Brett Emerson

I want to thank asola for his recommendation to have lunch at this restaurant, which it turns out is called Can Bertram and is located at Carrer Rogent, 4 (tel. 93-265-46-04). It is as adorable as his post describes. Very simple grandmother cooking which is exactly what I like to have when I travel. I also had a great, albeit simple, lunch at Goliard (Carrer Progrés, 6), thanks again to asola's brilliant insider advice. For tourists, it's a great place to stop for lunch when visiting Gaudí's Casa Milà (La Pedrera) as it's only a ten or fifteen minute walk away. I wrote about my lunch at both places (and a third, recommeded by Saveur's Colman Andrews) and even included a picture of the older two of the three "nenes" here. Part of the fun of Can Bertram is the antics of the three women who run it.

I had dinner at Ca' Sento in Valencia last Thursday, a meal which I would describe as the best of my life (so far, I'm only 39, so I hope there will be countless others!). I ordered the 14-course seafood tasting menu (if you count the aperitives as courses, too). A couple of the courses were the same as Rogelio's dinner in February. There were three themes that stood out for me about this meal. First, being myself a chef and member of the Slow Food movement, the quality of the product that Ca' Sento's chef, Raúl Alexandre, procures is impeccable. Everything tasted like it had just been pulled out of the sea minutes before. Second, I was astonished over and over by the chef's verve of simply presenting the seafood (5 of the 14 courses) virtually unadorned, not letting anything detract from its freshness. Third, I also appreciated that the chef repeatedly juxtaposed these naked dishes with more ornately presented creative dishes (this is Spain, after all), but still only added enough elements (such as a small ammount of a foam) to enhance the flavors of the raw ingredients, rather than mask them. Here's a quick description of my courses: 1. House-cured anchovy fillet with little bit of olive oil 2. Miniature corneta of txangurro crab and yuca and a salt cod (bacalao) buñuelo 3. Raw clam with a lemon and olive oil foam 4. Raw oyster with an apple-infused sauce 5. Langoustine (cigala) with its tomalley, served cold 6. Percebes (goose-necked barnacles), briefly cooked 7. Clochinas (local type of mussels), steamed 8. Shrimp and scallop with some kind of foam 9. Lobster (bogavante) with porcinis 10. Tuna belly with ginger and soy 11. Denia prawn (gamba), roasted in salt 12. Sea bass fillet, pan-roasted, with green asparagus and artichoke 13. Fideus, noodles cooked in fish stock and then pan-fried 14. Apple-themed dessert (many components) The service was professional and the wine recommendation (Palaccio de Muruzabal chardonnay from Navarra) paired well with every course (and affordable!). Click here for a slideshow of the prettier courses and here to go to a more detailed desription of this amazing meal. If it weren't for its location in a somewhat sketchy neighborhood, I think it would be promoted from 2 to 3 stars by Michelin (Guia Campsa gives it the 3 solés it deserves). In my opinion, what Chef Alexandre is doing at Ca' Sento is what fine dining should be about: procuring the best, locally available, seasonal ingredients and then letting their true flavors star. I believe it was one of the Troisgros brothers who said 75% of cooking is shopping. I also appreciate that almost all of the featured ingredients at Ca' sento were very local, or at least from Spanish waters. There is a sense of terroir about the food served there, so you know you could never have that same meal anywhere else. I haven't eaten yet at El Bulli (email me if you're planning to cancel or need a dining companion any time soon ), so I may yet change my opinion, but I think that some of what's being presented in fine dining restaurants is more for show and novelty than to enhance the flavors of the food. After dining at WD-50 earlier this year and Commerç 24 (restaurant in Barcelona of a protegé of Ferran Adria's) last summer, I found my mind was more stimulated by the meals than my tastebuds and other senses were. I was frankly not very satisfied with either meal (although I loved the slow-poached egg at WD-50). I left both full, yet still oddly hungry. I will be possibly eating at Martín Berasategui this week, so I'll try to drop my biases (although I don't believe he is as agressively "creative" as his colleagues at Arzak and Mugaritz) and go with an open mind. I suppose there's room for both styles. I'll give my impressions soon!

A great post, Robert. Unfortunately, I haven't eaten at either restaurant. But I will agree with you that the dining scene in Madrid is underrated compared to Barcelona. Which is odd, because it's widely agreed that Madrid gets the best of the best fish and seafood from all over Spain, better than Barcelona. I was in Madrid last summer and absolutely adored my meal at a smaller, more rustic Gallician restaurant that has one Michelin star and one Campsa solé, Casa d'a Troya. The seafood was incredibly fresh and perfectly prepared. Until my dinner the other night at Ca' Sento in Valencia (I'll post about soon, I promise), my meal there was only surpassed by Le Bernadin for best seafood meals. (Now, however, there's no contest. Ca' Sento's seafood tasting menu is the best meal I've ever had in any category).

I'd have to agree with Mallet on this one. At restaurants in San Francisco and Berkeley where I've worked, we tend to reuse the fat once for another batch of confit. And the duck fat is definitely good for cooking potatoes and root vegetables. In the autumn, I particularly love it with for slowly cooking small parsnips (4 inches) over low heat on the stove top in a cast iron pan. They get all caramelized on the outside and tender in the inside. Yum!