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Exactly, perretxicos or perrechicos, but not "perros chicos."

That's probably the way to go because problems like the faced by BG, no matter how rare, are simply unacceptable in a restaurant with Alinea's aims. Hell, if I go to Chicago in the near future, one of the main reasons for doing it would be to dine in places like Alinea. I would be more than angry if after taking an intercontinental flight I find myself in a situation similar to what's been described. It's not simply a dinner.

I'd say that in the very high end restaurants which offer you a long and thin menu which will keep you there for several hours amuses are difficult to distinguish from other dishes were it not because they're served first. So, in that type of restaurants, I use the same criteria to judge the amuses --thinking of elBulli snakcs-- than the rest of the dishes. Then, there's the other category of restaurants where you're a regular. In that case, the amuses tend to be a subset of the dishes you haven't ordered but the chef wants you to try. Depending on the restaurant, the subset plus your order equals the whole menu. But that's a different story.

Hmmm. If that's indeed a Moorish stew, then I'd say that the typical potaje which adds some cod fish to it and it's consumed in Eastern would also share a Moorish link. I'll see if I can find some info on this, but maybe one of our regulars may shed some light.

Many of you are already aware of José Andrés’s book Tapas, A Taste of Spain in America, also available in Spanish as Los fogones de José Andrés. In the Spain & Portugal Forum we’ve discussed how well Spanish cuisine travels given the dependency that many dishes have on very specific ingredients available only in Spain or even only in certain regions of Spain. The question lead to an interesting debate and we concluded somehow that the dependency for certain dishes was so tight that without the ingredient in question itself you’d only obtain a pale resemblance –if any—to the original dish, whereas with some others you could actually get pretty good results. I believe that José’s book does a good job collecting dishes that can capture their original soul even if you don’t have access to the genuine products. In any case, now you have a chance to share your experience and results obtained through cooking your way through José’s book. Rogelio (Rogelio Enríquez), Malawry (Rochelle Reid Myers ), Ronnie Suburban (Ron Kaplan) and I would like to invite you to join us in Cooking with Tapas by Jose Andres.This thread is the place to include your notes, and share with us photos of recipes you have prepared from it. This thread will begin in the Spain & Portugal forum and eventually be moved to the Cooking Forum. If you don't have the book, you still can cook some recipes from it: José Andrés and his publisher, Clarkson Potter, have graciously contributed three recipes which can be found in RecipeGullet: Squid with onions Potatoes with chorizo Chickpea spinach stew This is a "cooking with" thread, so please concentrate on the recipes and save general discussion for an eG Spotlight Conversation with José Andrés, which will take place later in the year, or in one of the existing threads of the Spain and Portugal forum.

I stayed there in my last visit to elBulli. The drive wasn't that bad, particularly if you compare it to the trip to Can Roca the previous night.

In Sylkar's small dining room upstairs, you may sample a few nice dishes besides the excellent tortilla. I remind some quite good callos (tripe) among them and a wine list which wasn't bad at all.

The revered institution of the tasca ilustrada, with its relatively simple but succulent cooking which mastered traditional dishes, has been for some time an endangered species. While paying a visit to Taberna Laredo, near the Retiro park in Madrid, I wondered myself is these kind of places --like Asturianos, Taberneros, Entrevinos and el Quinto Vino to name some of the best-- aren't in fact the next wave of the tascas ilustradas. Their cooking, with a few creative/modern/actual winks here and there, is usually rooted in traditional and powerful dishes, be them fabada, morcillo or baby lamb chops. These dishes have been reviewed and in many cases, successfully updated: a shorter cooking time of fishes, lighter sauces, but the heritage is clear. And luckily, they also share another characteristic: they tend to have a pretty good wine list. So what do you think, are the tascas ilustradas disappearing or they're reinventing themselves and adopting new shapes?

Though I wouldn't completely dismiss the role of TIC Gums (which was established in 1909). Absolutely. I woudn't dismiss either the importance of whomever created oil painting in the history of painting back in the Middle Ages.

Replace the lacón with other pork produce. Jamónwould work but it can be even more difficult to source it than lacón. Pork trotter will do it.

AFAIK, the only other denominación since last time I checked --May 2005-- is that of Los Pedroches which comprises several villages from Córdoba. I don't know if any other region applied.

Víctor, I believe that saying "Ferran's products are [...] not specifically Spanish." is a statement too broad. Just browsing the list of recipes in 2005, you come up with these ingredients: - Extra virgin olive oil - Ibérico - Caballa (mackerel) - Cañaíllas (Murex brandaris) - White asparagus - Chipirones - Habas and guisantes (broad beans and peas are ingredients used in many Catalonian dishes) - Iberic panceta and many other cuts from Iberic pork - Perretxicos (St. George's mushroom) - Crawfish - Small monkfish (rapet) - Turtledove I'd agree that the results lead to dishes that, generally speaking, don't come across as being Spanish --or from any other national cuisine for that matter-- but we shouldn't disqualify the regionality of the ingredients. Not when one of the major sources when working at the Taller is the Boquería, not farther than 200 meters.

Víctor, I agree with Regol's proposition than Ferrán's style can be imitated easier than Santi's for a number of reasons. Amongst these, one that stands by itself is that Adrià puts all their creations in the public domain through elBulli books. The book covering the season 2005 just appeared. What I don't agree with is Regol's implication that Adrià uses second rate products. The quality of the products used at elBulli is pristine. Granted, there are much more things happening on top of those products at elBulli, but that doesn't have to diminish the quality of the products they use in their dishes. PD: For the record, José came across as a very passionate and normal guy, far from being full of anything but love for cooking.

Well, Judith, I guess that translation is that I believe that the only value of the list is the publicity that the restaurants are getting. I strongly believe that St. John is one of the most overrated restaurants in the planet. That doesn't mean you can't have a good meal there, or even a very good meal, but that's pretty much it. Sorry about that.

So, yes, in a way, it's Riedel.

Elie, the panaché is elBulli interpretation of a classic dish from Navarra --you can have it also in the area of Aragón which is close to Navarra along the Ebro river-- called the menestra de verduras. This is an assortment of vegetables, typically from the cold months of the years, where every one of them is cooked by itself since the cooking times are different for each of them, and later bound by a light sauce using their stock. Some boiled egg or ham may also appear. I wouldn't call it panaché, but ... I haven't had elBulli's version and chances are that you could only have had it back in 1994 or in the year they celebrated their anniversary when they offered menus based in what they did in other seasons. These are the textures and ingredients of their menestra: Sorbet - almond Mousse - cauliflower Purée - tomato Foam - beetroot Fatty texture - avocado pear Jelly - basil Mousse - sweetcorn

I think that that was his point: it's harder, but not impossible. You have to work more to find the ingredients but you can get, at least, acceptable results.

An interesting topic regarding the wave of Asian restaurant which is taking Madrid by storm is whether this is happening at all price points or rather is well contained in the mid segment, let's say well below the 55-60€ per person. I wonder how the most ambitious places, like Yuan or Asia Gallery are doing.

I met José Andrés on Sunday and he mantains that the ingredients barrier which we tend to identify as one of the major difficulties to recreate Spanish dishes abroad is overrated. In his Tapas book, along with a recipe of fabada comes a list of suppliers in the States that I imagine could be useful to you guys. His recipe, mind you, is not the most orthodox I've seen --chicken broth, garlic, pimentón-- but sure it looks good! Fabada is also referred as the 'pork in the dish', so there are variations of the pork cuts that you may add, but there seems to be a common point in chorizo and morcilla. Just by chance, I cooked fabada yesterday, slightly before this post came alive. I used bacon instead of lacón and I also added pork trotters. There's no need to bring the beans to boil and risking them to break, if you keep them between 85-90ºC you'll be just fine, needing some time more to cook them. The juice has to have some thickness, that can be achieved by reducing it once the beans are tender or --the usual trick-- smashing a few beans with the juice until getting a paste and mixing with the rest as a natural thickener.

In addition to, Anya. Café Real is on Concha Espina street while Puerta is on Padre Damián. I don't know if they share anything else than --relatively-- the location.

A list that includes St. John among the fifty best restaurants in the world has little credit to me, John, or at least tells me a lot about the demographics of those 600 hundreds professionals. The shocking aspect, if we look at it with some time perspective, is that the first French restaurant comes in the third place and that only three French restaurants are in the top ten.

Sam, quoting again Adrià: If we admit that in creative restaurants creativity is the most important factor --to me, taste would be the most important-- then you have your answer. Keep in mind that Ferran believes that people wouldn't travel to elBulli --you already know the myths of the long winding road etc-- just to have an excellent meal, he believes that there's an extra variable needed to make them come, and that is creativity. So, yes, there's a narrow segment of restaurants which are not competing to see which of them makes the most perfect fabada, suckling pig or other based on tradition dish, in other words, they're not mainly competing to see who executes the better but who comes up with new techniques and concepts. And in that context, there's such a thing a plagiarism, at least, in an ethical sense.

Quoting Juli Soler, Adrià's partner, on José Andrés --or as the people at elBulli call him, JR (yes, referring to that JR)--: "we've always been in touch, he's like one more of our family." PS: I don't know exactly where or when, but as expected, JA lost his middle name, Ramón, when he moved to the States.

Would the situation change if proper credit would have been given? Recently, Adrià said (interview at Lo Mejor de la Gastronomía): Well, now it's clear that there's some people out there copying recipes, but Adria seems to imply that there's a stage in the development of a chef when he has to become familiar with the foundations of cooking and that is done (or at least was done) through, essentially, copying. A different problem is how to market that. Edit: Typo in the link. Thanks, sizzleteeth

Anya, there are threads in this forum that cover the topics you pointed out. Sure, some topics are more popular than others and lately Arzak, Adria and Aduriz are getting a lot of exposure but that doesn't mean that they're the exclusive focus of the forum. As a not so random example, let me bring this topic to your attention: On asados