Silly Disciple

Definitely, I forgot to mention El Desnivel, great meat. SShaker, which La Brigada was this? It is not only incredibly distasteful on their part, it is also ridiculous and stupid, since both the San Telmo and the Recoleta branches have a considerable number of tourist clients every day. Cut-wise, I love entraña (hanger steak), lomo (filet mignon), bife de chorizo (porterhouse steak), matambre (SShaker, what's the proper translation?). If you like offal, don't miss the chance, Argies love the 'achuras' (as we call them), like mollejas (sweetbreads), riñoncito (kidney), chinchulines (intestine), etc.

I have to agree with SaltShaker on that one. Cabaña Las Lilas indeed is a tourist spot. I would not consider it, at any price point, among the top spots in BA for good meat. There are much better places, like La Cabrera or La Brigada, IMHO.

Still, 10 blocks away from the Boqueria. The distance to the mercats de Santa Catarina Market, on the other side of Via Layetana, and La Barceloneta, towards the Barceloneta beach is pretty much the same. So you have 3 different markets in a 15 block radius to choose from, I'm sure you won't get bored. Markets are great for fresh vegetables, meats, fish and decent for charcuterie. Then you'll probably have one or two little supermarkets close by for milk, oil, cookies, toiletries, etc. and a few bakeries in the area as well.

not sure where "southern part of barri gotico" is located, but it seems you would still be 5 to 10 minutes walking distance from the Boqueria.

The degustation menu this year is 170 EUR if I'm not mistaken.

What would the point of such a system be? A regular inmersion circulator seems cheaper, safer and more flexible.

I fail to see what the advantage would be over a water bath. Inmersion circulators are not that expensive, and probably bound to decrease price as the technique spreads. You can already buy them second hand for a couple hundred dollars. If you think about electricity consumption, then I'm not sure the closed loop is more expensive than having a continuously going heating element. And water for sure seems safer for food than chemicals, no?

Hello SD-- Yes, I mean the one in La Lucila (Martinez). Im surprised to hear you had less than optimal entrees. Would you care to elaborate? Also, if you care to post which options are better I would greatly appreciate it - Im always looking to find new places. ← We had both the pork and the lamb (and maybe something else, which escapes me now... duck maybe?). Both dishes were just ordinary, underseasoned and definitely not up to par with the apetizers we'd just had (I just remembered another one of the apetizers were the sweetbreads, which were fantastic as well). The wine list was quite good too if I'm not mistaken. Other options: Nectarine for similar cuisine, Sudestada for something completely different. edited for spelling.

You mean the one in Martinez? I ate there in my last trip to BA, my overall impression was that it wasn't bad, with some apetizers being quite good (frog legs were excellent), but it didn't blow my mind, the entrees not memorable at all. For the price tag, maybe other options are better.

Well, I could certainly imagine being able to play around a bit with tableside cooking... if you could work out the liability issues with people getting burnt. ← Liquid nitrogen is indeed used tableside both at El Bulli and The Fat Duck.

Indeed, Artur Sages takes pride in having a cheese board almost exclusively composed by the best Spanish cheeses, and it's excellent.

Judith, the correct url for Enric Rovira's website is http://www.enricrovira.com/.

Alfajores is a good option, which is conceptually similar to a macaroon, ie two pieces of dough with a filling. A very common/traditional one, alfajores de maicena, calls for the dough to be made with cornstarch. The recipe usually involves yolks, sugar, cornstarch and flour. I'm sure you can find several recipes online if you search for "alfajores de maicena"The filling is traditionally dulce de leche, and once done you sprinkle the borders of the filling with grated coconut. Another option is tortas or pastelitos fritos, a simple sweet dough which is deep fried, and sometimes filled with quince paste.

on the higher end, some of the restaurants in the hotels may be open. Then on the not so high end I like Paco Meralgo on Sundays, which is good but not great, and as a low end option you could go for the traditional El Meson David, a galician tavern in the Raval.

Harry, I would definitely be interested in what a safety plan for sous vide looks like.

Don't know them or their product, but their "how to use your sharpening steel" FAQ is lifted word by word, including images, from the eG Knife Maintenance EGCI course. see for yourself: their page section 6 of the EGCI course

who's the chef?

I tried this with several airlines, with no luck. I just take a minimal subset of knives and send them with the checked baggage, and pray . Or you could have a cheaper but still decent set just for this purpose.

Judith, if you look elsewhere on this forum and even on my "top 10" on this thread, you'll see that I'm quite a fan of Hisop, and usually recommend it as one of the best value options in the city (now closely challenged by accross-the-street newcomer Coure). However the question asked was about Colibri, and later Gamvik.

Colibri moved to a new, much bigger location, somewhere in the Right Eixample (Eixample Dreta), north of Av. Diagonal. I haven't been to its new location yet, and neither have I been to Gamvik, but I've heard one or two really good reviews for Colibri and not so great things about Gamvik. Then again, I haven't been to either yet. Colibri will set you back 60-80 euros. At it's former location, it was one of the great restaurants in the city. found the address: Colibri Carrer de Casanova, 212 93.443.23.06

Barcelona to Sant Celoni is about 50-something kilometers. Driving is a good option. You could also take the train to Sant Celoni and then a taxi to the restaurant, however this would only work for lunch since the last train back into Barcelona is around 10:30pm. Not sure if the menus are the same, but I would tend to think so.

It needs the extra time in the oven to bring the sauce to perfection - try it and you'll see. cheers, JH ← In that case, I would just keep on cooking the sauce, but remove the shrimps. I go with Rogelio on this one, cooking them for the minimum possible time and not a second more.

JH, why do you need to put them in the hot oven for 5 minutes after they have already cooked in the cazuela?

I had an awful experience at Casa D'a Troya last week (bad service, wrong dishes, wrong meat points, etc), but then Victor (vserna) mentioned he had a superb one the preceeding week, so your mileage may vary.

Brian, how do you go about slow roasting it?