "Madrid," because the restaurant is resolutely Catalan, and like another place we saw, adheres closely to the linguistic regulations. So we had to start with cava, a dry Anna Codorníu, as we admired the warm terracotta-colored walls set off with black and white. Our starters were caneló de tonyina, creamy-sauced tuna canneloni, and mongetes amb marisc, which confusingly translated as tender beans with seafood - we thought we'd get white beans (Tuscan style), but they turned out to be green beans with some shrimp and mussels. We meant to then share only one dish, as we'd had a late (unremarkable) lunch, but while we were eating our octopus (pop) with romesco sauce, the waiter whisked by with a paper cone, which he emptied onto a plate at a nearby table with such a waft of good smells that we had to use our best "we'll have what they're having" gestures. It turned out to be "paperina de verduras," a paper cone of quick-fried piping-hot battered vegetables, and it was the quintessence of yum.
On to Barcelona.
We had had the nice desk guys at our hotel call for reservations at some chi-chi place that only had an answering machine, and when we walked a few miles to get there, we found them not open. So we hiked back to our alternative (always have an alternative!), Madrid-Barcelona, and were glad we did.
We don't know why the "Madrid," because the restaurant is resolutely Catalan, and like another place we saw, adheres closely to the linguistic regulations. So we had to start with cava, a dry Anna Codorníu, as we admired the warm terracotta-colored walls set off with black and white. Our starters were caneló de tonyina, creamy-sauced tuna canneloni, and mongetes amb marisc, which confusingly translated as tender beans with seafood - we thought we'd get white beans (Tuscan style), but they turned out to be green beans with some shrimp and mussels. We meant to then share only one dish, as we'd had a late (unremarkable) lunch, but while we were eating our octopus (pop) with romesco sauce, the waiter whisked by with a paper cone, which he emptied onto a plate at a nearby table with such a waft of good smells that we had to use our best "we'll have what they're having" gestures. It turned out to be "paperina de verduras," a paper cone of quick-fried piping-hot battered vegetables, and it was the quintessence of yum.
Taverna Mam i Teca, Barcelona
Sunday June 21
It was our first night in the city, which is very different from Madrid. We found this restaurant on Chowhound.com, and though it wasn't far from our four-star (yay for overbooking and upgrades!) hotel near Plaza Catalunya, it is in a very sketchy neighborhood, with mainly an immigrant population. Lots of Filipino shops, halal butchers, and luckily a Havanan bar, because Mam i Teca doesn't open until 8:30, and we needed a few mojitos to help pass the time.
This is sort of a hippy place, only a few tables, a vast range of single malts (!), and shows slow food's red snail. We started with a celebratory copa di cava, and then the house shiraz, Edra xtra syrah 2005, "a big ol' grape stomp in your mouth."
Espárres girgoles amb padró (grilled mushrooms, asparagus, and green Padron peppers); tender red piquillo peppers, like cardinals' copes, in juicy oil. Confit duck leg (pato, anec) with empurpled shallots, and a crispy Llenguardo fish.
It was our first night in the city, which is very different from Madrid. We found this restaurant on Chowhound.com, and though it wasn't far from our four-star (yay for overbooking and upgrades!) hotel near Plaza Catalunya, it is in a very sketchy neighborhood, with mainly an immigrant population. Lots of Filipino shops, halal butchers, and luckily a Havanan bar, because Mam i Teca doesn't open until 8:30, and we needed a few mojitos to help pass the time.
This is sort of a hippy place, only a few tables, a vast range of single malts (!), and shows slow food's red snail. We started with a celebratory copa di cava, and then the house shiraz, Edra xtra syrah 2005, "a big ol' grape stomp in your mouth."
Espárres girgoles amb padró (grilled mushrooms, asparagus, and green Padron peppers); tender red piquillo peppers, like cardinals' copes, in juicy oil. Confit duck leg (pato, anec) with empurpled shallots, and a crispy Llenguardo fish.
La Trucha, again
Saturday June 20
As we were footsore from wandering around the Buen Retiro gardens, stopped for lunch at the only place on our way that was open, el Rincón de Sanabria, where our guesswork Spanish worked only halfway. We were safe with the entremeses Español - various types of ham and chorizo, plus a little manchego cheese - and the Libral fish. But when Barbara ordered "caracoles" expecting snails, what she got was snail-shaped pasta, the Spanish equivalent of mac n' cheese; and the waiter seemed to say that "magret" was fish, but it turned out to be pork stew with fries.
Back to La Trucha for dinner, as the other two places we'd gotten off the Fodor's website didn't look good. Our nice waiter found us a cava, which turned out to be Friexenet Carta Nevada (just like home), and started us off with a lovely hot platter of thin-sliced fried eggplant (berenjena), and another of grilled asparagus. Our mains were chopitos, fried baby squid, which is a specialty of La Trucha's, and as we had to have at least one trout dish, an escabeche with garlic, bay leaves, and pepper. After all that we couldn't manage dessert, but our nice waiter gave us each a shot of the Basque liqueur pacharan, on the house.
La Trucha, Madrid
Friday June 19
Lunch outdoors at Café Gigon, just outside the Biblioteca Nacional, where we'd been manuscripting. The set menu was not memorable (don't EVER order pasta in Spain - it's usually overboiled), but the setting and service were elegant, and they had those wonderful fans that blow cold mist over the diners.
In the evening, went out to La Trucha, a traditional-looking place with wicker chairs and tiled walls. Service was friendly and quick, and the food was excellent. We started with mixed appetizers, or Verbena de Canapés - little toasts with anchovies, tuna, smoked salmon and bacalao, and even caviar. Trucha a la Truchada (and how can you not?) was butterflied fried trout, with a stuffing of bacon/ham in the middle. Emperador a la plancha: swordfish scattered with garlic and herbs, with casseroled potatoes, mayonnaise and lemon. And a vin blanco (Rueda) di Madrid: Solar de la Vega.
Lunch outdoors at Café Gigon, just outside the Biblioteca Nacional, where we'd been manuscripting. The set menu was not memorable (don't EVER order pasta in Spain - it's usually overboiled), but the setting and service were elegant, and they had those wonderful fans that blow cold mist over the diners.
In the evening, went out to La Trucha, a traditional-looking place with wicker chairs and tiled walls. Service was friendly and quick, and the food was excellent. We started with mixed appetizers, or Verbena de Canapés - little toasts with anchovies, tuna, smoked salmon and bacalao, and even caviar. Trucha a la Truchada (and how can you not?) was butterflied fried trout, with a stuffing of bacon/ham in the middle. Emperador a la plancha: swordfish scattered with garlic and herbs, with casseroled potatoes, mayonnaise and lemon. And a vin blanco (Rueda) di Madrid: Solar de la Vega.
Lhardy, Madrid
Thursday June 18
This was one of two options from the guidebook for tonight's dinner. We passed it by because it looked too expensive, but when we got to the other (Casa Labra) they announced that it was closed - though there were people in there eating, and it was only 10 PM. What is this, Cincinnati? And it started raining, so back to Lhardy, which boasts of being one of Madrid's oldest restaurants (oh, come on, 1839 - there are places in this town where Goya was a busboy).
It is certainly a genteel period room, with ornate ormolu, dark wood, and pieces of elaborate silver scattered about. The maitre d' was shatteringly polite, and the tuxedoed staff almost too attentive, but we are past the age of being affected by that. The olive oil came in little bottles with the restaurant's name (Mom would have loved them), but the bread was hard, not fresh.
We only ordered main plates, as we were still stuffed from a decent late lunch of tapas-style cold fish and salads at the Prado. One main was very good - Milojas Solomillo, a stack of lovely rare slices of steak with tender asparagus stems between each one, topped with a cream sauce and pink peppercorns. The wine, Tagonius 2004 (which we're told is local) went beautifully with it. Unfortunately, the other main, "Presa Iberica," or pork leg with chestnuts and aroma of truffles, was in fact several slices of fatty - and let's be honest, fatty and tough - meat in an uninteresting, untruffled sweet brown sauce, with a few hard chestnut balls alongside; when you tried to cut them, you were afraid that they would skitter off your plate and smack a waiter in the eye.
Frankly, one of the worse meals we've had here, and at three times the price of the best.
This was one of two options from the guidebook for tonight's dinner. We passed it by because it looked too expensive, but when we got to the other (Casa Labra) they announced that it was closed - though there were people in there eating, and it was only 10 PM. What is this, Cincinnati? And it started raining, so back to Lhardy, which boasts of being one of Madrid's oldest restaurants (oh, come on, 1839 - there are places in this town where Goya was a busboy).
It is certainly a genteel period room, with ornate ormolu, dark wood, and pieces of elaborate silver scattered about. The maitre d' was shatteringly polite, and the tuxedoed staff almost too attentive, but we are past the age of being affected by that. The olive oil came in little bottles with the restaurant's name (Mom would have loved them), but the bread was hard, not fresh.
We only ordered main plates, as we were still stuffed from a decent late lunch of tapas-style cold fish and salads at the Prado. One main was very good - Milojas Solomillo, a stack of lovely rare slices of steak with tender asparagus stems between each one, topped with a cream sauce and pink peppercorns. The wine, Tagonius 2004 (which we're told is local) went beautifully with it. Unfortunately, the other main, "Presa Iberica," or pork leg with chestnuts and aroma of truffles, was in fact several slices of fatty - and let's be honest, fatty and tough - meat in an uninteresting, untruffled sweet brown sauce, with a few hard chestnut balls alongside; when you tried to cut them, you were afraid that they would skitter off your plate and smack a waiter in the eye.
Frankly, one of the worse meals we've had here, and at three times the price of the best.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)