Saborosa

Just a quick answer to your Espai Sucre questions, which I would definitely recommend visiting. It sounds from your questions you may think it's a place you go for dessert, which it isn't. Yes, its menus are based around the idea of 'sweet' dishes, but you go there for a full meal. In fact, it only serves set menus of at least three dishes (plus amuse and petit fours). It's open 9-11.30 Tues-Sat. C/Princesa 53, 93 268 1630, www.espaisucre.com. I would advise booking as it's quite small.

Plus Cinc Sentits can't be held as totally representative of Spanish restaurateurs as owner/chef Jordi is Canadian-Catalan and worked for many years in IT marketing in San Fran, so perhaps it's not surprising they're on the Internet ball (but the passable English is surprising!?) I expect the delay in reply is because they're a small and very busy team, and hey, possibly part of the reason the family moved out here was to escape the 24-hour on-call mentality of the American rat race?? Just a guess.

I've been trying Italian and Portuguese stores and fishmongers, but none of them seem familiar with tripa de bacalao. Where do you buy tripa de bacalao in Madrid? (If my memory serves me correctly, pretty much any bacalao specialty shop within a market also sells the "tripa.") Do you - or any Spain-based eGulleters - have any contact info for shops that may sell tripa de bacalao? ←

Ah, interesting. Seems a popular trick, unsurprisingly. Just found this exciting-looking video http://www.montagud.com/producto.php?refer...es=&categoria=2 it also has huesos de santo, for butterfly. Perfect for a romantic night in, bottle of wine, popcorn, and the classic story of boy meets almond, boy grinds almond, almond meets sugar, things heat up and eventually you hear the patter of tiny panellets. but at 45,50 euros for 18 recipes i think you're better off just buying the damn things from the pasteleria!

Hola Jose! I work in gastronomic tourism here in Barcelona, and most of our clients are Americans. So I was wondering if you had come to any conclusions about what the main appeal of Spanish (and, may I say, Catalan!) cuisine is for Americans? What are the characteristic flavours, textures and/or techniques that intrigue and entice them? What do you think they would like to know more about (or what do you think they SHOULD know more about?!) Thanks for doing my market research for me ;-} Kirsten

I've always associated buñuelos (the little doughnutty things, sometimes anisy, sometimes lemony, sometimes both, sometimes filled with chocolate cream, or custard or cream, or not...) more with lent and easter. Though it is easier to appreciate them when the weather gets colder (not that I find it that hard to appreciate them at any time of year!). My favourites are lemony and anisy and filled with custard. yum. In Barcelona I find Escribà on the Rambla near the Boqueria market usually has lovely fresh and fluffy ones. Also one of the best for quality and variety is the posh looking pasteleria Lis on Riera Alta 19 (on the right as you approach the junction with Carme in the Raval). Just did a quick google - wikipedia has a short but quite interesting page on buñuelos http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buñuelos (in Spanish) - and agrees they're associated with All Saints. Now I know why I'm puzzled by the seasonal connection - here in Catalunya the trad All Saints sweet is the panellet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panellet - in English) - small round sweets made mainly from ground almonds and sweet potato, and covered in various toppings (but usually pinenuts).

I've found a good, simple Catalan place nearish (about 15km) to Girona recently, along the GI-531 (out of Girona eastwards, towards Rupit). It's near a place called Llora. I think it's after Llora if you're coming from Girona, but I'm not sure so keep going till you pass it. It's right on the road, on its own, so you can't miss it. It has a vine covered patio at the front, there's a basic bar which you pass through to the dining room with huge fireplace and stuffed animals at the back. I was surprised at how friendly they were for what felt like such an isolated place. We had great galtes (pigs 'cheeks'), roast baby goat and wonderful mussels. Portions were huge. I'd hesitate to recommend a huge detour to get there but if you're in the area it may be worth going a little out of your way for some lovely home cooking. I'm afraid I don't have the name or number. If I can dig it out i'll post it later.

I think the restaurant you seek is Rías de Galicia, Lleida 7, 93 424 8152. Can't remember why I think this, though!

A couple of quick tips in Barcelona: Caldeni, C/Valencia 452, 93 232 58 11, www.caldeni.com Small, smart (if a bit characterless - typical 'business restaurant' decor of cream walls, dark wood furniture, splashes of red) dining room. Friendly, efficient service. Young team. Egs of dishes: smoked langoustine tail salad, sardine fillets marinated in a five-spice vinaigrette, roast corvina (meagre, a bit bass-like) with roast aubergine and seasonal mushrooms, duck breast with sauteed mango and greek yoghurt, a beautiful chocolate coulant. Simple but very stylishly presented decent modern catalan-med cooking. Great easy-drinking Costers del Segre red, Bru de Verdu, was the inspired server's suggestion. Starters between 8.50-12.50, mains 10.50-17. Cardoner, C/Ample 46, 93 315 2260 Old school Catalan cooking in smartish surroundings. Businessmen and middle aged couples lunching. Snooty maitresse d' sneered when I asked to look at the menú del dia but warmed up considerably when we ordered Girona steaks - which were very good (and fab chips). V generous portions. Also had a good, if a bit soggy for me, fideua, and enormous plate of baby cuttlefish in their ink. Good for trad Cat cuisine which is getting harder to find in fusion-fashion-frenzied BCN. Mid-price.

As well as fungi, look for squashes, pomegranates, membrillo (quince), chestnuts, game and squid. Oh and panellets in the bakers/cakeshops. These little sweet potato-and-pinenut delicacies are traditionally eaten graveside downed with sweet moscatel wine on All Souls Day, but appear way before that. You'll also find sweet potatoes and chestnuts being roasted and sold on the streets.

A few shops you might like to frequent: Formatgeria La Seu, C/Dagueria 16, (near ajuntament in Barri Gotic) Small shop with lovely range of farmhouse spanish cheese. Owned and run by Scotswoman Katherine who will be happy to advise you on what to buy. She also has cheese icecream which is well worth a try. Botifarreria de Santa Maria, C/Santa Maria 4 (side of Santa Maria del Mar church in the Born) Homemade sausages, charcuterie, meat, cheeses etc. Try some of the more unusual sausages eg with chocolate or squid. Casa Gispert, C/Sombrerers 23, (other side of Santa Maria del Mar church in the Born) Oils, vinegars, preserves, herbs, spices, a huge range of in-house-roasted nuts, dried fruits etc etc, but the pieces de resistance IMHO are the enormous beautiful handmade chocolate truffles. Vila Viniteca grocery C/Agullers 9 (in the Born, head away from Santa Maria del Mar towards the Columbus statue). More food porn rather than your everyday grocery. This sister to the Vila Viniteca wine store (across the street) has pristine shelves filled with top gourmet products in designer packaging such as high end galician and cantabrian canned seafood, designer chocolate, national and international cheeses, olive oils, and art gallery-worthy fruit and veg. If you're there in October visit the Petras mushroom stall at the back of the Boqueria. Just cross fingers that we have a good fungi season (I'm not optimistic, I'm afraid).

As it's Monday I thought I'd do another 'best of' posting. I had a couple of cracking meals last week. The first was at Irreductibles, the restaurant in Gratallops which has been mentioned before in these forums, eg here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=61367. Great food and an interesting, fun space. Great service too - though there was just us two and a table of about 8 to deal with, so they had no excuse! The food is light, playful, and mostly mediterranean, with artful presentation. We had an amazing salad of the most intense tomatoes in many different ways from sundried to sorbet, a tower of melting octopus tentacles with a camomile yoghurt and a pudding of various veg such as pea blancmange, spinach cream, fried beetroot, and some white chocolate to soothe the veg-phobics, plus pop rocks/space dust - those sweets that pop and fizz in the mouth, which I get a childish thrill from, although I did catch myself thinking - weren't these 'in' a few years ago? They just do a set menu so there's no choice at all. It's not cheap at 35 euros for the menu of 5 'courses' and with wine, water and coffees and tax (I do wish people would include tax in their prices) it all came to about 106 euros for 2. I do think that's a bit steep, so it's not a place for people who like to feel they've wrung the value out of every centimo. For those people, I'd like to mention Hostal Nou in a little place in Girona province called Llora. A cute roadside inn, it has friendly staff and a rather clinical but pleasant enough dining room (some character is added by a snarling wild boar head), where delicious and generous portions of mainly trad catalan food are served at great prices. A three course lunch for 4 came to 70 euros (though it should be noted we were drinking shandies and wine with soda). For that we got a huge plate of perfect steamed mussels, escalivada, esqueixada, and a lovely fresh cheese salad with crisp escarola, walnuts, melon, tomato, and great olives. Seconds were galtes (pork cheeks) and lamb chops. Both accompanied by the best chips (fries) I've had in years. Desserts were homemade flams (a kind of set custard dessert - I'm not a big fan), perfect cherries, and walnuts with lashings of proper fresh whipped cream - a rarity in these parts. Perhaps not a place to go too out of your way for, but the kind of place you dream of stumbling across during a roadtrip - simple home cooking done with real care and attention and a warm (at least for these parts!) welcome. Anyone else have a 'best of' from the past week?

Hi guys This may be a guilty conscience after singularly failing to join in the cook-off activity in this forum a few months (years?!) ago, but I was thinking the forum seems a bit slow recently and was wondering what would be a way to kick off some more postings. So, my brilliant idea after about, ooh, two seconds thought is: A thread for regular (and irregular) posters to offer their best Spain and Portugal food (and drink?) "experience" of that week? I'm thinking extremely generally: best meal cooked, snack snacked, restaurant visited, chef met, fact learned... anything. If each week is too frequent it could be fortnight, month, whatever... Do shout me down if this is rubbish. But it would be nice to get a few more posts going, and open the posts up a bit away from "recs for BCN". Maybe people feel disinclined to post unless they have something momentous to announce. Whereas I think it would be nice if the forum had more of a community feel where the small pleasures and discoveries are as important as the latest hot young chef. Anyone agree? To start things off: My highlight so far has been a chocolate ice cream from Gelateria Caffetteria Italiana (Pl Revolució 2, Open 5pm-1.30am Weds-Sun). 80 per cent cocoa. Recipe invented by great grandfather (i think) for wife when pregnant with their 11th child. You have very high standards by your 11th child, so I'm told.... Over to you....

Ferran Adria has a similar recipe in his Cocinar en Casa, as reported by Pim in her blog last year" http://chezpim.typepad.com/blogs/2005/07/a...me_with_fe.html

Isn't the common denominator for all chorizos (at least in Spain) that they contain pimenton? Then the differentiation seems to come from whether it's smoked, spicy or mild (dulce) pimenton, whether it's cured or raw, what kind of pig the pork comes from (Iberian or other breed or wild boar) and the size. Is that what you were wondering, docsconz?

Hey, it could happen! There's quite a sizable community in Barcelona from the Sub-Continent, and there's been a sudden burst of openings of vogueish Indian restaurants (none of which have really impressed anyone as far as I know, mind you - do post if anyone's found a good one). Also many of Barcelona's hipster restaurants are fond of slipping a bit of "tandoori" and "hindu" onto their menus, with varying degrees of authenticity and success. But if there's more integration of the communities in the future maybe the egulleteers of the next millennium will be discussing the roots of tandoori cap i pota!

In the Boqueria, Bar Pinotxo, Kiosko Universal, Bar Quim and Bar Central are all good. Pinotxo and Quim probably offer a slightly more 'sophisticated' experience in terms of dishes/ingredients. Kiosko Universal has the most seating so is the best bet for a shorter wait. Was it any of these you were thinking of docsconz? I also second Sant Pau in Sant Pol de Mar. It's an hour each way on the train, so very doable for lunch for example. The mini menus of aperitivos and desserts offer a dazzling range of flavour and texture combinations and the seafood dishes show an expert delicate touch with excellent ingredients. They have Catalan caviar from the Vall d'Aran - Nacarii. Delicious and hard to find elsewhere. The tapas restaurant Rosal 34 (C/Roser 34, Poble Sec) will also have it on their menu next month I think. But Cinc Sentits is still my personal favourite in Barcelona and has a great seasonal menu at the moment.

Try some albariños - this is a Galician white grape, very fresh and dry - sometimes I think you can taste the Atlantic breezes in there - lots of ozone. Good cheapish ones I like are Martin Codax (not everyone's a fan of this, mind), Pazo de Señorans and Fillaboa. Victor recommended an Albariño a while back - 2003 Granbazán. Great with seafood. Another grape you may not have tried is Picapoll - Try Abadal's Picapoll from the Catalan Pla de Bages DO. Floral but still quite dry. Speaking of Vila Vinateca, Quim Vila's socio makes a good easy drinking cheap white called Ca N'Estruc as well as a rosado and a couple of reds under the same label. All are great value IMO. Another reliable bodega is Castell del Remei from the Costers del Segre DO - look out for the Gotim Bru red - try and find a 2002 if you can.

Yes, good point. That seems to be true for Trevelez ham too - from Landrace, Large- White y Duroc- Jersey cross pigs according to the Ministerio site.

A good place for DO information is the Ministry of Agriculture website http://www.mapa.es/es/alimentacion/pags/De...on/consulta.asp Search by "consulta por tipo de producto/jamones". Here it lists Dehesa de Extremadura, Huelva, Teruel and Guijuelo as DOP - Denominación de Origen Protegida(?) and Jamon de Trevelez and Jamon de Pedroches as denominacion especifica. I think the latter means produced in very specific geographical areas?! Can anyone else explain the difference more exactly?

Actually I think most fish on most tables (in the West) comes from pretty far away as the fishing industry seeks new sources away from the traditional, overfished fisheries, such as the Med. I also expect that this will lead to more 'creative' naming - see Chilean sea bass/Patagonian toothfish. This can be good if it means you're buying fish from sustainable sources, but then there's the food miles to consider. There's a stall in my local market that sells fish from local boats - it feels good buying there because you can read the names of the fisherman and his wife on the printed fish auction labels (at least that's what i tell myself) and it's very fresh (a few customers recently turned a bit green as the fishmonger skinned a still flapping lenguado) but it also feels terrible because a hell of a lot of the fish seem really juvenile. So as well as being familiar with the fish to identify it, it's probably a good idea to be familiar with where and how it has been caught and how big it should be. Although all this may just persuade you to become a vegetarian instead. But then you've got a whole other set of questions... is it organic, local, seasonal....?

Appropriately enough, megrim was also an old term for migraine.

This interesting list gives us some idea of the scale of the 'issue': http://www.fishbase.org/comnames/CommonNam...&StockCode=1388 I think I might start using the Turkish name. Pretty catchy (pun initially unintended). Note the ratio of vernacular to official names, the number of varying and sometimes confusing and conflicting local names within one country and the influence of european naming on former colonies. As previously noted both gall and gallo are used in Spain for John Dory and and megrim. And, according to my official catalan nomenclature of species of commercial interest, gall can be a cockle, as well as a megrim and a john dory. I think it's right that what's important is being able to identify a fish in order to know how to cook it and what it's going to taste like, and the most reliable way to do that is to know a fish by sight, not what it's called (and anyone can tell the difference between a cockle and a flat fish!) as the vagaries of naming by fishmongers can be vary from stall to stall let alone place to place. The most useful thing might be to learn as much as you can then accept that the only thing you really know is that you know nothing. But, getting back to the tilapia controversy - in a Spanish forum, surely it's the Spanish names that are important!

Thanks Rogelio I'm sure we'd all be interested in a report of the Vanguardia section's activities if anyone went yesterday to see the chefs do their thing. Particularly, Adria, Aduriz and Raúl Alexandre of Restaurante Ca’Sento. I'm also curious about the fabes v faves session - whether it brought up any interesting insights to the contrasts and similarities between the Asturian and Catalan traditions... or not!? Is anybody who was there willing to share? k

jhirshon: A quick question: when the cazuela is moved to the top of the stove, I assume it's not heated - everything cooks due to the residual heat from the cazuela and the heat of the added liquids? Is that right? k