vserna

I'm no expert on 'faisandage', but obviously in the 21st century you no longer refer to the 'true' meaning of the term, which was 'putrefaction of a pheasant'. Grimod de la Reynière and Brillat-Savarin recommended not eating a bird until its belly was green on the outside. Ugghhhh... What one needs with wild animals in modern cuisine is for the tissues to become relaxed: about three days for a wild rabbit or a hare after it'e been killed (in fresh air); same for venison or wild boar, but then unless you are a hunter this will be bought in a shop and already aged for 2-3 days before selling (or deep-freezing). Oloroso is too much of a good thing with game IMHO; an old amontillado or a palo cortado, however, are really nice. But nothing beats a deep, mineral, not-markedly-tannic red like CdP or the Spanish cousins thereof like Priorat and others. (More tannic, cabernet-sauvignon-based wines from bordeaux or California, or tempranillo-based reds from Ribera del Duero, would be best with beef, which is fattier than game.) I haven't been to Horcher in a long time, but Abraham García tells me they're still on top of their game for their traditional specialties, namely - game! And it's a cultural experience - going back to Berlin, circa 1904. (Now that I mention it, I do think this is their 100th anniversary...)

Miguel's one-upmanship remains unfathomable to me... and is not borne out by fact, but by some sort of crustacean nationalism. Proclaiming "geographic superiority" is akin to proclaiming any other type of national superiority - not the kind of thing we should be indulging in in 21st century Europe. Want to compete? OK. Let's have a level playing field. Let's have a solid, neutral foodie eat at the best seafood restaurant Portugal can muster and then at Combarro in Madrid - 300 miles inland, BTW. Then let him/her decide what's best. Anything else can be construed as bragadoccio from an interested party.

Gosh, shucks, Bux - an all-time first! Lucky devil you!

And this is good grammar? Good punctuation? Please! Even I, from this forlorn corner of southwestern Europe, can do better than that. Don't come giving writing lessons which you don't seem really equipped to give.

El Roqueo in La Cahihuela, the old fishermen's quarter of Torremolinos, is very reliable and trustworthy for fried fish...

Very fancy stuff for starters, Bux! Now go out with Mrs. B and get yourselves a fritura, a mixed platter of fish that's fried crisply with olive oil in the Andalusian style, a few slices of Jabugo ham, a half bottle of fino sherry and maybe a little pipirrana salad, and you'll get a down-home counterpoint to all that adventurous fare at Café de París.

You could have had at least one more, Pedro. Season not quite over. I had a terrific becada last night at Dantxari, Madrid's exemplary Basque tavern. I must confess I was inspired by your stupendous account of the meal at Arce. It's long been my belief that every serious foodie should try to eat at least one plate of lamprey eel and one of woodcock every year - just as a reminder of the powerful, non-industrial, almost telluric foodstuffs our forebears sometimes enjoyed before these modern times when almost every animal we eat comes from a farm where it's fed unspeakable things and comes out limp, bland and in need of copious doses of chipotle pepper or lemongrass to taste of anything... Well, I hadn't had any woodcock this season, I realized when reading your post. And sitting at the table with me yesterday were two other serious foodies - my wife and a Dutch friend who's a redoubtable cook himself. So when Eduardo Navarrina, the maître d' and co-owner of Dantxari, told me he had some becadas, I asked him and chef Alonso to compose a seasonal menu - the kinds of things that are good in April, not in August or December. Again, just like old times. Before progress brought airshipped South African grapes in April to the street markets in the small (and grape-producing) villages in La Mancha... So this is what they fed us, with the liquid accompaniment of some Henri Abelé NV champagne, a Dominio de Tares Cepas Viejas 2001 red made with the subtle mencía grape of Bierzo (i.e., the jaen of Portugal's Dão region) and a few glasses of the light, sprightly Gianni Gagliardo Moscato d'Asti 2003 (which our old buddy Abraham García, the chef at Viridiana, imports personally from Piemonte) with dessert: - Huge, one-inch-wide white Navarra asparagus (two per person - an ample portion!), perfectly cooked, tender as a kiss, with a simple hollandaise sauce and some crisp-fried flat-leaf parsley for the fun counterpoint. (I gallantly tried to eat them with my fingers, to follow old-time protocol, but they were just too large...) This is the stuff that goes into the famed and much-discussed canned Cojonudos asparagus, but this time of the year is when they can be briefly be enjoyed fresh and at their apex. - A simple little dish of tiny, consistent perretxikos (St. George's mushrooms or Calocybe gambosa, which the French call mousserons), the prized springtime fungal delicacy. They were stir-fried in some butter in a small copper pan. The forest on a platter. - Large, tender, imposing morels which Alonso stuffs with a mix of minced lamb sweetbreads, black truffles and duck foie gras, then braises them in a cream-and-Armagnac reduction. Positively 19th-century, but great. - Some splendid Mediterranean red mullet filets, first quickly sautéed in olive oil, then deboned and served with the skin on, and accompanied with just-boiled, fresh, very small, double-peeled broad beans (or fava beans if you will). Phenomenal combination. - Then, of course, the small becadas, one per person. Well hung, they are very briefly oven-roasted while their innards are minced and served aside on a small piece of toast. The sauce is a reduction of the bird's juices and bones, brandy, red wine and shallots that goes through the sieve. There's also a little home-made fig chutney on the side and some fresh, just-heated raspberries and strawberries for the sweet-and-sour contrast with the amazingly deep, gamey taste of the woodcock. Indeed, one of the greatest game dishes anywhere. We had various desserts; in my case, some sleek slices of perfectly ripe mango with a dollop of leche merengada ice cream. Leche merengada is an old-time ice cream made in Spanish villages before any industrial stuff was available. It's made with milk, egg whites, lemon rind and sugar, and copiously sprinkled with cinnamon. The memories will serve for another year...

This is one of the reasons why the Portuguese and the Brits get along so famously, Miguel - their shared belief that boiling fish (or roasting meat) is all that's needed in the kitchen. This, with all due respect, is a reductionist attitude that leads to a limited cuisine, ultimately translating into endless repetition and negating gustatory progress. France and China became the gastronomic superpowers of the world because their philosophy was entirely different from the simplistic approach: for centuries or millennia they constantly sought to improve on even the best raw materials nature provided us with, by applying technique and imagination at every juncture. A similar philosophy, with a modicum of impertinent Hispanic revisionism added, is what has propelled Spain to the forefront of the world culinary scene in less than a quarter-century. There must be room both for the simply boiled and the deftly manipulated ingredients in any great cuisine. And even within a specific range of raw materials - say, seafood - there must be variety, from the pristinely simple to the plat cuisiné, as the French call it. Or, as the Spanish saying goes, en la variedad está el gusto, "taste lies in variety". Going back to your Galician example, I would reply that you distort the facts somehow. Galicia is by far the most conservative coastal region in Spain as regards the treatment given to shellfish. Be it lobsters, Arcade oysters, Carril clams, langoustines or camarón shrimps, 90% of the time they eat everyting either raw or simply boiled. They are right, of course - these are hard to improve on. But if you alternate your boiled or raw seafood, in a nice iodine-rich meal, with a flavorful cockle-stuffed empanada (pie) or a plate of zamburiñas (the tiny scallops which the French call pétoncles) that have been very briefly cooked in the oven with some minced onion and a few breadcrumbs on top - then you're in the world of cuisine, not just of eating! Move clockwise from Galicia to Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia and Andalucía, and the culinary habits become much more deplorable - in the boiling-is-best mindset. Sea spiders transformed into txangurro by the Basques, spiny lobsters thrown into the fragrant, thyme-and-saffron-flavored sea stew called a suquet de peix by the Catalans, clams dropped on a seafood paella by the Valencians, red Garrucha gamba shrimps that are seared a la plancha with some sea salt by the Murcians or these gambas' relatives, the white shrimps that are deep-fried in batter with olive oil, en gabardina, by the Andalusians... oh my, what a countless list of atrocities inflicted upon the poor maritime creatures by those interventionist Spaniards!

I'd say - spam alert.

The future is now, Bux: current price for elvers (angulas) is 550 euros/kilo. About $300 a pound...

Really? No disrespect meant to my fellow countrymen, but this brings back memories of my younger years when I was growing up in Switzerland and the US and we always laughed at Spanish friends who visited us and were obsessed with finding a good paella in Geneva or New York, showing no interest for raclette in the Vieille Ville or for a sound sirloin steak at Palm's or Peter Luger's... I seldom go to Spanish restaurants in the United States, not because I don't respect the good job some of them are finally doing (things are better on the Spanish front now than in the 1960s, 1070s or 1980s, no doubt), but because I basically when I'm there I have little time to waste in tasting familiar things, and would rather go for barbecued ribs, for modern Southwestern cuisine or for Alfred Portale's architectural concoctions: things that to me are quintessentially American and, for that reason, all the more interesting. I find it hard to believe that a modern-day Spaniard, and much less so a "foodie", couldn't find really enjoyable meals in the US away from a Spanish restaurant - again, as good as that restaurant is.

Ferran Adrià is a very good friend of Blumenthal's and is on the record as saying that Heston is "the most innovative chef in Europe."

Spain is not a country where very spicy or hot food is much appreciated, be it in modern or traditional cuisine. Not much in common, save the language, with Mexico...

It's amazing how consistent and one-sided you are with your views on "New World" and "traditional" wines, Gerry. I often feel you fail to see the forest for the oak... Felipe's red wines are a curiosity, no more. Santa Rosa is an excellent wine, with the structure to carry the new oak and integrate it, which it does perfectly. What it isn't is Viña Tondonia, granted. Anyone making Viña Tondonia-lookalikes on the Villena plateau should be prosecuted for fraud.

I don't think Pepe is thinking of sticking closely to local tradition when cooking at El Bohío. He's a great talent, and I'm sure if he uses tomato with tripe it must work splendidly!

Monastrell is indeed an interesting choice in Alicante. (The name is endearing to me - one of the world's great grape varieties! It may be better known to most of you as mourvèdre or mataro.) Visually it's certainly the most attractive place in the region, and María José Sanromán (one of the best women chefs in Spain) is very ambitious. A bit uneven, but more hits than misses IMHO. Lots of simple things too, like the fabled red shrimp of southeastern Spain, or breaded and fried sardines on a parsley and red bell pepper sauce. Some otherfs are more complex, like the artichoke hearts cooked over a low temperature in virgin olive oil with sliced scallops and black truffles. I've been spending a few days in a forgotten corner of Spain, Almería province (I hope to file on that later), then drove north yesterday to take a look at a certain vineyard. On our way here (a long 350-mile drive...) I briefly dipped into Alicante province, just at its westernmost tip, far from the capital city, at Pinoso, to have one of Casa Paco's (or restaurante Paco Gandía's, to use the formal name) fabled rabbit and snail paellas. Terrific stuff, as ever. But pricey, and Paco is as surly as usual!

There are two schools of thought and action regarding tripe and snout in Spain, it would appear: with tomato (a la vizcaína, or Basque-style, which also includes 'choricero' peppers, or a la catalana) or without tomato (a la madrileña and a la gallega, which also includes chick peas). I'm not knowlegdeable enough to say which is the superior one...

You wouldn't believe just how much the wine list has been upgraded lately...

Sorry, the Hacienda Benazuza is in Sanlúcar la Mayor and Hacienda La Boticaria is indeed in Alcalá de Guadaira (or rather, near the Alcalá-Utrera road, in the middle of the countryside).

Two authentic, simple Andalusian seafood places around Málaga and Cádiz: - El Roqueo, in the heart of La Carihuela, the old fishermen's quarter in Torremolinos. - Ventorrillo del Chato, worth the visit for the place alone (an 18th-century post house on the isthmus road between Cádiz and San Fernando), good bay fish.

For some reason Egaña-Oriza gets lost in the shuffle when Seville restaurants are mentioned; even I left it out of the thread mentioned by Bux. I guess we take them for granted. But it should be pointed out that José Mari Egaña and his wife Mercedes, two Basques who have been working in Andalusia for two decades, do offer the very best restaurant experience, all elements included, in the Andalusian capital: from a wonderful, whimsical setting inside the old Moorish wall of the city, to the appetizing Andalusian/Basque menu, with such simply refined dishes as 'almejas a la sartén con láminas de gambas' (sautéed clams with shrimp slivers). Poncio remains No. 1 for modern Andalusian cooking in Seville, and for an Egaña-Oriza-like experience outside Seville, go to the striking new Hacienda La Boticaria hotel in Sanlúcar La Mayor, just 10 miles out of town (the golf course hasn't been built yet, and the hotel itself is a work-in-progres) and taste Mikel Uria's superb neo-Andalusian cuisine with a Basque twist in the Molino Blanco dining room. (The owners, who make the Agua de Sevilla colognes and own the very fancy shops under the same name, obviously have good taste. Their horses and their horse carriage museum add to the fun...) Granada is not the world's best gourmet city, but the tapas scene is attractive. The best restaurant, La Ruta del Veleta, is out of town, in the direction of the Sierra Nevada ski station. Not great, but good in its simpler preparations: fried Granada broad beans with Trevélez ham and mint, for instance.

'Lo mejor de la gastronomía' is the very personal - to the point of being totally idiosyncratic and unabashedly partial - product of a very unique reviewer, Rafael García Santos. It will fully satisfy those in communion with his hyper-elitist view of modern gastronomy. All others, be forewarned. Another aspect is that, being done by just one person, this is a very narrow guide, with full regions being left entirely uncovered.

Wildly inconsistent. A different reviewer for each region, and they don't seem to get their act together on what 7.5 or 8.5 points should mean all over the country.

I haven't yet, but my friend and colleague Juan Manuel Bellver ('Joan Merlot'), who reviewed it for our Metrópoli supplement this week (see the link provided by Pedro), writes: "Todo razonablemente bien hecho," i.e. "Everything was reasonably well made." Since he's as much of a fan of Ferran Adrià as me (or even a little more than me), it doesn't sound like a resounding endorsement. Perhaps they need a little time to get their act together. The NH Eurobuilding is the chain's largest hotel in Madrid by far. This ensures them a lot of activity, so they should be up and running in a few days... or else!

NH's tradition of having serious hotel restaurants far predates the signing of Ferran Adrià as an adviser. The restaurants at their NH Calderón in Barcelona and NH Sanvy in Madrid were already very good more than a decade ago. So it's a good match of an imaginative cook with a food-conscious hotel chain. I am just a bit doubtful if Ferran's ideas will translate into something distinctive in everyday hotel life.