Silly Disciple

arghh!!! not mangos!!!!!! ok, he says, munching a buchette de chevre au lait cru thanks again for the info, SD

I posted this question on Lucy's thread but I'll post it here again: What does Mr. M say about diet soda beverages? which ones? Is there an indication on whether this is related to weight loss or cardiovascular health (ie. cholesterol)? It seems to me that a book oriented to the US market might come out stronger regarding cardiovascular problems. thanks for the info. SD

Sat morning I hurt my leg playing football (soccer), so I ended up going to the doctor instead of going to the market. Alas, I had (and will have to) do with what I have in the fridge for a few days, since markets are closed Sun and Mon here in Barcelona. So for lunch Saturday I took 1/2 a piece of Matambre I had in the fridge. Matambre is an Argentinian cut of beef, which I believe translates to flank steak. According to this description found on the web: "Matambre is one of the muscles on the surface of the abdomen, it's underneath the skin of the belly. " I cooked it in the oven for abour 40 minutes (20 min each side) with sea salt and a bit of rosemary. I'm not sure you can tell by this picture, but the cut is very thin, thus making a very crunchy exterior. We had it with a big salad, and we also had a few white asparagus with home-made hummus (which I later realized shouldn't be had with meat, right?). dessert was a 70% chocolate (lindt) square. We weren't terribly hungry for dinner, so we just had some gazpacho I had left from a previous batch, and a few Boquerones (preserved anchovies). I have a question for the Montignac experts. My wife insists on drinking diet soda (diet coke), and I'm not sure what Montignac says about this kind of beverages. anyone care to comment? Also, I just stole Lucy's white-frame idea for the pics. Sorry Lucy, hope you don't mind? SD

We weren't really that hungry, so I ended up making just the asparagus soup, to which I added some broken, toasted almonds for texture. I boiled the asparagus stalks, then put in the blender with about one cup of the water I used to boil them, and 2 cups of the chicken boullion, then I strained. I then sauted 1/2 an onion (didn't have shallots), sauted the asparagus heads, deglazed with white wine, reduced, added some cream (didn't have eggs either), reduced that as well, then added to the blender and gave it a few quick pulses, just to blend a bit but leave "chunks" of asparagus heads. what's for today? SD

Hi Alida, welcome to eG! You'll find a lot of information about Barcelona's restaurants in many different threads on this forum, much more than any of the members can re-hash in a single new thread. Please go ahead and read some of the threads, and if you have any questions we will be more than happy to help you. Here are some threads you can start with: Good Value Eating Alkimia Barcelona and surrounds Quimet i Quimet El Raco de Can Fabes El Celler de Can Roca Comerç 24 the blinker effect Barcelona hotel restaurants Cinc Sentits SD

Eden, can you tell us a bit more about the rule changes Montignac has added lately? I have the "I eat..." book, which AFAIK is not very new, right? SD

Ok, I'm going to substitute asparagus for sorrel since I just bougth two bunches (which is farily close to 300gr), and I'll have to use cubes since I won't be able to make fresh stock today. And I need to get some almonds. Lucy, I tend to do my groceries twice a week, usually tuesday and fri/sat. if you could, please post a list of fresh ingredients we will need (particularly vegetables and meat), so I can get them in advance. thanks. SD

andiesenji, would you comment on the quality of the Supentown? The price is so much lower than most models, that I'm curious as to why this is. Do you use them a lot? have you had problems with them? Sd

Pepe, your menu sounds great! I'm dying to see the pictures. SD

I'll join you. My wife and I have been following the Montignac method for a few months now, since reading this thread, with fairly good results (except for the month we spent in Argentina... that was against all and any diet rules ). SD

Yes, 5 hours is more or less what viamichelin says. Which new bridge are you talking about? Sd

Indeed, the route would be Barcelona - Perpignan - Narbonne and the north towards Laguiole. Sd

Alkimia does indeed have two tasting menus, one for 40 and one for 52, but including water, wine, coffee, etc it will be rather hard to stay below 60. La Murgula has more off-days than good days, I've eaten there a few times, and the reason many vendors go there is because Rafa, the cook, is a well known character in the restaurant business. When Rafa is out or talking to friends, chances are the food won't be very good. Quim de la Boqueria is indeed a very good option, but get there early. SD

Hi Rick, most of your questions have been answered in previous threads. Just search for the restaurant names and you'll find more information than I can re-hash here. Alkimia, Comerç 24 and the like will set you back about 70-90 euros a head. There are other, very interesting places that are a tad below that, such as Cinc Sentits, Hisop or Colibri (this last one might be actually a bit more expensive, not sure). elBulli is both out of budget (thing 250 eur a head), plus it's nearly impossible to get a reservation, the booking season opens in October and closes within a few days. However do not miss Figueres and Cadaques, they are both lovely. For cheap good places in Barcelona, please see this thread, or this one, or this one Hope it helps, SD

Yay, finally things are starting to happen!!!! Saborosa, please take lots of pictures and let us know how it goes! This past Tuesday I noted a slight increase in fish prices at the Boqueria, but on the other hand many vegetables were cheaper... SD

A group of friends and I are planning (or hoping rather) to go to Bras mid-October, for a Saturday lunch. If we decided to sleep in the area that night, and return to Barcelona on Sunday morning, what would our options be? Are there any somewhat cheap and decent places in Laguiole, or can anyone recommend interesting little towns between BCN and Laguiole (again, w/cheap and decent places to sleep) ? Thanks, SD

Pallafrugell sounds fine for me, it will be nice to see/hear from other markets outside Barcelona for a change. bona sort! SD

Corinna, I would need to know a lot more than I do about both elBulli and catalan cuisine to give you a proper answer. However, as I've stated here, it does indeed seem like C24 is a derivative of elBulli. On the other hand it is hard to say if Alkimia has its "own unique voice". It does fall into line with other restaurants here, offering modern re-interpretations of traditional dishes (i.e. pork's feet) and concepts (the ubiquitous mar i muntanya), with great care for quality of ingredients, etc. Then again, wouldn't Adria's cuisine be considered de auteur under this definition? I think what characterizes Adria (and to some exent C24) is the use and focus on novel techniques to surprise the diner, rather than the re-interpretation of traditional dishes. Wouldn't you agree? SD

Hofmann has, as you say, a demo classroom on the ground floor. We have our theory sessions there. Individual sessions are held there as well. You can see the demos from the street when they are held there. We've had people coming in from the street a few times, either asking for directions, believing it's an "open class", etc. We even had once a quite strinking and quite drunk german lady, who was promply rescued by her apologizing husband . And the students you usually there are the young people from the 28-month program, either waiting between classes or getting ready for service, as the second years are the ones working during the restaurant's service. Then the school has the restaurant and 3 kitchens (service, pastry and teaching) on the first floor, and a couple of classrooms and bathrooms/changing rooms (even showers i think?) on the second floor. They also own another building behind the vasque restaurant Sagardi, just around the corner, with a similar disposition, although I've never been there. SD

A few new pics from the class. After several months, things are definitely moving a bit faster now SD

I must apologize for the poor quality of the pics. In my defense, it was a borrowed camera. SD

Tocinillo is, I think, a custard dessert, fairly similar to a flan. And just like flan, there's a thousand variations. Not sure if there's any particular characteristic to it, but hopefully other people in the forum (pedro? victor?) will be able to tell us more. Similarly priced, both Alkimia and C24 would be described as "modern", as opposed to more traditional (i.e Hispania), and/or formal (Gaig or Jean Luc Figueras). I would describe Alkimia as more of cuisine de auteur, while C24 I would characterize as being more "inventive". At Alkimia you get more of a normal menu, in the sense that you get amouses, apetizers, fish, meat, cheese, desserts, while at C24 you get "waves" of several little dishes, more like tapas. In my experience they were both good but not excellent, with some really good dishes and some misses. I think I held C24 to higher expectations than Alkimia, and thus I thought the meal at the former was a bit dissapointing. Alkimia was more or less what I expected, given what I had heard from friends and read in this forum. As for Hisop, I would characterize it as cuisine de auteur as well, excellent and very consistent, and fairly cheaper than Alkimia. Sadly, I've heard they might be closing in the near future. It seems that Alkimia, after getting its first Michelin star, is going through its 15-minutes-of-fame phase, as I've heard complains that it is getting significantly harder to get a reservation there. SD

Hi Corinna, which one would you like me to translate? I thought the ones which went untranslated were fairly self-explanatory. The service was ok, not great but not bad either. I went with a group of buddies from cooking school, and since the school is fairly well known in Barcelona we let them know we were coming from it (usually there are several kitchen staff members coming from the school, which always has implicit benefits for us ). We had one good server, who was in a really good mood, quickly answering our questions about ingredients and such, and complying swiftly with our requests for drinks, etc. She knew the school, kept on asking us what we thought of the food, explaining things, etc. Then there was a second one who was having a really bad day . We addressed the problem by trying to redirect everything through the first one. Then there was a third server who was fine, leaning towards good but nothing remarkable. Other notes: they had two types of bread, a white one which was just common and nothing to write home about, and a nuts one which was great. Now, half-way through the service they ran out of the nuts one, and it took them about 20 minutes to bring out a fresh batch. That was a bit annoying. My brother asked a question regarding a wine we were having (something regarding either the region or the grapes, which wasn't on the label... can't remember exactly. It was a fairly simple question if you knew the wines on the menu), and noone seemed to know the answer. I would say that the service is more or less par with that of Comerç 24, with the distinction maybe the C24 people are more professional, while the Alkimia folks are more friendly (then again, this might be just pure luck). SD edited cause I can't really spell.

So is there cooking involved, or will it be mostly name calling? You're talking loud, but you ain't sayin nothin... SD

I had dinner with some friends at Alkimia Thursday night. While the meal wasn't amazing, the overall level was very consistent and a few dishes were actually excellent. However, I think I prefer Hisop for a similar fare. I can't post the pics right now as I can't find my cameras usb cord, but briefly, this is what we had as part of the "grand menu degustacion". Instead of choosing the dishes ourselves we asked the chef to do so. 1. xupito de pan tomate y llonganiza ( tomato bread shot with ... sausage?). The shot was basically a clear tomato soup with olive oil, a scent of garlic and bread crumbs. Interesting, but nothing to write home about. 2. espuma de ajobanco con aceite de oliva virgen y melocoton (garlic foam with olive oil and water melon). Really good one. 3. consomme de manzana con berberechos y ravioli de ... cigala I think. Great dish, however the apple's acidity was a tad too much and killed the dish's equilibrium. 4. tuna tataki con ruibarbo y frambuesa. This dish was excellent. 5. ravioli de col con brandada de bacalao, y pulpo. This dish is great conceptually, however it was poorly excecuted. The col was undercooked, which brought the whole dish down, since you couldn't really taste the brandade. 6. ... can't remember exactly. it was a meat dish, had to do with "head and tail", or something to that effect. Good one. 7. San Pedro con cebolla tierna. The San Pedro (John Dory) is quite possibly one of my favorite fishes. However, this one was slightly undercooked and underseasoned. It was a true dissapointment, as I got quite excited when the waitress announced the dish. 8. Foie gras con borracha de vino rancio y crema de cafe. The foie gras was great, but the coffee cream was just too strong for it. the desserts where both excellent: 9. tocinillo con crema de yogur, sorbet y crocante 10. borracha y sorbet. I promise to post pics as soon as I find my cord, and more info on the dishes as soon as the people from Alkimia email me the menu. SD