We went to Spain this year with one sole purpose - to eat as much good food as we could in the little time that we had. After a rather unsuccessful attempt at getting a table at El Bulli for the 5th year running, we attempted to overcompensate by making reservations at as many of the other good restaurants there were in Spain - this included the Roca brothers' El Celler de Can Roca, Andoni Anduriz's Mugaritz, Etxebarri and of course, hit as many tapas/pintxos bars we could possibly stomach. The end result is that although we only went to a handful of the places we wanted to go, the experience at Etxebarri is a pretty close contender for the best meal ever so far..
Arriving into a freezing cold Barcelona in the early morning hours, we checked into the Hotel ME Barcelona, a modern hotel overlooking Avenida Diagonal towards the East of the city.
Without wasting any time, we headed out for an mid-morning brunch session - and at 11am, there were only few choices, so we headed to Carles Abellan's tapas creation, Tapac24. A disciple of the El Bulli faction, Abellan left El Bulli in 1990 and went on to set up his chic Comerc24 restaurant and eventually went on to open up his equally chic tapas bar in Barcelona.
Tapac24
Unfortunately, their hot tapas aren't served until a little later in the day, which was utterly disappointing.... Nonetheless, we started off the day with some bocadillos of the awesome kind: Iberico ham sandwich:
Blood sausage chorizo sandwich:
Tapac24's famous bikini sandwich: Jamon Iberico, hot melted Manchego cheese and truffles
Interior of Tapac24:
Tapac24, 269 carrer Diputacio, Barcelona http://www.comerc24.com/tapac24
La Bocqueria
We headed down towards La Ramblas, famous for its hoardes of pick pockets to La Boqueria, the local fresh food market:
Fruits, preserves and olive oils:
Fresh fish:
Soon after getting to the market, we sighted a few interesting food bars dotted around the outskirts of the market, and with Leeann big on the shellfish, we stopped at Kiosko Universal:
Fresh razor clams cooked in garlic oil:
Almejas aka clams also cooked in garlic oil:
It could not have been colder that day... zero degree temperatures seated outdoors... things we do for food...
Ibericus: a shop known for selling only 1 thing.... jamon iberico...
Kevin deciding what to buy:
Jamon Iberico, is like the king of all cured hams. Unlike parma ham, Iberico comes from the Iberian black pig (Kurobuta to those in Japan) and is cured for up to 36 months. The highest grade Iberico is the Bellotta type, which are fed acorns only, giving it a nutty and smooth texture like no other.. This ranks near the top of our food lists..
A bit like its little brother the Jamon Serrano, Iberico just has a more oily texture, with awesome flavours to go..
After picking up a pack to eat at the hotel, we got hungry again and headed to the roof of the Avenida Diagonal shopping center for some Iberico with fried eggs and french fries...
Some Pulpo Gallego (Octopus on top of potatos with paprika sprinkles)
Leeann's asparagus, devoured far too quickly for the camera to come out..
El Celler de Can Roca
One of the restaurants we were visiting this time around is the much talked about El Celler de Can Roca. Run by 3 brothers, Joan (head chef), Josep (Sommelier) and Jordi (desserts), the restaurant lies about an hour North East of Barcelona by car in the town of Girona. While there is nothing particularly exciting about the town itself, with the exception of being rather hard to navigate with its zig zags and small streets, Can Roca is getting quite a bit of attention as being one of the more innovative and pioneering restaurants in the world, recently receiving its 3rd Michelin star.
After go around and around the same round-about several times and getting some tourist-grins from the traffic police as we asked for directions, we got to Can Roca about 5 minutes past our 1pm reservations to an almost entirely empty restaurant. While the spaniards are known for their late meals, the sight of the restaurant lights turned off and barely a wait staff in sight was somewhat odd and disconcerting but we went with the flow and were sat on the street end of the ultra-modern zen styled restaurant (built a few years ago to replace the original site).
As we had an 8pm flight that evening to San Sebastian, our plan was for lunch to last up until about 3:30-4pm before our 1.5 hour drive back to El Prat Airport, so fingers crossed we were good on time!
Can Roca serves both a set menu as well as an ala carte menu, but with all the innovation on their menu, we went with the 130 Euro "Feast menu" to sample all their signature dishes where Leeann making a few minor substitutions to a few dishes.
Starting off caramelized olives hanging from a tree:
Anchovy bone chips (on the bottom left) which were excellent and parmesan tulip chips (upper middle):
What a gem: grapefruit shell filled with bacardi (??). The popping of the shell with the explosion of citrus and alcohol were stunningly stunning.
Boletus edulis brioche. What we believe to be a gnocchi like ball of truffle with a hot brothy soup... complex, elegant and clean.
On the left: Campari bombon, on the right: foie gras nougat (brilliant)
Crustaceans veloute with cauliflower toffee and tangerine. The plate was piping hot but the food was just luke warm, not sure if that was what was intended in case the sea urchin gets overcooked.. Leeann enjoyed this one:
Lightly grilled king prawns at the top (complete with all its gooey innards, yummy!) and king prawn sand - which is basically some sort of deconstructed prawn in the form of.... the bottom of the ocean! ..
Kevin's favourite dish: Smoked herring caviar potato omelette. A dumpling like shell encasing salty herring caviar in a milky consomme... sensational. Could eat this all day...
Artichoke cream on top of foie gras cream with salted eel and bits of orange and potato chip.. Talk about innovative combination. Great dish..!
Cod pot-au-feu. Lightly seared cod fillet, cooked to perfection with 5 different sauces to pair. Served from bottom up: Fennel, bergamot (yes, you didn't read wrong), orange, pine nut and olive. We're not huge fans of fennel, but the contrast and progression of flavours was wonderful.
Some mixed reactions here. Some salty cod (baccalau) served with a few gnocchi, cabbage and brandade terrine (which is basically a puree of salty cod with olive oil and milk). Leeann thought this was a bit too salty for her tastes but Kevin was positively surprised by this one.
Leeann's replacement for her lamb. One of Can Roca's signature dishes, the lobster.. again, she found this one a touch too salty.
Steak tartare with mustard ice cream and souffle potatoes. Fascinating combination of ingredients and flavours which included spiced tomato, caper compote, pickles, lemon, hazelnut praline and a meat bearnaise sauce Topped with Oloroso-sherry raisin, chives, Sichuan pepper, Pimenton de La Vera (D.O.), smoked paprika and curry.. still not sure what to make of it though. Truly interesting though.
Kevin's goose a la royale with peach compote and foie gras. Moist goose meat with an earthy and lovely gamey flavour
Leeann's iberian pork belly.
Hats off to this dessert concocted by Jordi Roca. Ranking up there with some of the best desserts we have ever had (honestly), the charcoal smoked clear shell (with charcoal smoke inside it) on top of a frozen mandarin orange cream + fruits was sublime.
This was the vanilla, caramel, liquorice, dried and caramelised black olives with a Tahitian-vanilla condensed ice cream... flavours of this were a bit too odd for us though.
'Terre' by Hermes. Deconstructed perfumery. Take a bottle of perfume and try to recreate the flavours and texture of it in a dessert - this is pretty much what it was..Leeann thought this is what a bar of fragrant soap would taste like, but Kevin thought the deconstruction really did work
Comparing it to the real thing...
Assorted chocolates to end the meal with
The man himself, Joan Roca:
The laboratory..errr kitchen where all the magic took place in.
Main reception:
Towards the rear wine cellar area
A photo of the front entrance as we departed..
Placing 5th on San Pellegrino's 50 Best in the World for 2009, Can Roca definitely is pushing new boundaries with its food. There were a couple of small misses with the meal, and some dishes were a touch on the saltier side, but overall the restaurant definitely sits up there with the top restaurants we have ever eaten at.
Service was top notch with all the wait staff well versed in the food (in both English and in Catalan), an immaculately timed delivery of dishes and well executed serving. At 130 Euros per person, it isn't the cheapest of places, but it is well worth the money with the dozen or so courses we received over the 3.5 hour lunch. Even the 1 hour drive from Barcelona to the town of Girona is a pretty painless journey - although we would not recommend it to those rushing off to catch an evening flight the same day.
El Celler de Can Roca, 48 Can Suyer, Girona. http://www.cellercanroca.com
San Sebastian
From El Celler de Can Roca, we made a beeline through the traffic of Barcelona to catch the evening flight out to the coastal town of San Sebastian, the capital city of Gipuzkoa province in the Basque country bordering France and the Pyrenees. Known for its international film festival and jazz festivals every year, San Sebastian also takes the cake for food. Boasting the most number of Michelin stars per capita in the world, 3 out of Spain's seven 3 Michelin star restaurants are in Sen Sebastian; Akelare, Arzak and Martin Berasategui. Unfortunately, with Akelare closed in February, Arzak getting a few negative reviews recently and being unable to get a reservation at Berasategui, we opted for Etxebarri and Mugaritz as close alternatives.
But before that, our wait at the airport got us a bit hungry, so a few more pintxos to start the evening. Three pintxos plus a glass of red wine, total cost, 5 euros....
Leeann studying our routing
Asador Etxebarri, Axpe
The next day started with us picking up the rental car at the Centro Diagonal shopping center in the middle of San Sebastian and then making our way a little over 1 hour to the tiny, tiny, tiny... did i say TINY village of Axpe, which sits about 65km to the South West of San Sebastian and about 35km to the South East of Bilbao. Set in a converted farmhouse originally built over 100 years ago, the chef and proprietor Victor Arguinzoniz opened Etxebarri at its current location in 1989 and has been part of the team creating one of the most exciting dining experiences that we have come across in a long long time, if not ever.
Asadors traditionally refer to 'grill houses' or restaurants which pride themselves in serving up a good grill.
Etxebarri is no different in the sense that fresh ingredients are grilled over homemade charcoals (a different type for different dishes mind you!) and served as simple but yet unique dishes - unique in all respects.
Arriving 5 minutes prior to our 1pm sitting, the restaurant was barely open for business with us being the first diners of the day. While none of the wait staff speak any English at all, we asked if Lennox Hastie, the half Brisbanian, half British chef and protege of Victor was around at all. A few minutes later, he came out to greet us and explain a bit about the menu.
Lennox came to Etxebarri a little over 4 years ago for an initial 6 month stint, but he has stuck around to help add an international perspective to a restaurant which still has many of its traditional ways etched into the wait staff. As a result, the little restaurant has made its way into the little red book with a star and sits at number 39 on the San Pellegrino list.
A view from the window where we sat:
Homemade pumpkin soup to start with:
A unique creation of smoked butter. Normally I would consider a blob of butter served like this to be a phenomenal no-no, but this was a remarkable and adventurous dish with a blob of salted butter, lightly smoked with one of their variations of charcoal, and sprinkled with bits of truffle and bread crumbs...
Lightly grilled oyster served on a bed of seaweed and what we believe to be Oyster cream sauce...
Highlight of the meal: Grilled Oscietra caviar... pure bliss...
Instead of peaking and then coming into a trough, the grilled clams served with slightly smoked grapefruit in its own broth was equally breathtaking...
A dish not commonly found in Western cuisine.. grilled sea cucumber served with fava beans. Crunchy and with just a perfect balance of saltiness and oil...
Another highlight. Grilled duck egg yolk underneath Perigord truffles.. with its proximity to the French Aquitaine area, the sourcing of Perigord truffles could not have been more favourable. A strong oaky wood flavour combined with the egg and potato mash underneath was beautifully earthy.
Yet ANOTHER highlight. Smoked Iberian pig chorizo..... this was so, so good!
Now for some more proteins. Grilled bacalau (salted cod).. normally, bacalau is a dry and too salty for my liking but somehow, the pimiento pepper and butter (??) sauce sitting underneath the cod just helped to give this such a good balance:
Just when you thought that the dishes would be winding to a close, a massive punch in the form of a full slab of slightly aged Galician beef. An awesome dichotomy of a grilled outer surface combined with a blue rare steak underneath.. flavoured with nothing more than a few sprinkles of sea salt - out of this world... if only they had served this when we were a bit more hungry! We were pretty stuffed by then.
This first dessert was also a brilliant part of the repertoire. Smoked milk ice-cream with wild fruit infusion. What I can only describe as slightly smokey frozen yoghurt on top of succulently sweet berries made this such a simple but amazing dessert. The fact that it was ice cold to balance the heaviness of the past few courses definitely helped this along..
This formed the slightly mediocre finish to a brilliant meal. The pain perdu (a variant of the french toast) was too custardy for me at this point in the meal and the cinnamon icecream would normally be a great closing flavour but there just wasn't enough of the cinnamon flavour on this one..
I know that once in a while we cite restaurants as being on the top of our lists of places we have eaten, but in all honesty, Etxebarri's food is so simple but yet so astoundingly delicious without any of the bing and bang of typical 'fine dining' establishments that Kevin is tempted to say that this ranks in the top 1 or 2 meals ever, so far. Fair enough we are a bit bummed out that reservations at a certain restaurant in Roses continues to be elusive, but we have done some reading and it seems that we aren't the only people to feel the same about Etxebarri being in the best one or two meals out there.
Fair enough, the service is indeed of still has room for a bit of improvement, but at the end of the day the food is the most important. The fact that it sits in a beautiful setting in the middle of absolutely NOWHERE just makes the trip to Axpe a bit more special.
I would not hesitate to recommend this restaurant to any and everyone out there. The food here is just brilliant.
Asador Etxebarri, middle of nowhere, Axpe-Marzana, Atxondo, middle of nowherehttp://www.asadoretxebarri.com
We would recommend going there for lunch as it is a bit of a drive out there and you wouldn't want to miss the scenery on the way there and while you are there.
Back in San Sebastian
Unfortunately, Leeann hadn't been feeling all that well and we ended up not going to Andoni Aduriz's Mugaritz restaurant on the outskirts of Donostia-San Sebastian....
Being in the land of Pintxos bars and tapas, with the San Sebastian area said to be the center of the best pintxos in the whole of Spain, we had to spend some time bar hopping. We headed to the Northern part of San Sebastian to the old part of town, the Parte Vieja:
Stopping first at Bar Martinez to have a few slabs of Jamon Iberico, some scallop (??) salad on top of a typical piece of baguette and then some mullet roe in brine water... mmmmmm! Glass of house red wine to go with it too of course!
Eat first and then ask what it is later!
Although Bar Martinez was not on our list of places to go, San Sebastian's hundreds of pintxos bars all offer ridiculously simple and delicious tapas. Bar Martinez, 31 Calle de Agosto
Alona Berri
Within the tapas scene, few places can boast as many awards as Alona Berri. One of the more 'upscale' pintxos bars along with several other ones in the Gros area to the East of Parte Vieja.
Innovative and great tasting tapas is what, with a selection of tapas combinations which I would never have dreamed of combining (half of which we couldn't even remember what they were!)
Starting from the bottom left, a seafood combination of clams, shrimp and trout (??) cooked in a light garlic butter consomme... The next 3 on the right included anchovy over foie gras, a spoon-full of a whole bunch of things that noone seems to remember, except that is was bloody tasty! And of course, a customary glass of txacoli, the local cider/wine...
The chef and proprietor, Jose Ramon Elizondo explaining to one of his guests what was on offer for the day:
Leeann eyeing the food:
The menu:
Alona Berri, 24 Calle Bermingham, San Sebastian http://www.alonaberri.com
After lunch it was time to head to San Sebastian airport for our one hour flight back to Barcelona... it was sad to be leaving San Sebastian.... on the way to the airport we found ourselves a couple of packs of 'interesting' flavours of Ruffles!
Maremagnum
Normally we wouldn't hang out a shopping center, but we arrived at our hotel in the early evening and Sunday's are known to be a bit quiet in Barcelona so we took a 5 minute cab ride out to Maremagnum, a new shopping center along the harbour and found ourselves at one of the restaurants along the harbour walk for some seafood cooked in garlic butter:
An extremely savoury seafood paella:
The next day, we wandered in and around the stretch of Passeig de Garcia in search for more tapas for our final day in Barcelona, finding ourselves at Divinus, a tapas bar / restaurant with a huge selection of tapas:
The standard Jamon Iberico, one with a chunk of pepper on top:
A favourite local pasttime: patates bravas: chunks of potato served with a slightly spicy mayo sauce:
Iberico with 2 quail eggs: awesome:
More razor clams for Leeann:
Fairly reasonably priced and although there were some hits, there were some mediocre dishes too.
Divinus Barcelona, 28 Paseo de Garcia http://www.restaurantedivinus.com
Cal Pep
We've heard so many stories of Cal Pep, the 12-seat tapas bar sitting just off the Pla de Palau near Barceloneta run by Josep Manubens Figueres with its sensational queues and its simple yet immaculate cooking. With a 7:30pm opening time, we made it to the front gate at around 7pm to find it closed and noone standing around waiting like people had said.. disappointed, we took a quick stroll to get away from the cold and the rain and 10 minutes later, a small group of Germans had camped out in front of the steel shutter and we kind of got the feeling that the crowds would be showing up any minute.
Surely enough, by around 7:20, the queue had gone around the block and by the time the opened up the doors for us to get our seats, the 2nd seating of people were lined up orderly against the back wall and another dozen or so people stood outside waiting.
Deep fried artichokes, crispy and fragrant - very unique!
This was sensational... clams just lightly cooked in garlic without being too oily or salty...
Egg and potato omlette, a dish which had been recommended by others, but we found it to be a bit.... dull to be honest..
It was interested to see the waitstaff bustling around the back and Josep hacking away with his cough while smothering tomato onto the bread... a bit off-putting but it seems to be quite a regular sight as noone else really cared. The wait staff spoke only a little bit of English and with no menus to be found, we relied mostly on recommendations from people who had gone before and just to point... like these cockles sitting by the back shelf lightly tossed in garlic chilli oil... delicious!:
Tuna tartare.. a bit of a big portion:
Leeann's new look as we stepped out into the rain.
Probably the most expensive of all the tapas bars we went to, but it lived up to the expectations and the hype. The 2 of us spent about 65euros with a couple of glasses of wine and half a dozen dishes.. but we were stuffed! There is a restaurant seating area in the back, but it seemed much more fun to eat at the bar!
Cal Pep, 8 Placa de les Olles http://www.calpep.com
It would have been great if Akelarre was open, if we had made it to Mugaritz, Martin Berastagui, Arzak and Zuberoia if we had more time, but that is going to have to wait till our next trip! Perhaps combined with a trip to Rioja territory and WE STILL CAN'T GET A TABLE AT EL BULLI!
It was hard to cram so many good places to eat in such a good period of time, but even though we were there for only a few days, there is little dispute that Spain is a place for food. Of all the countries we have been to in the past, on Japan has any comparison in terms of ingredients, cooking and presentation as the Spaniards. Comerc24, Alkimia, Sant Pau, ABaC, Can Fabes, Cinc Sentits, Sauc.... the list goes on.. there are seriously very few countries that have us this excited about eating! Go to Spain and eat!!!!!!!!!!!!
Arriving into a freezing cold Barcelona in the early morning hours, we checked into the Hotel ME Barcelona, a modern hotel overlooking Avenida Diagonal towards the East of the city.
Tapac24
Unfortunately, their hot tapas aren't served until a little later in the day, which was utterly disappointing.... Nonetheless, we started off the day with some bocadillos of the awesome kind: Iberico ham sandwich:
Blood sausage chorizo sandwich:
Tapac24's famous bikini sandwich: Jamon Iberico, hot melted Manchego cheese and truffles
Interior of Tapac24:
Tapac24, 269 carrer Diputacio, Barcelona http://www.comerc24.com/tapac24
La Bocqueria
We headed down towards La Ramblas, famous for its hoardes of pick pockets to La Boqueria, the local fresh food market:
Fruits, preserves and olive oils:
Fresh fish:
Soon after getting to the market, we sighted a few interesting food bars dotted around the outskirts of the market, and with Leeann big on the shellfish, we stopped at Kiosko Universal:
Fresh razor clams cooked in garlic oil:
Almejas aka clams also cooked in garlic oil:
It could not have been colder that day... zero degree temperatures seated outdoors... things we do for food...
Ibericus: a shop known for selling only 1 thing.... jamon iberico...
Kevin deciding what to buy:
Jamon Iberico, is like the king of all cured hams. Unlike parma ham, Iberico comes from the Iberian black pig (Kurobuta to those in Japan) and is cured for up to 36 months. The highest grade Iberico is the Bellotta type, which are fed acorns only, giving it a nutty and smooth texture like no other.. This ranks near the top of our food lists..
A bit like its little brother the Jamon Serrano, Iberico just has a more oily texture, with awesome flavours to go..
After picking up a pack to eat at the hotel, we got hungry again and headed to the roof of the Avenida Diagonal shopping center for some Iberico with fried eggs and french fries...
Some Pulpo Gallego (Octopus on top of potatos with paprika sprinkles)
Leeann's asparagus, devoured far too quickly for the camera to come out..
El Celler de Can Roca
One of the restaurants we were visiting this time around is the much talked about El Celler de Can Roca. Run by 3 brothers, Joan (head chef), Josep (Sommelier) and Jordi (desserts), the restaurant lies about an hour North East of Barcelona by car in the town of Girona. While there is nothing particularly exciting about the town itself, with the exception of being rather hard to navigate with its zig zags and small streets, Can Roca is getting quite a bit of attention as being one of the more innovative and pioneering restaurants in the world, recently receiving its 3rd Michelin star.
After go around and around the same round-about several times and getting some tourist-grins from the traffic police as we asked for directions, we got to Can Roca about 5 minutes past our 1pm reservations to an almost entirely empty restaurant. While the spaniards are known for their late meals, the sight of the restaurant lights turned off and barely a wait staff in sight was somewhat odd and disconcerting but we went with the flow and were sat on the street end of the ultra-modern zen styled restaurant (built a few years ago to replace the original site).
As we had an 8pm flight that evening to San Sebastian, our plan was for lunch to last up until about 3:30-4pm before our 1.5 hour drive back to El Prat Airport, so fingers crossed we were good on time!
Can Roca serves both a set menu as well as an ala carte menu, but with all the innovation on their menu, we went with the 130 Euro "Feast menu" to sample all their signature dishes where Leeann making a few minor substitutions to a few dishes.
Starting off caramelized olives hanging from a tree:
Anchovy bone chips (on the bottom left) which were excellent and parmesan tulip chips (upper middle):
What a gem: grapefruit shell filled with bacardi (??). The popping of the shell with the explosion of citrus and alcohol were stunningly stunning.
Boletus edulis brioche. What we believe to be a gnocchi like ball of truffle with a hot brothy soup... complex, elegant and clean.
On the left: Campari bombon, on the right: foie gras nougat (brilliant)
Crustaceans veloute with cauliflower toffee and tangerine. The plate was piping hot but the food was just luke warm, not sure if that was what was intended in case the sea urchin gets overcooked.. Leeann enjoyed this one:
Lightly grilled king prawns at the top (complete with all its gooey innards, yummy!) and king prawn sand - which is basically some sort of deconstructed prawn in the form of.... the bottom of the ocean! ..
Kevin's favourite dish: Smoked herring caviar potato omelette. A dumpling like shell encasing salty herring caviar in a milky consomme... sensational. Could eat this all day...
Artichoke cream on top of foie gras cream with salted eel and bits of orange and potato chip.. Talk about innovative combination. Great dish..!
Cod pot-au-feu. Lightly seared cod fillet, cooked to perfection with 5 different sauces to pair. Served from bottom up: Fennel, bergamot (yes, you didn't read wrong), orange, pine nut and olive. We're not huge fans of fennel, but the contrast and progression of flavours was wonderful.
Some mixed reactions here. Some salty cod (baccalau) served with a few gnocchi, cabbage and brandade terrine (which is basically a puree of salty cod with olive oil and milk). Leeann thought this was a bit too salty for her tastes but Kevin was positively surprised by this one.
Leeann's replacement for her lamb. One of Can Roca's signature dishes, the lobster.. again, she found this one a touch too salty.
Steak tartare with mustard ice cream and souffle potatoes. Fascinating combination of ingredients and flavours which included spiced tomato, caper compote, pickles, lemon, hazelnut praline and a meat bearnaise sauce Topped with Oloroso-sherry raisin, chives, Sichuan pepper, Pimenton de La Vera (D.O.), smoked paprika and curry.. still not sure what to make of it though. Truly interesting though.
Kevin's goose a la royale with peach compote and foie gras. Moist goose meat with an earthy and lovely gamey flavour
Leeann's iberian pork belly.
Hats off to this dessert concocted by Jordi Roca. Ranking up there with some of the best desserts we have ever had (honestly), the charcoal smoked clear shell (with charcoal smoke inside it) on top of a frozen mandarin orange cream + fruits was sublime.
This was the vanilla, caramel, liquorice, dried and caramelised black olives with a Tahitian-vanilla condensed ice cream... flavours of this were a bit too odd for us though.
'Terre' by Hermes. Deconstructed perfumery. Take a bottle of perfume and try to recreate the flavours and texture of it in a dessert - this is pretty much what it was..Leeann thought this is what a bar of fragrant soap would taste like, but Kevin thought the deconstruction really did work
Comparing it to the real thing...
Assorted chocolates to end the meal with
The man himself, Joan Roca:
The laboratory..errr kitchen where all the magic took place in.
Main reception:
Towards the rear wine cellar area
A photo of the front entrance as we departed..
Placing 5th on San Pellegrino's 50 Best in the World for 2009, Can Roca definitely is pushing new boundaries with its food. There were a couple of small misses with the meal, and some dishes were a touch on the saltier side, but overall the restaurant definitely sits up there with the top restaurants we have ever eaten at.
Service was top notch with all the wait staff well versed in the food (in both English and in Catalan), an immaculately timed delivery of dishes and well executed serving. At 130 Euros per person, it isn't the cheapest of places, but it is well worth the money with the dozen or so courses we received over the 3.5 hour lunch. Even the 1 hour drive from Barcelona to the town of Girona is a pretty painless journey - although we would not recommend it to those rushing off to catch an evening flight the same day.
El Celler de Can Roca, 48 Can Suyer, Girona. http://www.cellercanroca.com
San Sebastian
From El Celler de Can Roca, we made a beeline through the traffic of Barcelona to catch the evening flight out to the coastal town of San Sebastian, the capital city of Gipuzkoa province in the Basque country bordering France and the Pyrenees. Known for its international film festival and jazz festivals every year, San Sebastian also takes the cake for food. Boasting the most number of Michelin stars per capita in the world, 3 out of Spain's seven 3 Michelin star restaurants are in Sen Sebastian; Akelare, Arzak and Martin Berasategui. Unfortunately, with Akelare closed in February, Arzak getting a few negative reviews recently and being unable to get a reservation at Berasategui, we opted for Etxebarri and Mugaritz as close alternatives.
But before that, our wait at the airport got us a bit hungry, so a few more pintxos to start the evening. Three pintxos plus a glass of red wine, total cost, 5 euros....
Leeann studying our routing
Asador Etxebarri, Axpe
The next day started with us picking up the rental car at the Centro Diagonal shopping center in the middle of San Sebastian and then making our way a little over 1 hour to the tiny, tiny, tiny... did i say TINY village of Axpe, which sits about 65km to the South West of San Sebastian and about 35km to the South East of Bilbao. Set in a converted farmhouse originally built over 100 years ago, the chef and proprietor Victor Arguinzoniz opened Etxebarri at its current location in 1989 and has been part of the team creating one of the most exciting dining experiences that we have come across in a long long time, if not ever.
Asadors traditionally refer to 'grill houses' or restaurants which pride themselves in serving up a good grill.
Etxebarri is no different in the sense that fresh ingredients are grilled over homemade charcoals (a different type for different dishes mind you!) and served as simple but yet unique dishes - unique in all respects.
Arriving 5 minutes prior to our 1pm sitting, the restaurant was barely open for business with us being the first diners of the day. While none of the wait staff speak any English at all, we asked if Lennox Hastie, the half Brisbanian, half British chef and protege of Victor was around at all. A few minutes later, he came out to greet us and explain a bit about the menu.
Lennox came to Etxebarri a little over 4 years ago for an initial 6 month stint, but he has stuck around to help add an international perspective to a restaurant which still has many of its traditional ways etched into the wait staff. As a result, the little restaurant has made its way into the little red book with a star and sits at number 39 on the San Pellegrino list.
A view from the window where we sat:
Homemade pumpkin soup to start with:
A unique creation of smoked butter. Normally I would consider a blob of butter served like this to be a phenomenal no-no, but this was a remarkable and adventurous dish with a blob of salted butter, lightly smoked with one of their variations of charcoal, and sprinkled with bits of truffle and bread crumbs...
Lightly grilled oyster served on a bed of seaweed and what we believe to be Oyster cream sauce...
Highlight of the meal: Grilled Oscietra caviar... pure bliss...
Instead of peaking and then coming into a trough, the grilled clams served with slightly smoked grapefruit in its own broth was equally breathtaking...
A dish not commonly found in Western cuisine.. grilled sea cucumber served with fava beans. Crunchy and with just a perfect balance of saltiness and oil...
Another highlight. Grilled duck egg yolk underneath Perigord truffles.. with its proximity to the French Aquitaine area, the sourcing of Perigord truffles could not have been more favourable. A strong oaky wood flavour combined with the egg and potato mash underneath was beautifully earthy.
Yet ANOTHER highlight. Smoked Iberian pig chorizo..... this was so, so good!
Now for some more proteins. Grilled bacalau (salted cod).. normally, bacalau is a dry and too salty for my liking but somehow, the pimiento pepper and butter (??) sauce sitting underneath the cod just helped to give this such a good balance:
Just when you thought that the dishes would be winding to a close, a massive punch in the form of a full slab of slightly aged Galician beef. An awesome dichotomy of a grilled outer surface combined with a blue rare steak underneath.. flavoured with nothing more than a few sprinkles of sea salt - out of this world... if only they had served this when we were a bit more hungry! We were pretty stuffed by then.
This first dessert was also a brilliant part of the repertoire. Smoked milk ice-cream with wild fruit infusion. What I can only describe as slightly smokey frozen yoghurt on top of succulently sweet berries made this such a simple but amazing dessert. The fact that it was ice cold to balance the heaviness of the past few courses definitely helped this along..
This formed the slightly mediocre finish to a brilliant meal. The pain perdu (a variant of the french toast) was too custardy for me at this point in the meal and the cinnamon icecream would normally be a great closing flavour but there just wasn't enough of the cinnamon flavour on this one..
I know that once in a while we cite restaurants as being on the top of our lists of places we have eaten, but in all honesty, Etxebarri's food is so simple but yet so astoundingly delicious without any of the bing and bang of typical 'fine dining' establishments that Kevin is tempted to say that this ranks in the top 1 or 2 meals ever, so far. Fair enough we are a bit bummed out that reservations at a certain restaurant in Roses continues to be elusive, but we have done some reading and it seems that we aren't the only people to feel the same about Etxebarri being in the best one or two meals out there.
Fair enough, the service is indeed of still has room for a bit of improvement, but at the end of the day the food is the most important. The fact that it sits in a beautiful setting in the middle of absolutely NOWHERE just makes the trip to Axpe a bit more special.
I would not hesitate to recommend this restaurant to any and everyone out there. The food here is just brilliant.
Asador Etxebarri, middle of nowhere, Axpe-Marzana, Atxondo, middle of nowherehttp://www.asadoretxebarri.com
We would recommend going there for lunch as it is a bit of a drive out there and you wouldn't want to miss the scenery on the way there and while you are there.
Back in San Sebastian
Unfortunately, Leeann hadn't been feeling all that well and we ended up not going to Andoni Aduriz's Mugaritz restaurant on the outskirts of Donostia-San Sebastian....
Being in the land of Pintxos bars and tapas, with the San Sebastian area said to be the center of the best pintxos in the whole of Spain, we had to spend some time bar hopping. We headed to the Northern part of San Sebastian to the old part of town, the Parte Vieja:
Stopping first at Bar Martinez to have a few slabs of Jamon Iberico, some scallop (??) salad on top of a typical piece of baguette and then some mullet roe in brine water... mmmmmm! Glass of house red wine to go with it too of course!
Eat first and then ask what it is later!
Although Bar Martinez was not on our list of places to go, San Sebastian's hundreds of pintxos bars all offer ridiculously simple and delicious tapas. Bar Martinez, 31 Calle de Agosto
Alona Berri
Within the tapas scene, few places can boast as many awards as Alona Berri. One of the more 'upscale' pintxos bars along with several other ones in the Gros area to the East of Parte Vieja.
Innovative and great tasting tapas is what, with a selection of tapas combinations which I would never have dreamed of combining (half of which we couldn't even remember what they were!)
Starting from the bottom left, a seafood combination of clams, shrimp and trout (??) cooked in a light garlic butter consomme... The next 3 on the right included anchovy over foie gras, a spoon-full of a whole bunch of things that noone seems to remember, except that is was bloody tasty! And of course, a customary glass of txacoli, the local cider/wine...
The chef and proprietor, Jose Ramon Elizondo explaining to one of his guests what was on offer for the day:
Leeann eyeing the food:
The menu:
Alona Berri, 24 Calle Bermingham, San Sebastian http://www.alonaberri.com
After lunch it was time to head to San Sebastian airport for our one hour flight back to Barcelona... it was sad to be leaving San Sebastian.... on the way to the airport we found ourselves a couple of packs of 'interesting' flavours of Ruffles!
Maremagnum
Normally we wouldn't hang out a shopping center, but we arrived at our hotel in the early evening and Sunday's are known to be a bit quiet in Barcelona so we took a 5 minute cab ride out to Maremagnum, a new shopping center along the harbour and found ourselves at one of the restaurants along the harbour walk for some seafood cooked in garlic butter:
An extremely savoury seafood paella:
The next day, we wandered in and around the stretch of Passeig de Garcia in search for more tapas for our final day in Barcelona, finding ourselves at Divinus, a tapas bar / restaurant with a huge selection of tapas:
The standard Jamon Iberico, one with a chunk of pepper on top:
A favourite local pasttime: patates bravas: chunks of potato served with a slightly spicy mayo sauce:
Iberico with 2 quail eggs: awesome:
More razor clams for Leeann:
Fairly reasonably priced and although there were some hits, there were some mediocre dishes too.
Divinus Barcelona, 28 Paseo de Garcia http://www.restaurantedivinus.com
Cal Pep
We've heard so many stories of Cal Pep, the 12-seat tapas bar sitting just off the Pla de Palau near Barceloneta run by Josep Manubens Figueres with its sensational queues and its simple yet immaculate cooking. With a 7:30pm opening time, we made it to the front gate at around 7pm to find it closed and noone standing around waiting like people had said.. disappointed, we took a quick stroll to get away from the cold and the rain and 10 minutes later, a small group of Germans had camped out in front of the steel shutter and we kind of got the feeling that the crowds would be showing up any minute.
Surely enough, by around 7:20, the queue had gone around the block and by the time the opened up the doors for us to get our seats, the 2nd seating of people were lined up orderly against the back wall and another dozen or so people stood outside waiting.
Deep fried artichokes, crispy and fragrant - very unique!
This was sensational... clams just lightly cooked in garlic without being too oily or salty...
Egg and potato omlette, a dish which had been recommended by others, but we found it to be a bit.... dull to be honest..
It was interested to see the waitstaff bustling around the back and Josep hacking away with his cough while smothering tomato onto the bread... a bit off-putting but it seems to be quite a regular sight as noone else really cared. The wait staff spoke only a little bit of English and with no menus to be found, we relied mostly on recommendations from people who had gone before and just to point... like these cockles sitting by the back shelf lightly tossed in garlic chilli oil... delicious!:
Tuna tartare.. a bit of a big portion:
Leeann's new look as we stepped out into the rain.
Probably the most expensive of all the tapas bars we went to, but it lived up to the expectations and the hype. The 2 of us spent about 65euros with a couple of glasses of wine and half a dozen dishes.. but we were stuffed! There is a restaurant seating area in the back, but it seemed much more fun to eat at the bar!
Cal Pep, 8 Placa de les Olles http://www.calpep.com
It would have been great if Akelarre was open, if we had made it to Mugaritz, Martin Berastagui, Arzak and Zuberoia if we had more time, but that is going to have to wait till our next trip! Perhaps combined with a trip to Rioja territory and WE STILL CAN'T GET A TABLE AT EL BULLI!
It was hard to cram so many good places to eat in such a good period of time, but even though we were there for only a few days, there is little dispute that Spain is a place for food. Of all the countries we have been to in the past, on Japan has any comparison in terms of ingredients, cooking and presentation as the Spaniards. Comerc24, Alkimia, Sant Pau, ABaC, Can Fabes, Cinc Sentits, Sauc.... the list goes on.. there are seriously very few countries that have us this excited about eating! Go to Spain and eat!!!!!!!!!!!!
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