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The best restaurant in Burgos, by quite a distance, is El Angel, near the cathedral. Fine Castilian roasts or tasty onion-studded Burgos blood sausage, if you prefer them, but also a number of more varied and creative things. Endless repetition is a very stifling exercise in the restaurant world... Some of these 'other' things: ensalada de perrechicos con mollejas (salad of St.George's mushrooms and lamb sweetbrads), 'pain d'épices' con jamón ibérico y coulis de tomate ('pain d'épices' with Ibérico ham and a tomato 'coulis'), rape con setas al azafrán (monkfish with wild mushrooms in a saffron sauce), pierna de lechazo al pedro ximénez (lamb's leg stewed with sweet pedro ximénez sherry), cochinillo relleno de foie y manzanas reinetas (suckling pig, stuffed with goose liver and reinette apples).

Indeed it seems that the Málaga version of remojón includes hard-boiled eggs and, as lambretta76 signaled, some of the places do offer it with potatoes. I've never seen it myself but intellectually I find it a somewhat odd combination of textures and tastes - potatoes and oranges.

Actually, the real recipe of remojón (that's the actual name) comes from Granada, not Málaga, and includes desalted codfish, orange quarters, spring onions and olives, dressed with olive oil. I've heard of many versions, but until today none with potatoes.

Clumsy stuff right off the bat. I dropped by the other night, 11 PM. A sign said 'open to 12 midnight'. Got in and a fellow tells me the kitchen's closed, and they can't serve me. I point out the sign, and he says, "Oh, this means that midnight is when we close the restaurant." I told him that restaurant opening hours mean that anyone coming in during those hours must be served. He looked at me, somewhat puzzled: "Yeah, that's what someone else already told us. Must be a mistake we made." Professionalism is crucial in the restaurant business. So I don't think they're off to a glowing start.

Not in Spain. It's tellines in the Valencian dialect of Catalan. For all other Spaniards, it's coquinas.

Arroz caldoso is probably best at Can Majó. People in Valencia say with some condescension that the Catalans always like their rice soupy, anyhow. For great paella, I think Barcelona is not the greatest place.

Just came home from one of my professional forays in La Mancha, and to show the subtleties of local cold dishes, I can report that today I had a moje, not to be confused with the mojete which I mentioned above. Moje, a specialty of Cuenca province, is made with strips of peeled, roasted red peppers mixed with strips of peeled uncooked tomatoes, all seeds removed, with just some salt, a bit of cumin powder and olive oil. It's best eaten, as I did today in the heart of the Manchuela wine region, as a side dish accompanying a great platter full of just-grilled, baby lamb cutlets done on an outdoor fire of grapevine cuttings. Sensational country fare this... We also ate, as a first course, a Portuguese-inspired salad of desalted cooked codfish, boiled new potatoes and spring onions.

The greatest source of fine anchovies in Spain is neither Catalan nor Basque - it's the port of Santoña, in Cantabria. The top-rated cannery there is Consorcio Conservero. By the way, Spain's techniques in preserving anchovies in olive oil were brought in by Italian entrepreneurs in the late 19th century. Collioure's competitor on the other side of the Spanish-French border is L'Escala. However, the great specialty there is not anchovies preserved in oil, but salt-cured anchovies.

A couple of other things: Perdices en escabeche, or perdizes em escabeche in Portugal: Pickled partridges, which can be eaten warm or cold, but really best cold in summer. One of the great gastronomic legacies of our forebears on the Iberian peninsula, the Arabs. Light, delicious - you never get tired of them. They came to my mind first because I had some delicious morsels of partridge this week for dinner in Sangalhos, in the Bairrada wine country, at the home of wine journalist Luis Lopes (the editor of Revista de Vinhos) before we headed for a lecture and tasting the next day at Viseu, in Dão this time. (Other highlights of this quick foray into Portugal: a superb 'ensopado de borrego', the traditional lamb stew; a very light, flavorful version of 'arroz de pato', the rice-and-duck dish, that owed much to the bits of exceptional, smoked 'chouriço' sausage that dotted it; the terrific walnut cake baked by Luis' wife; a taste of the 1937 Burmester Colheita port and one of the 1963, two immense wines; a couple of glasses of the elegant, balanced 2002 Quinta do Terrugem red made by Francisco Antunes and Michel Rolland in Alentejo: the best bottle from the giant Aliança company I've ever tasted...) Periñaca, the delicious boiled potato, tomato, pepper and tomato salad from Cantabria (or La Montaña, as we oldtimers still like to call this Atlantic region.) Olive oil mixed with cooked egg yolks forms the basis of the dressing. Not to be confused with the Andalusian piriñaca. Mojete, another great salad, this one from La Mancha: main ingredients are strips of roasted morrón peppers and of spring onions, in virgin olive oil, with a touch of cumin and maybe some black olives; better kept overnight in the fridge.

The heart-shaped marcona is certainly Spain's best almond variety. But others trail it by a hair's breadth and have their own fans. The long, pointy, very hard and tasty largueta might be the next one to make a name for itself, who knows...

Until very recently almost all the cheeses that are popular in Spain (with one major exception, 'picón' blue cheese from Cabrales, Tresviso or Valdeón) were hard cheeses: manchego, castellano, idiazabal, roncal, mahón... I've noticed that in most countries where hard cheeses are prevalent, they tend to be eaten as snacks or at the beginning of a meal: think of an English ploughman's lunch... Or the smoked cheese served with 'crudités' and pickles at the beginning of a Hungarian dinner. In contrast, soft pungent cheeses will dominate (but not exclusively, of course) a French cheese plate, which is eaten near the end of the meal. BTW, in the British tradition, it was sweets first, then cheeses and other savouries, whereas in France they have cheese first and then dessert. Yet in France, centuries ago, as we're reminded by the saying 'entre la poire et le fromage' ('between the pear and the cheese'), they also had their fruit first, then the cheese. Now that we have access to a much wider variety of domestic and foreign cheeses, including a number of great soft cheeses (the Extremadura 'tortas' made with sheep's milk in El Casar de Cáceres, Castuera, Monroy... and also some great new Catalan cheeses from unpasteurized cow's milk, and the Las Garmillas cheese from Cantabria...), the attraction of cheese as an end-of-meal course has increased in Spain. But manchego remains the perfect companion of arbequina or manzanilla olives, Guijuelo or Jabugo ham and 'lomo' (cured pork loin), salted and pickled anchovies, roasted almonds, home-made (fried in olive oil, of course) potato chips and a half bottle of chilled manzanilla sherry to start a nice summer lunch...

You'd be surprised at the huge amount of foodies and winos in Spain who have no interest whatsoever in soccer. Or at the large number who won't let a soccer game interfere with a good bacalhau.

What is "paella seasoning"? Personally, I never heard about it. There's curcuma as a coloring agent for those poor avaricious souls who prefer to save a penny on real saffron. But no seasoning, AFAIK.

The main difference is another one, Miguel - it's the much larger variation between regional cuisines in Spain. But this is logical given the large difference in size and population (and also in ethnic/linguistic diversity) between the two countries. By the way, being neighbors has never been, in Europe, a prerequisite for gastronomic similarity. Heck, France and Germany are neighbors... There are a number of truly good Portuguese restaurants in Spain - at least three in the Madrid area: Trás-os-Montes and Don Sol in the capital, and Lisboa Antiga in Majadahonda. They are all very successful, and the Spanish public does not have (as far as I can see) any negative, preconceived ideas/clichés about Portuguese cuisine. Everyone loves codfish here, so everyone is well-disposed toward a Portuguese restaurant.

What does this Point guy know, anyhow? (Note to non-Spanish eGulleters: local joke here...)

Actually what I meant is that permanent outdoors markets are infrequent in Spain; OTOH, permanent covered markets as we have in Spain are infrequent elsewhere. Also, one-day-a-week outdoors markets are extremely common in every mid-sized village in Spain, and (as in France) you can buy from CDs to underwear to pineapples.

One note on that savory sorbet with the tuna tataki whose taste you couldn't exactly figure out, Bux: it was bitter almonds.

Actually, they do understand, Bux. Everyone in the restaurant business in Spain is quite aware that some clients abhor stuff that's out of the 'international cuisine' mainstream. And leading the squeamish - the Americans, yes. 'Chicken, veal, Dover sole and maybe a steak' are the limits of many traveling Americans' tastes.

Goodness, is there any other way?

Ah, Garabatu, wonderfully dingy place with those greenish walls and the old wooden chairs! From back when we were poor and maybe happier!

Hello, reesek. A few thoughts. I don't know how old your experience of Spain is, but if it's more than 10-15 years what you'll find is like a different country. The monuments and landscapes are still there, thank goodness. Among the positive new developments is the boom in casas rurales, basically the Spanish version of B&Bs, often with quite a lot of charm, and of hoteles con encanto (that's self-explanatory). There are now literally thousands of those throughout the country. Here's a good Internet guide with lots of choices. It's designed so that you can even look for lodging in a Catholic monastery. Second idea: choose either Galicia or the Asturias-Cantabria-Basque Country axis. Doing it all in one week would be impossible. Within either of those two destinations there are now good motorways that will expedite travel. Renting a car is much advised. Trains in Spain are usually slow. Third idea: consult the Michelin or Campsa guides (both available online, both in English) to get a pretty good idea about good restaurants in those two regions.

At times, yes. But there's an essential difference, Jason: Ferran is a Mediterranean genius, not a northern one, and - just like Picasso or Miró - his streak of madness is always tempered by a fundamental bonhomie and a basically playful, mischievous attitude about food and life. He's having fun, and Rotwang wasn´t... Thank goodness! PS An addendum for Tony Bourdain on the intricacies of Catalan spelling: the correct one is neither Adria nor Adriá, but Adrià.

Indeed, both John Dory and St. Peter's fish are British names for Zeus faber, the French saint-pierre. Curiously, in Spain we have two saints competing for the name - San Pedro and San Martín.

That statement is not really correct - unless the name of the village is Roses, in Spain, where there's a guy named Ferran who really makes a few things no one else ever made before...

Mmmmm, the 'devil piquillos', huh? As treacherous as 'pimientos de Padrón'? I had heard of and also tasted some more 'piquant' (compared with the usual sweetness) piquillos, but never as hot as those you describe. I believe it's indeed a latent risk with capsicums in general - their heat can sometimes accentuate without much forewarning.