vserna

Subijana is vastly improved over the past couple of years, and also has a top-notch sommelier. On the overall ranking, close to 100% of Spanish critics now agree that Mugaritz is No. 1 in Guipúzcoa (and No. 2 in Spain behind El Bulli).

Just a note: the Empordà no longer has a Michelin star (it had one for many years). It's a good example of the way the little red guide routinely underrates restaurants in Spain.

Actually, the small Theba pisana is basically popular in Andalucía, so we may have something there! It's not "tiny", really, but it's small enough to be basically used in soups and stews (caracol de caldo, or broth snail, is its popular Andalusian name). The most popular snails in Spain are the common snail, Cantareus asperus (a.k.a. Helix aspersa) and the smaller, revered Iberus gualterianus, the vaqueta mountain snail that is so indispensible for a classic paella valenciana.

I really don't know what one would consider "very small". Katie was asking about "little tiny" snails, hence my conclusion it was periwinkles. Land snails are no smaller in Andalusia than elsewhere in Spain. There are bigger and smaller breeds (the vineyard snail is small, for instance), but no "tiny" ones... An Andalusian snails stew: http://www.portalmw.com/actualizar/cocina/...nes/caracol.jpg Of course pins are useful to eat snails, too; the smaller the snail, the more useful the pin. And yes, there are mushroom festivals in Galicia now. Progress reaches even the Celtic world...

I am afraid that Síbaris, alas, is now gone. (The Vicente family still has its restaurants in Pontevedra and Santiago de Compostela - BTW, if anyone contemplates visiting anything further than the immediate vicinity of Vigo, Santiago is the one place not to miss!) Cíes is still on Canido beach, and a solid choice for seafood.

Same menu, same prices, same need to book.

If you manage to escape Vigo, the nearest outstanding restaurant is at Poio, 15 minuted away: this is one minute from the Pontevedra Norte exit of the A-9 motorway. The place is Casa Solla, and it more than richly deserves its Michelin star. Very Galician, but very modern - be forewarned.But I see your conference (I guess this is your conference...) is already putting out vast restaurant info! http://www.atlanticocongresos.com/ices2004/rest.html And - sorry, Lambretta, but never drink wine in a ceramic bowl in Galicia! This is foul, acidic, cloudy (hence the use of white creamic) Ribeiro wine, exclusively an acquired (dis)taste and a reminder of how far Galician wine has traveled and improved since phylloxera produced that 'typical' horror.

I'm not as fond of trolls as you seem to be, francesco... As Jesús points out, your questions reveal (no disrespect intended) a very scant level of knowledge of Spanish food. So I'd rather not get into an argument in which only one would have any cues about the appropriate comparisons. One more thing: please don't make me say what I haven't said or written: "I am getting the impression that you trying to argue that Spanish cuisine is "better" in some sense than Italian." ???? I haven't even gone tangentially into anyone's superiority, here or on the Parker board.

I'm not sure I agree, Jesús. Anyone interested in food in New York or LA or Chicago has a pretty fair chance of getting to know very good Italian cuisine. I know some nitpicking critics accuse a Babbo or Il Giglio of not being as authentic as they could be, but obviously they're miles and miles ahead of Sevilla or El Faro in sheer culinary quality! (Go to Paris or London, with Il Cortile or the River Café, and the situation is similar. Heck, even in Madrid we have a couple of great Italian restaurants. Italian cuisine travels well! It's somewhat less raw ingredients-dependent than Spanish cuisine, which helps, and also Italians have travelled much more widely - and made many of their basic ingredients available everywhere - than Spaniards, who for 500 years have migrated almost exclusively to Latin America... and a little to New Jersey... .) At any rate, an American diner arriving in Italy for the first time will immediately have many points of reference and comparison. Also, there are millions of Americans with an Italian background who are familiar with their culinary traditions and proud of them, and very few of Spanish (meaning: from Spain, not from Latin America) extraction. Indeed, there are very few European nations (perhaps... Luxembourg and Latvia?) with a smaller presence than Spain amid that immense group formed by European immigrants and their kin in the US. That's always been a real obstacle to the penetration and understanding of Spanish cuisine there. Emigrants are always powerful culinary ambassadors, and ours were in Argentina and Peru, not in Massachusetts or even, for the past 180 years, in California or Texas... So it's sometimes hard to explain, in the US, that there are as many Michelin three-stars in Spain as in Italy. That's why it was such a shocker last year (outside foodie circles) when the NYT Magazine came out with that provocative cover story, "The new France". Italy had never received such royal treatment...

You can look it up yourself easily: http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/gbr.../MaHomePage.htm http://www.guiacampsa.com/eng/infinito/gca...?Nivel=0&userg=

Not the greatest place in Galicia today. The city's economic woes seem to have percolated down to the restaurant scene, which was better 10 or 15 years ago. La Oca is a tiny, modern-Galician restaurant of some distinction (but no marvel); El Mosquito is a personal oldtime, sentimental favorite for ultratraditional Galician fare and the best, ultrahuge, ultrafresh Dover soles in Spain. Then again, Pontevedra is 15 minutes by car from downtown Vigo...

On Robert Parker's wine board, a thread on whether a beginner should concentrate on Spanish or Italian wine (a slightly absurd dilemma to begin with) has taken an unexpected culinary twist, with proponents of restaurants in either country (myself included) taking turns explaining their positions. Just this once, I think a link to another board can be of some interest to us here (where many people, of course, know a lot more about food and restaurants than those on that vinous board): http://fora.erobertparker.com/cgi-bin/ulti...ic/1/38929.html

I don't think dátiles de mar are banned in Spain... or in the Adriatic. Or are they? I've had them not too long ago, both in Castellón de la Plana and in Venice. The use of percussion instruments like sledgehammers to dislodge them is indeed banned. I guess it's hard to know how they've been caught, of course...

Chanquetes are still served by a number of Andalusian restaurants - they just don't have them on their printed menus. Similar thing with zorzales (ortolans), the small birds that can no longer be killed in the European Union - I think if you look hard enough, you'll be able to eat some in Spain. But in Spain I've heard of no large-scale, well-organized schemes of the type mentioned by Miguel.

El Ferrol is not a major fishing port, I think. On the other hand, I was in the central Pontevedra covered market recently, a new, impressively equipped building, and the seafood section was something else, with at least 5,000 square feet and more than 100 different stalls and great variety of fish and shellfish. Just the array of skate was worth the visit on its own! No, Pontevedra restaurants obviously don't get their Galician fish and shellfish from Pescaderías Coruñesas. But those in Gijón and San Sebastián who want top-notch turbot, hake or lobster do! Also, one of Spain's main frozen fish companies, Pescanova, is headquartered in Redondela near Pontevedra (and near Vigo, Europe's largest fishing port). They have a fleet of more than 100 boats.

I see some old-time traditions never die...

A subject of very hot discussion, the etymology of ceviche (or sebiche, or cebiche). Indeed one of the Peruvian theories is that it's a colonial era term and comes from escabeche de cebolla (onion escabeche).

No, I think it was always vinegar. The Persians and Arabs knew everything about vinegar - thousands of years ago.

Very old hat, this. Linguists have had it down pat for decades. Escabeche and all other words derived from that Spanish term (it was the Spanish who brought it to Italy, probably to the Kingdom of Naples they ruled for a long time) comes from the Hispanic Arabic word assukkabáğ, which in turn comes from the Arabic sikbāğ, and this is related to the Persian term sekbā. And what do these exotic words mean? Simply, "meat stew with vinegar".

Briefly, the promised notes on western Cantabria, where no 'modern' restaurants or very luxurious ones are to be found. The number of touristy places has increased lamentably, but a few good ones remain, including these two: Joseín, in Comillas (one of northern Spain's most beautiful villages, combining 16th-century mansions with works by Gaudí and other Catalan modernist architects), is a hotel-restaurant that literally hangs above the beach, with a striking view from the dining room. The family used to run the much-remembered Fonda Colasa, which in the 1970s and 80s was western Cantabria's lone Michelin-starred restaurant (there have been none since it closed 15 years ago). Traditional local stuff: risotto-like 'arroz marinero' (rice with clams and shrimp), sautéed baby broad beans with serrano ham, the best plate of tiny cuttlefish smothered in onions to be found in Spain, fried hake, beef fillet in a 'picón' blue cheese sauce, terrific home-made cheese cake and lemon pie... Good wines, for a change in the region - including the red Valtuille from the up-and-coming Bierzo region and the excellent Terras Gauda white from Rías Baixas. Hostería Calvo, in Puente San Miguel outside Torrelavega, is one of those irreplaceable, immutable family-run rural restaurants that make Europe a place with a special culinary and lifestyle charm, even when one stays outside the circuit of ballyhooed 'gastronomic' places. Two basic, tight, unadorned dining rooms (actually, here as at Joseín, some decent modern art hangs from the walls - there's good taste in Cantabria!) Great 'rabas' (the local name for fried calamari rings, a religion in Santander, and always made with very tender, very fresh calamari). Ham 'croquetas' are terrific, as are a simple soup of puréed leeks and cream; a tasty oven-baked 'jargo' (the local name of Diplodus sargus, the white seabream) with potatoes, tomatoes and onions; a juicy luxurious steak of 'mero' (grouper) done a la plancha', some (tiny) baby lamb cutlets served with a julienne of smartly fried, varied vegetables. Their version of cheese cake (Cantabria is a big dairy region with some delightful farm cheeses) is also pretty nice. The usual array of Roja and Ribera del Duero wines with some unexpected gems (2001 Hécula by Castaño in southeastern Spain - a heady mourvèdre). Oh - and the average cost per person is still under 40 euros in these places.

Egaña-Oriza, with its striking setting on the old Moorish wall and José María and Mercedes Egaña's wise Basque-Andalusian cuisine, remains easily the best restaurant in town, followed by Willy Moya's excellent neo-Andalusian stuff at Poncio. Out of town, the already mewntioned La Alquería at Hacienda Benazuza is of course top-notch (albeit much less avant-garde than El Bulli), and another fancy new country hotel, Hacienda La Boticaria, has an attractive restaurant, Molino Blanco, with a thoroughly professional Basque cook, Mikel Uría, and some outstanding wines in the cellar (wine lists being traditionally weak in Andalusia).

A nice family place is La Roca Petita at Riudellots de la Selva - just six miles outside of Girona on the road to the Costa Brava airport - and it's open on Sundays. Your basic Empordà fare - including snails, natch! Very authentic. It'll set you back about 30 euros per person.

I would beg to differ. No, it is not.

Very surprising, this. We paid under €50 per person only last month. Did you have a very expensive wine?

The discussion in this thread is quoted in a story on Fast Good in elmundovino.com, the web site devoted to wine by El Mundo, the Madrid newspaper. It describes Fast Good's wine offer as "vulgar".