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Some good, some not so good. And not very fast. Rogelio has a link to what the Spanish press says in his Digest section.

I guess there's no need to mention Rafa in Roses, Pedro?

The first two opening hours in the morning are the worst for queues. In principle, Thursday at 5.30 PM is a pretty good time to get in.

Just to help anyone tring a Google search for this restaurant: the actual name is Comerç 24, with a single m.

This is logical, Bux - population density and even average income are much less on the Roussillon and Pays Basque side of the border than on the Catalonia and Euskadi, i.e. the Spanish side of the border. They couldn't find more good restaurants on the French side if they looked for them with a magnifying glass - there just aren't any. But look at the overall picture - there are almost five times more starred restaurants in the Michelin France than in the Michelin Spain guide. Not only that - there are twice as many in Italy, Germany or the UK than in Spain. And these percentages are simply not realistic any longer. So the (unfounded?) suspicion reigns that Michelin has an agenda of promoting France and maintaining a fixed star quota for Spain (where the number of starred restaurants has hardly risen at all in the past 20 years!), which is seen as a big rival for the tourists' $$$.

They take all credit cards, Isabelle, don't worry - be happy.

Santi Santamaría's No. 2 man happens to be French, and he's good. That said, I can send you a long list of chefs in Spain who make terrific desserts, and not one of them is French. I don't agree that Santi's desserts are a letdown compared with the rest. I've tasted a number of them, like his blood orange crumble with bitter chocolate ice cream, that were terrific.

Best restaurants I know between Barcelona and Valencia: Can Bosch, Cambrils. Modern seafood-oriented cuisine. Very good. A well-deserved Michelin star. Joan Gatell, Cambrils. More traditional than Can Bosch, but sensational array of fish and shellfish, and the best 'fideos rojos' (vermicelli, cooked in shellfish stock). El Pescador (Casa Angelina), Les Cases d'Alcanar. The very best 'suquet de peix' (Catalonia's cousin of bouillabaisse). Faro de Vinaròs, Vinaròs. In the converted lighthouse in this small fishermen's port, home of some of the most fabled 'langostinos' (tiger prawns) in Spain (the other famous place is Sanlúcar, near Jerez). Modern, refined cuisine - and langostinos, of course. Forn Tonico, Alcossebre. Rustic little mountainside place in this coastal resort, terrific lamb roasts from their wood-fired oven and 'cocas' (the Valencian reply to pizza). Rafael, Grau, Castellò. Either a great rice dish (one of the best 'arròs abanda' in this coast) followed by a sea bass or gilthead oven-roasted in a salt crust, or a whole tapas-like meal of small portions of everything: mussels, langostinos, clams, sardines, red mullets... delightful stuff. Espliego, Vila-real (small town, big-time soccer team!). Pleasant modern cuisine, nice service, local produce (oven-roasted Mediterranean sea bass with asparagus, onion and bell pepper tempura).

Well, to begin with, you will have to commute if you're staying in Madrid and working in Leganés, which is a separate town of 200,000 about 10 miles south of downtown Madrid. Or are you staying in Leganés proper? Then, not leaving town at all would drastically curtail your possibilities of eating well...

Indeed salsa española is sauce espagnole. In an English-language text it's best to put it in French, not just as recognition of France's culinary dictatorship, but actually for a good reason: this sauce was first codified by the great Antonin Carême 170 years ago, and while of a general Spanish inspiration it's almost surely a Carême creation.

Rent a car. Can Fabes and Sant Pau are both open, and they're the best two restaurants within 25 miles of downtown Barcelona.

Heck, even convenience stores in Spain carry sushi trays nowadays.

Yes, not too shabby either... http://www.abcgallery.com/B/bosch/bosch-2.html

There was a discussion on eGullet a few months back, prompted by an enthusiastic (slightly overenthusiastic?) Ken Hom article in the Financial Times on Madrid's expanding Asian restaurant scene: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=35860 Of later developments, I'd say that two impressive new places are the Asia Gallery at the Westin Palace Hotel and the whimsical, airy Hakkasan (yes, its owners, who also own China Crown, are friends of the owner of London's Hakkasan), in which three chefs operate simultaneously: one is Chinese, the second a sushi chef and the third a Peruvian, who brings the pan-Pacific feel to the menu with some terrific cebiches and other seafood dishes. But these are expensive places (about 40 euros at Asia Gallery). Going back to the budget Chinese, I'd re-state here that the noodles are terrific at the hole-in-the-wall in the Plaza de España underground car park. And, among the many mid-priced places, the old standby ChinaKing has relaunched itself rather smartly after adding dim sum, sushi and some Thai dishes to its basic Cantonese menu. There are set-price menus starting at around 8 euros. The Chinese community in Spain, which is rather old, is growing very fast now and they have practically taken over large chunks of old Madrid, in butterfly's neighborhood, where they trade in a million different Asian products. (How old is it? Well, 'Manolita' Chen's fabled Chinese Theatre troupe began touring Spain in the 1940s. There are very few older precedents: Spain has practically no historic ties with China, unlike Britain or the United States. Now a younger Chen sibling, Danny Chen, is one of the new moguls of the Asian restaurant scene in Madrid with his Tao chain. Not to be confused with the other Chens, who are unrelated although they come from the same part of China - Roger Chen owns the Zen chain and runs the Asia Gallery.)

Well, I didn't choose the non-gastronomic digressipn, but allow me to drop my jaw at the use of the term "mediocre" to describe the works of art of people like Nuno Gonçalves...

I think María Luisa García Sánchez, a regional food writer, is only well-known in her native Asturias. This is really an old book now - the first edition was published about 35 years ago. The national, decisively important equivalent over the past generation has been '1080 recetas de cocina', by Simone Ortega - the best-selling Spanish language cookbook in history, and one that is present in almost every household in this country. More important from a historic and literary viewpoint, and first published in 1970, was 'El libro de la cocina española' (Ed. Danae), by Néstor Luján and Joan Perucho, two of our greatest 20th century food writers.

Please don't look for socio-political explanations to spelling variations. This is run-of-the-mill stuff for dishes and natural products all over the world.

To me, the almonds are quintessential to a great ajoblanco. But 'de gustibus non est disputandum'...

In addition to Janet Mendel's excellent book My Kitchen in Spain: 225 Authentic Regional Recipes (which I'm afraid is out of print), these would be good books in English, some of them also out print but findable through Amazon: The Basque Table Passionate Home Cooking from one of Europe's Great Regional Cuisines By Teresa Barrenechea with Mary Goodbody Foods and Wines of Spain By Penelope Casas The Catalan country kitchen: Food and wine from the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean seacoast of Barcelona By Marimar Torres Paella!: Spectacular Rice Dishes from Spain By Penelope Casas Also useful is this dictionary published in Spain: Diccionario de Gastronomía y Hostelería Español-Inglés By Ignacio Méndez-Trelles Díaz Ed. Paraninfo (this can be purchased here.)

The best Iberian cold soup in my book is ajoblanco, the sensational 'white gazpacho' (originally from Málaga or from Granada, depending on whom you believe) made with mashed peeled almonds and garlic cloves, bread crumbs, water, olive oil and vinegar. It blends famously with fruit in a classic sweet/salty/pungent combination: peeled grapes or sultana raisins or diced reinette apples are usually added to the soup. There are also many modern uses of it. Alberto Chicote of Madrid's No-Do, an Andalusian-Asian fusion place (yes, we have those too now) does a delightful dish of bluefin tuna tataki, just briefly seared on the outside, with a dense ajoblanco as the sauce. Terrific with a top-notch, chilled dry oloroso.

Historically, cream was an oddity in Spain, once a poor country where cow's milk was familiar only in the more verdant northern third of the country, and cream was a luxury for the very few well-to-do people. For a long time, in 'dry' Spain, including Madrid and the whole Mediterranean coast, the typical native ice was not ice cream - but iced milk. 'Leche merengada' ('Meringued milk') was what as a kid, in the 1950s, I discovered when I went for the first time to the beach in eastern Spain (that was at Altea, near Alicante). Basically, for one quart of milk you use one large lemon's peel, a stick of cinnamon and 5 ounces of sugar, which you mix and bring to a boil. Filter through a sieve, let it cool, then put in a freezer. On the side, you prepare the meringue: three well-beaten egg whites, to which another 5 ounces, this time of confectioners' sugar, is added progressively while beating the mix. When the milk is just beginning to freeze, add the meringue, whipping it all very slowly together, then leaving it to freeze while stirring frequently to prevent it from becoming solid. (Or use a 'sorbetière'-type machine, of course). Serve in tall tulip glasses with plenty of powdered cinnamon on top. This is delicious stuff. Modern ice cream, full of Belgian chocolate or mango morsels or what have you, doesn´t improve on this modest treat!

Let's see. For many years, at Les Platgetes in Castellón, I spent half of my morning at the beach on my knees, in shallow water, feeling under the sand for the coquinas, and putting them in a plastic bag. That's one problem they have: they live in the sand, and are often gorged with it. You don't need to open them with your hands or a knife, of course. You just steam them briefly or place them on a hot 'plancha', and they open naturally, like any other clam. Then you may be well-advised to run a fresh water stream on them to remove the sand, pat them dry, pour some fresh lemon juice on them, and that's iy. Of course, you need 40-50 clams per person for a decent appetizer, at these sizes...

Susan: I believe the Italian vongole is what we call chirlas in Spain - not coquinas/tellines/telline. Not to be confused with vongole veraci either - these are the large European clams.

You'll get much better input than mine, I'm sure, but let me add one place which is seldom mentioned on eGullet but offers fine modern food (the young cook is Xavier Franco) and shouldn't set you back more than 60-70 euros: Saüc. Some of their dishes: octopus salad with saffron potatoes and a sofrito marmalade; confit of suckling pig with scallions and potatoes; sautéed duck's liver with a dark beer soup and date-studded gingerbread; crackling and tender chin of pig with calamari and sautéed artichokes, served with the roasted pig's juices.

In a place like Gerardo (as at El Angel in Burgos) you can get the best of both worlds, Pedro - terrific fabada and some modern fancy-dan work with fish... But my friend Ignacio Villalgordo is incensed at the coldness and lack of charm of the new Gerardo annex - "and they charge the same prices!" he fumes. So if you get the chance - make sure you book a table in the old, rustic, charming building.