pedro

Yesterday I had a chenin blanc 99 from Thierry Chaput. I didn't know neither the AOC, Montlouis, or the producer. It seemed to me a very good wine to start getting familiar with chenin blanc, easier to drink that Coulée de Serrant, for instance. I've performed a search on the site about this producer without any results. Anyone here knows more about him?

Sorry guys, here's a question which I forgot to include in my previous post: when should I start making reservations? would I be able to make them right now, or is common that restaurants don't allow for more than one month in advance?

Guys, I'm also headed for London in mid August, something like 8/10 to 8/15. This thread has given me some great hints. There are, however, a couple of questions that I'd like to ask: a) Are the top restaurants (FD, GR and such) closed in August? In general, what chances do I have that many restaurants are closed those days? b) I don't intend to have stellar meals everyday, specially when hopefully I'll be coming from Costa Brava and its handful of multi-starred restaurants, including Can Fabes, El Bulli and El Celler de Can Roca. So it'll be quite useful to me a selection of restaurants providing good value for money. Your input will be very much appreciated.

Víctor, I'd say you're right. According to Davidson, vongola verace is referred in English as Carpet Shell, whereas the coquina/tellina is known as Wedge Shell.

While having dinner at Arce, I thought about this thread. Many of the greatest cold dishes we've written about, pivot around products that are in season. Shouldn't we open the scope of the thread and talk about summer dishes, whether they're cold or not? Marmitako, the albacore stew from the Basque country is the dish that came to my mind as an example. I'm not totally sure that it can be considered as a summer dish, but the albacore season fits quite nicely with the warmest months of the year. Sardinas and many other blue fish species are excellent these days. Víctor described baby lamb cutlets done on an outdoor fire of grapevine cuttings, which brings me memories of barbacoas feasts done in Burgos (plenty of morcillas). So, let's give a try to not cold summer dishes. Who's next?

My guess is that Sherlock is on the right track... Where did you find it (page, recipe)?

Rhonda, have you reached a conclusion about what your friend had that day? Just curious to see if they were coquinas or not...

From what I know, raf tomatoes have a short season and their exterior appearance never achieves a total red colour. Simply cut on thick slices with some coarse salt (use Maldon for textures purposes if you wish) and extra virgin olive oil are worth trying. Weather calls for simple pleasures.

When I go to Barcelona, is very difficult to me to avoid going to Gaig. But Gaig is not in El Bulli's track, even though he combines traditional dishes with more avant garde approaches. El Racò d'en Freixa could also fit with what you're looking for. Very good cheese selection, also. I haven't been there for some years, so hopefully others could give us an update on it. Your main problem, as I see it, it's to narrow down your options to one restaurant and make a decission .

Eric, thanks for your thoughtful post. I'm not an expert in Asturian restaurants, since I've only been there for a couple of days. Nevertheless, I'd say that your focuses on one of the strongest assets that Asturias has: an endless base of family joints serving excellent traditional food based on local ingredients of pristine quality. That's the news that I always get from people who go there. To me, it's not a surprise that within this context a handful of creative chefs have appeared taking the Michelin Guide by the storm this year. Well, at least by Red Guide Spanish parameters of miserliness granting stars that have been discussed here to some extent. But it would be a mistake to go to Asturias to eat only in the starred places, neglecting one of the greatest cooking traditions of Spain.

In Spain, the Denominaciones de Origen (equivalent to AO) have regulations about the maximum kilos of grape per hectarea that are allowed in that DO. So if your production exceeds that limit, you won't be able to label any of your wine as pertaining to the DO. Not that there aren't imaginative workarounds, BTW.

According to one of the Sherry wines gurus I know, this wine goes very well with Parmeggiano. Also with good olive, I would say. All the above, of course, assuming that we're talking about Amontillado.

First thing to do here is determine which kind of wine are we talking about here. Is it an Amontillado or a Pedro Ximenez (PX)?

What they can sell and what they can produce are two different things. "Any wine remaining will be stored pending its sale as bulk wine, or until the CIVB decides conditions have improved." I read this as meaning production will be normal; they just want to drive the prices back up for the first wine of the chateaux. "The price of wine has collapsed in the last three years to almost half what it was." Huh? The 2000 and 2003 are the highest I've seen. That's the point. They're not putting a stop in the capacity (what can be produced), but a stop in the offer (what can be sold). Therefore, the quality issue not only remains, it becomes worse. Quality will remain the same, since the same quantity of wine will be produced but only a part of it will be labeled as Bordeaux. Therefore, the price of that wine will momentarily rise. But then you will find that the price gap between Bordeaux wine and wine from competitors of similar if not better quality has become wider! The conclusion is clear. Why are you going to pay more for the same wine when there are other options providing more quality in the market? Just because there's less bad Bordeaux wine? I don't think so

I see a major difference between Adrià and Sandoval projects. Whereas Adrià is focusing on providing the same products you could find at any fast food venture, burguers, sandwiches and such, with the twist on the quality of the ingredients, which is supposed to be better, Sandoval has taken a riskier approach. He intends to deliver more ellaborated dishes (remember the motto: "Alta cocina Mediterránea sana y rápida", Fine Mediterranean cooking healthy and fast) at an equivalent price to Adrià's Fast Good. That's debatable, looking to Iboo's menu.

I think Pla's Ho que hem menjat (Lo que hemos comido) should be in that list. And including Simone Ortega with her 1080 recipes is a matter of justice. Writing of which, I'm curious if anyone has skimmed through Subijana's La cocina doméstica (Home cooking), aiming to play a similar role as Ortega's for the new generation.

Can Fabes, a 3-starred restaurant in Spain, has this well visible in their menu: "Mobile phones are very useful items, but we would appreciate it, if, out of respect for the other diners and to be able to fully enjoy the food, you would please turn them off" which is a translation (omitting the word privacy) of: "La telefonía móvil es muy útil. Agradeceremos que respeten la intimidad de sus vecinos y les invitamos a disfrutar de la mesa y apagar su aparato."

I don't totally understand the reason why a promising chef like Mario Sandoval, whom many already consider more than promising, having so much room to develop a successful career in high-end cooking and possibly lead the post-Adrià generation, chooses so early to devote what I presume are significant efforts to an area like fast food. Because is fast food, no matter how much they try to dignify it, what we're talking about here. Franchising as the ultimate goal. Money could be the reason, I guess. That's understandable. Whether he will be able or not to continue with his excellent work at Coque, which IMHO still requires heavy and close supervision, time will tell. I hope he will. Leaving service issues aside (and the hot temperature in the restaurant), the food is not bad. They offer a total of 35 dishes in the usual categories (salads, starters, meat, fish, dessert). In fact, some of the dishes are quite good. I enjoyed a few bites I took from a carpaccio dressed with a strong sauce made of oil, paprika and rosemary (this as the dominant ingredient). The hot dishes (in terms of temperature, not of spiciness) were perhaps the most disappointing. The effect of the microwave oven was clearly noticeable in the dishes we had. Pasta, for instance, was overcooked. Let's see if the concept is well received among madrileños. I see they run the risk to fall in a dangerous middle ground, where the people who are likely to eat at fast-food joints don't appreciate enough the food to pay more for it and the people who would appreciate the food simply don't want to have it in that kind of environment. Oh, they have a web site: IBOO

She's from a small village in la Axarquía, really close to Granada. In fact, there was an old road used by sepherds and peasants to trade their goods, and a few ventas (inns) where they could eat. That probably explains why this kind of salad has been done in my family for years (grandmother and beyond). Never occurred to me that remojón could come from the other side of the border. The Málaga/Granada border, I mean. Thanks for the clarification, Víctor.

Madrid - Burgos is a 2.5-3 hours drive at the most. I'd recommend to stop at Landa for lunch, which is on the road to Madrid some 3-5 kms. far from Burgos. Nice setting in a castle with traditional castillian food. Another option is to have lunch at Mesón de la Villa in Aranda de Duero. Good roasted lamb, and very good escabeches. I'd say the latter is slightly cheaper (perhaps around 30€ each). Burgos to Santander is another 3 hours or so drive. In Valladolid, I've heard very good comments about Mil Vinos. One of the partners owns a wine trade company, Pecados Originales. The wine list is outstanding, AFAIK. I believe Rogelio has eaten there, so perhaps he could expand on this. PS: Avoid the litronas, please .

Language will be an issue here, since I guess most of the titles considered as must have won't be available in English. Nevertheless, I think it could be interesting to find which books covering Spanish and Portuguese food at large (any topic ranging from history to recipes) do you think should be present in every serious library on the topic. Suggestions, please?

Being my mother from Málaga, it won't be a surprise to anyone that I've had similar salads. Without potatoes and garlic. With good olive oil, of course.

Until not that many years ago, coquinas where almost neglected and you could find them in many beaches in the eastern coast of Spain, grab a handful of them and have them as a starter at home. Recently, their price has soared, and now it's almost impossible to find them in the beaches and their capture has become a matter of professional fishermen. I for one, eat them picking them with your hand and putting them in your mouth, as I generally do with clams and oyster presented in their own shell. Coquinas are easily recognized because of their oval form, narrow and long in relative terms. Did you look to the link I provided? It's not a bowl, but it's quite distinctive of how a coquina (or tellina, if you prefer) looks like. For a bowl, take a look to: Malaga's Coquinas

You can see some pictures of different clams at Pedramol . Search in your browser for the words coquina and chirla, and you'll see the pictures to their left.

According to Davidson's Mediterranean Seafood, tellina and coquina refer to the same mollusc, Donax trunculus or wedge shell. Maximum size, somewhere between 3 and 5 cm. Other possibilty would be the Chamelea gallina, known as chirla in Spain. The last possibility is that your friend was slightly exaggerating to add some colour to his history .