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nerdgirl

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  1. I have the pleasure of travelling to Tallinn on business about every other week and spent about a month and a half here at the later part of last year with the fortune of having Estonians show me around. Tallinn is a great city with a lot of little culinary gems just waiting to be discovered at reasonable prices. Here are a few good things going on in Tallin: Kuldse Notsu Kõrts (The Little Piggy Inn) Dunkri 8 This restaurant serves up traditional Estonian food which is hearty, meaty plates. I personally wasn't such a fan of this place. Seemed too cheesy and they had an accordian player which annoyed the hell out of me. The food was decent, but not something that I would repeat. Elevant Vene 5 tel. 631-3132 Elevant is an Indian restaurant on the second floor of a building in old town. Food is decent, but not anything near to Indian food in London so don't expect really spicey stuff. It is Estonian Indian food...different, but still edible. Ö (Island in Swedish) Mere pst. 6e, tel. 661-6150 Pricey and chic. Menu is nice and the food is quite good. Balthasar Raekoja plats 11 The garlic restaurant that always seem to be packed. Make sure to reserve or you won't get in. Novell Narva mnt. 7c Inside the Revell hotel. There is a little bar cafe or you can do a proper meal in the back. Menu selection in the bar is inventive and tasty. Meals in the back are equally as good, but more elaborate. Great cocktails. Pegasus Harju 1 tel. 631-4040 Nouveu chic. Trendy place to hang out. Would recommend only going for drinks as I keep hearing hot and cold reports about the service and food. Sushihouse Rataskaevu 16 tel. 641-1900 Reportedly in a haunted building which is about the most exciting thing going on at this restaurant. I wouldn't particularly recommend sushi in Tallinn. I ate here a few months back and there were 2 Japanese tourists sitting next to us. When they were presented their food I saw them give each other strange looks and then start laughing. Next thing you know they had the camera out taking photos of the food which presumably meant that the folks back home were going to find this hilarious. Estonian sushi is sort of an oxymoron. BuonGiorno Müürivahe 17 tel. 640-6858 A great little Italian restaurant in the basement of a building in old town. The food is really nice - try out the bruschettas by asking for a combo. Real Italians coupled with a few Russians running the place. Cheap and great. Nevskij Rataskaevu 7, Hotel St. Petersbourg Touted as the best Russian restaurant in town with prices to match. Set in a posh living room style complete with a parrot. Blinis and cavier along with some chilled vodka shots are the best here. Also be sure to try out the pickles with sour cream and honey. Fantastic. Troika Raekoja plats 15 tel. 627-6245 Less formal thatn Nevskij. More Russian food in the basement floor right in the old town square. Again - get vodka and blinis! KN Dunkri 4 tel. 697-7500 Set in the basement of the Merchant House Hotel (the best hotel in Tallinn) is this restaurant. The food is amazing at great prices. Nouveu cuisine. Bocca Olevimägi 9, tel. 641-2610 The Italian hotspot of the moment. Modern interior. Great food. Make sure to reserve. Must Lammas Sauna 2 tel. 644-2031 Caucasian food which consists of hearty meats and stews. Great selection of wine. Great food. Across the street from Angel bar so you can go there for post dinner cocktails! Bestseller Cafe Viru Shopping Center, fourth floor A gem of a find! In a strange location this little cafe is great for Tallinn lunch. The food is lovely and cheap. Set in the middle of the bookshop windows overlook the shoppers that are trying to escape the harsh winters. Get the gloogwine if they have it. Angel Cafe Sauna 1 tel. 641-6880 Another really nice little place. Set above the gay club Angel is this little cafe that stays open late night. Decor is cozy with a fireplace. Service is great. Food is great. Cocktails are the best. Make sure to try out the Mad Bad Gucci Clad martini! Other notable places that I haven't tried because the locals aren't really into the fanfare of going to a medevil feast. Olde Hansa and Peppersack. I hear that they serve bear and deer and all kinds of interesting wild game. Should be a pretty fun time to try out while you are in town. Enjoy and message me if you have any questions - I'll do my best to help you out.
  2. Shunka is good for traditional sushi. Also try Soba Culture (www.sobaculture.com)
  3. I live in Spain and honestly have never been to a place where people throw their garbage on the floor. They usually just crumple up napkins and put them onto the plate. So, oddly enough, I got that one wrong!!!
  4. Just booked my flight to Lisboa for the first weekend in February. My birthday weekend that will be filled with wine, food and good times. I plan on using the suggestions you have given! Thanks! Stephanie
  5. Going to Hisop tomorrow for a friend's birthday dinner! Excited, as usual, for some fantastic food. I've also been driving around with a menu from Can Fabes in my car for the past two weeks. Just sitting there on the dash begging me to write up the winter menu review. I will attempt to get to it in between my other eating excursions. Today I'm having lunch at Hotel La Florida. Anyone have any experience with the restaurant L'Orangerie? Ack! All this talk of food is making me hungry. Everyone have a great holiday weekend!
  6. I have also had the pleasure of dining at Cincsentits on several occasions now. Count that as three to be precise. I recently made it just in time to try to the summer menu - almost missed it! I have promised my full report for some time, but the summer in Barcelona has been so busy that I haven't actually gotten around to it. I will give a brief and very enthusiastic thumbs up to Jordi, Amelia and Mom! The food has been continually excellent - creative, wonderfully presented and exquisitely tastey! Sadly, my last trip was taken with non-adventerous people who enjoyed the food, but didn't fully appreciate the complexity of it - which ended up making me feel deflated and annoyed (with them). Next trip has to be taken with an appreciative crowd so I can try the omakase menu! Also, I'm glad to see that other people take photos of their food. I have this habit of pulling out the camera and shooting my plates and most of my friends find it at best weird and at worst annoying.
  7. Waiting patiently and somewhat quietly... Don't make us come over and hurt you!!!
  8. On my recent trip to El Bulli I was asked by my father in California to pick up a copy of El Bulli 1998-2002. I paid the hefty €150 price tag and lugged that bad boy out of there. Wow, what a beautiful book! Completely amazing and comes with a CD-Rom as well. Only bad part was having to lug thing halfway across the world to deliver it to my father!
  9. Also, did you think of going to try Espai-COCH? this is the restaurant that is located inside of Can Fabes. You can have the scaled down tasting menu for 50€. I have eaten there and it was fantastic as well. You get to sit in a room that has a long table that looks into the kitchen of Can Fabes so you can see all the excitement going on... http://www.canfabes.com/ecoch-gb.htm
  10. I can certainly vouch for Cinc Sentits! I have eaten there twice now and everyone that I have taken (including myself) has raved about the food. BCNChef and his family have created a great restaurant. You can feel their enthusiasm about sharing the concept of the food with their patrons so religously that it seems everyone gets excited about the next course. And did I mention that the price is fantastic? We had the 6 course meal for 5 people with several bottles of wine and cava and our entire bill came to 255€ / 51€ a piece. We were stunned (and completely full and a bit drunk)! As for Moo, I wish I could say the same. I was sorely disappointed by my meal there. Not only was it overpriced, but completely unimpressive. I have to look through my notes, but I do remember that to their credit, the first 2 courses were decent. Things quickly went downhill after that. The hotel bar is the nicest thing about Moo/Omm, but sadly it seems like more of a hip place to go and lacking in substance. Has anyone else found this or am I being overly critical? Ot - well, you can read my long blatherings about it. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=35919 Commerc24 is another classic. Also did you think about taking them to Espai Sucre for the dessert meal? Good luck!
  11. Here is an article that mentions Alkimia, Colibri, Comerc 24, Hisop and Sauc... Also mentions Arola - which is now open in the Hotel Arts... Anyone been there yet? http://foodandwine.netscape.com/invoke.cfm...43DFAE796DA74D8
  12. Digijim - I did notice that some people received the same white tower birthday cake experience as you. They also were given balloons filled with something. The waiters went around and cut the stems off and asked them to brief in whatever was inside. Who knows what it was...Nitrous Oxide might be a good way to ensure that everyone has a good time...? We were keeping an eye on most of the courses come out and remarking that we didn't receive some of them, but in the end it looked like we did get everything but the b-day treatment... Stephanie
  13. I have finally finished my review of El Bulli 2004 and posted it on my site. Here is a copy - my site is complete with 2 pics from the meal if you want to take a look. Keep in mind that I wrote this as a food lover and for El Bulli newbies... http://www.nerdgirl.com/comments.php?id=281_0_1_0_C 20 APRIL 2004 - MODIFIED TEXT A BIT AND ADDED PHOTOS *************************************************************** El Bulli - 2 April 2004 Thursday marked the opening day of the El Bulli season. For those of you unfamiliar with this restaurant I will fill you in with a brief history. El Bulli has been reputed to be “The Best Restaurant in the World” by Restaurant Magazine and many of the world’s greatest chefs. Ferran Adria is the, I dare say, Madman/Scientist/Magician behind El Bulli. I hardly believe that the mere title of Chef embodies enough to describe this visionary gastronomic maestro. The restaurant holds 3 coveted Michelin Stars and renowned as being also one of the hardest reservations in the world to secure… According to some reports, there are approximately 300,000 requests per 6 month season and only 8,000 seats available. Reservations are closed the first day that they are taken for the entire season. So you might be asking yourself how the Queen of Nerds secures such a hot ticket on the culinary scene… I have one simple answer for you. That it was pure and coincidental luck. The stars and the Gods aligned on one particular day and my persistence finally paid off after two years. I happened to fax a request for any cancellations at the exact moment that the Maitre D had received a cancellation. He told me that it was at that precise moment so he felt that it was fate that I must receive the table despite the waiting list. The lovely man even tried to phone me 3 times before I answered my mobile. To think that I almost lost my booking by screening my calls! I would have been devastated. THE MEAL Ok, enough about the boring stuff. Let’s get on to the stuff that dreams are made of… THE MENU - CLICK TO VIEW LARGE VERSION The menu at El Bulli is set menu of approximately 25-30 courses and runs for about 4 hours. Be sure to take your favourite people, although be forewarned that you will have no time for idle chitchat as the food will become the focus of every conversation. Everyone must enter El Bulli with a bit of adventure and optimism. The restaurant is not for the faint-hearted or picky. It must also be understood that at the heart of the El Bulli phenomenon is not that every course is necessarily going to taste great. The soul of what makes El Bulli the “Best Restaurant in the World” is that the chef is testing the boundaries of modern cuisine. Ferran Adria is reinventing and reshaping our perception of food and the artistry that surrounds a dining experience. Food is meant to be appreciated, loved, played with and Ferran is the all masterful Wizard of Oz. THE COURSES I have missed out on some translations and not quite completed the descriptions due to laziness, but hopefully you will get the general idea. Concentrado de estragón con miel y mastic Served on a spoon with the word – ConcentradO (the 0 being the course) Concentrated tarragon with honey. This was interesting, good palette cleanser. My tongue went numb and I could have sworn that it was laced with Novocain! Patatas con aceite de aceituna negra con àcido cìtrico Potato chips with black olive oil and citric acid Standard thin chips in different oils and lightly salted. This was about the time that they brought my Cava. Yum, Cava. Pistachulin de fresas del bosque al té Mantequilla de coco ahumada con porex al gengibre Coco butter with ginger pores (sorry the translation is weird on that one) This was one of those tricky courses. I could swear that they brought out a candle and some prawn crackers. Turned out that the candle was actually coco butter! And it was delish on the little air cakes. Brocheta de corteza de cerdo al mentol con grasa de jamón Mint pork scratchins. The oddest thing about this course was that my dinner companion and I were having a conversation about 5 minutes earlier about white trash food and our love for pork scratchins. We actually stopped ourselves and joked that only we would talk about pig skins at a 3 star Michelin restaurant. I guess we are a little more avant garde than we’d like to think (or Ferran digs a little big of pig snouts too!). The mint taste was a bit off-putting for a usual bar crowd, but it was still pleasant. Falsa “espardenya” con sisho, sésamo y yuzu Fake sea cucumbers Deep fried seaweed and rice cakes. These were really cute little guys. Nueces frescas con mahonesa de nueces Walnuts with walnut mayonnaise The walnuts were covered in something white and served with little tweezers to dip them in the mayo. I have discovered that I like to eat with tweezers (and you can pluck those pesky eyebrows in between courses as well). SPRING TO SUMMER - A DESSERT Espuma-nitro Haston Blumenthal Bocaddio de ibérico Ham sandwich Yeah, doesn’t sound so interesting. But the ham was amazing Iberica ham that melted in your mouth. Semillas de campari con canicas y concentrado de mandarina Seeds of cranberry - melon Caviar de melón Melon caviar Served up in a caviar tin this looks just like the real thing. Nigel didn’t think he could bear the thought of eating this, but those juicy little melony suckers did pop in your mouth menos the fishy aftertaste. Aire de zanahoria con granizado de sanguina Carrot foam with blood orange juice and lemon The foam dishes were a bit hard for me to swallow – literally. Something about eating foam reminds me of trying to swallow air. You put an entire spoonful into your mouth and the it disappears and you are left with only a drop of liquid. I think this course could possibly give you gas from swallowing excess air. Again, I still enjoyed it. Made life a little more interesting. Almendras confitadas con gelle de su corteza Fresh almonds with jelly of its skin This looked like a bowl of camouflage liquid. The almonds were amazing and burst in your mouth with their own juice. This course was served with a flower stuck in the spoon that you were supposed to smell while you ate. I didn’t really experience the full-effect of the flower, but it was cute to look at. Musgo de pomelo con alemndras-gelee a la Maria luisa y gelee de yogur Sopa de palomitas Popcorn dust soup with butter Like eating your popcorn at the movie theater with tons of butter. One bit of advice on this one – don’t inhale when you get the dust near you or you will choke on it! Gnocchis de calabaza con jugo Pumpkin gnocchi with juice Simple, yet delicious course. The gnocchi’s were gelatin like and exploded when you ate them. Ostras con cinta ibérica, yuba con flores de boraja Oysters with Iberican ham fat (?) with milk truffle and flowers I loved this course. The mixture of oysters and the bit of salty ham were fab. We were told not to eat the milk truffle until after the bit of oyster was gone. This was like curdled milk with a silky texture. Raviolli de guisantses con guisantes a la menta Raviolli of pea Pea and ham and bacon My fav course. Only because the ravioli was really a ball filled with warm pea soup that burst. Toro de atun confitado en aceite de atún Seared tuna with oil of tuan Zamburiñas con sal de algas Cinta ibérica de buey de mar con cilantro Civet de conejo con gelatina caliente de manzana Rabbit with apple gelatine 2 m. Spaghetto de parmesano The old faithful. Like eating a piece of plastic, cheese, spaghetti. Tortilla de leche – nueva omeltete sourprise Deshielo a primavera Ice cream air with vanilla Cappuccino foam Yogurt and strawberry ice HAPPY PATRONS THE SERVICE El Bulli has a seating of 50 heads per evening, but it is said that the number of wait staff reach about 53. I can easily see how this is possible. Every intricate detail of your meal is observed by the helpful, friendly and somewhat playful staff. You might expect the staff at a Michelin crowned restaurant to have an aire of snobbery, but in El Bulli this is not the case. Everyone that we encountered made us feel welcome and also seemed to be enjoying themselves as well just for having the mere experience of observing the delight of the patrons. I would have to say that watching people eat a meal at El Bulli must be a trip to the psychologist with every emotion registering on people’s faces whether it be surprise, intrigue or just plain awe. THE ARTISTRY EVOLUTION MAP - CLICK TO VIEW LARGE VERSION Every course was displayed in a unique and beautiful manner. Whether it be the Melon Caviar in its own little El Bulli tin or the specially made spoon for the Concentrado. The plate is a mere empty canvas to Ferran and he decorates it ever so lovingly. Bright colours, flowers, textures, and utensils help complete each course. Every plate is put in front of your face and you are taken back to a childlike curiosity to push, prod, poke or just stare in admiration. The best part, of course, being when you gather up a spoonful and then discover that although your eyes had told you the course was, your mouth was telling you otherwise. Solids disappear into thin air leaving only a taste on the tip of your tongue. Jelly-like bubbles burst in your mouth exposing a warm liquid. Flowers are edible and actually tasty. It goes on and on. And that is the best part of El Bulli. It is like being a kid and discovering that your Play Doh is fun to mold AND chew on at the same time. MY HUMBLE OPINION I suppose that you can surmise from my glowing review that I thoroughly enjoyed my El Bulli experience. I had a fabulous time at El Bulli and I would recommend it to my adventuresome friends to take a trip and experience it for themselves. I must admit that I have read negative reviews from people saying that Ferran was past his time. I, myself, have also wondered if the hype was really necessary or if it was just some pretentious place touting itself as the next new thing. I have to disagree with either of these statements. As a food lover, I think and hope that I went to El Bulli with an open mind. I came away feeling that I had not eaten a meal, but I had had an experience. To me, this is what makes for a great restaurant. It brought me closer to food. And if you have ever seen the movie Big Night, you might remember one particular line in it by the chef. “To be close to food is to be close to God.” I suppose that it is up to you to make that call on your own (if you can get a reservation!).
  14. I, too, am working on my 2004 El Bulli review. I had the pleasure to dine there 2 April after a last minute cancellation got me a reservation. I'll be posting back in a few days with the update.
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