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vserna

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Everything posted by vserna

  1. Oh! Repairing an omission. Not a culinary one (pretty indifferent burgers and cheese cake...), but an architectural one: Woody's Diner is (by far) the most striking and largest U.S.-built diner I've ever seen outside the United States. I just reemembered it - drove by last night and had a quick sandwich. Built in 1951 in New Jersey, it was moved to Barcelona for the 1992 Olympics but never panned out there. It was bought by a Madrid firm and moved here in 1995. In mint condition, it's an unusual construction with two cabs placed parallel to each other, so that there are two dining rooms. It's an orgy of aluminum, plastic and formica with 50's style decoration. The current owners have added an outdoor patio all done in aluminum replicating the diner's style. Now set in the Ciudad Lineal district, Madrid's leafiest area, it's an unexpected sight and, I think, a nice architectural landmark. I've always loved diners and have driven many a mile on Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware roads just to see some notable ones, and I never thought we'd have a genuine one of our own here!
  2. Ferran is full of good ideas, but they don't always pan out. With less fanfare, he's been running another experiment at another NH hotel in Madrid - Nhubes, a restaurant-reading room-TV room serving very simple Spanish cuisine (with such things as fried eggs with french fries, in olive oil) made with good ingredients. It didn't enthuse me.
  3. Not "Diamus". There is no town by that name in Spain. You mean Daimús? That's a village of less than 2,000 pop. No interest AFAIK. Jávea, Altea... yes!
  4. Actually, I haven't been to La Sort. I knew of it because Joël Robuchon, who has a beachside apartment nearby, is a great fan and extolled it to me. However, Spanish critics (and, for whatever that's worth, Michelin) believe it's behind both Girasol and La Seu. Well-rated, though (7.5/10 in the Gourmetour guide). Another good place at Moraira-Teulada for basic local stuff (seafood paellas and fish) is Antoniet.
  5. Here's my take on it, Bux... You have to take the inland road through Granada to Murcia (first stop - this is 250 miles from Málaga, about three and a half hours on the road). All of it is motorway, but the A92 is a motorway in name only - pretty bumpy. Then on to Alicante and Valencia: just 160 miles from Murcia. Then from Valencia to Madrid, which is 220 miles, all of it motorway. (Unless you want to go via Las Pedroñeras.) There are many options on the way, of course. Like pushing from Murcia to the wine land of Jumilla and from there cutting back to Alicante via Elda: this would enable you to sample the basic but profound pleasures of Casa Paco's rabbit paella in Pinoso. Then there are many possible variations on the coast between Alicante and Valencia, of course. Important places: Girasol in Moraira is the top-rated (two Michelin stars) place in the area; personally I consider Joachim Koerper's cooking to be somewhat Germanic and predictable. La Seu, also in Moraira, may be more adventurous and interesting. Other top places: El Poblet at Denia (the simply boiled red shrimp from Denia are phenomenal, but there's also a lot of modern stuff like the monkfish and lobster 'suquet', or stew, with walnuts and lemon verbena, or the 'rascasse' in a chamomile infusion); Casa Pepa at Ondara (the best 'arroz meloso', i.e. the juicy rices that are Spain's answer to risotto, and thus quite different from the dry paellas); Ca'Sento at Valencia, which is a great restaurant in the making; Nou Manolín in Alicante, a large popular sprawling polace, where such paella dishes like arroz con magro (with pork) are done perfectly. Let me know when you come in. Let's have lunch at Coque! I was there three days ago, and the kid is showing new things all the time.
  6. I see that places like Alkimia and Comerç 24 get many mentions here, and deservedly so, but other modern Barcelona restaurants with interesting cuisines don't get as much ink - Hisop, Colibrí, Saüc for instance.
  7. Paco: Find out about it here.
  8. One of the little-known facts about the Madrid restaurant scene is the increasing American presence, a phenomenon that’s been going on for some 20 years and is rather unique in continental Europe. Oh, I don’t mean McDonald’s, Burger King, TGI Friday’s, Tony Roma’s and Pizza Hut (Wendy’s failed and left Spain), but some rather more intriguing culinary offerings. All of them pretty good, sometimes wacky (spaghetti and meatballs, here?), and rather endearing. There seems to be good interaction between American cooks and Madrileños. And Americans living here have a hard time feeling any homesickness... The precursors were Alfredo (or Fred – no last name used) of Alfredo’s Barbacoa and Dick Stephens, recently retired from his La Gamella restaurant which is now run by another American, Theresa Fedel. (Not to mention the now Spanish-owned Foster’s Hollywood restaurant chain, opened by an American back in 1971.) Dick Stephens has been in Spain for 40 years and is a former choreographer turned pro cook, first in an unlikely granite villa in one of the smallest, most isolated villages in the Guadarrama mountains, Navalagamella, then (since 1988) in Madrid’s ritzy Calle Alfonso XII on the Retiro park. His chorizo quiche, his correct Caesar salad and his Jack Daniels-laced, hand-cut steak tartare are part of modern Madrid culinary lore. La Gamella, where he remains a consultant, still offers these signature dishes Alfredo is from the Bronx, but his Stetson, unkempt grey beard and passionate love for Texas and country music make him an honorary cowhand, I guess. He did his military service some 40 years ago at the former American air base outside Madrid and never returned home (except for his frequent visits to Nashville...), marrying a clever Andalusian girl and launching his first hamburger joint, which he never turned into a chain: just two outlets. The whole family (daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren now...) plus a bevy of Moroccan employees (hence the delicious Arab-style Kefta burger they now serve in addition to the more classic styles) work at the two funky, messy, fun places. Best burgers in continental Europe – period. From good Danish beef. Also steaks, ribs, salad bar, good home-made cheese cake, beers, whiskeys... Pedro Almodóvar was a frequent client when he was younger, poorer and less well-known. Rock bands and American basketball players flock in. Alfredo has also opened a place, just as funky, called Brooklyn USA – An Italian-American Eatery, which is the only such place I’ve ever seen outside the US. For nostalgics of spaghetti with meatballs and Little Italy-style Italian sausages, which they do in uncannily authentic (i.e., totally un-Italian) style. Then along came Jamie Downing. After a couple of brief stints at two Asian-fusion restaurants, No-Do and Iroco, he found his groove with his own place, Asia Society – one of the precursors of Madrid’s well-documented Asian craze. The Pan-Asian menu is good, spicy, fun and not too expensive, from tom kha kai spicy chicken soup to nifty home-mixed curries and mango strudel. One of the American places that didn’t survive was Cornucopia en Descalzas, a romantic restaurant in an almost-untouched 19th-century apartment in old Madrid. But its former cook, the young Matthew Scott, with his bandanna around his head, has continued on his own, opening the modest, bare-bones Gumbo a few months ago. He’s from New Orleans and trained at such places as Bayona. Not much ‘new American’ here, but basic southern stuff: his gumbo is powerful and satisfying, and his fried green tomatoes very refreshing; Spanish gambas are an excellent ingredient for the shrimp rémoulade. Pretty serious cocktails.
  9. vserna

    Winter Warmers

    The great, historic house of Scholtz disappeared a few years back. It was a tragic loss. Your wine may indeed have been from them. They were revered in the UK, and Jancis Robinson was particularly fond of their traditional Málaga wines. Málaga makes almost exclusively sweet wines. Inland, on the road to Córdoba, there are pedro ximénez vineyards, while the Axarquía hills near the sea have the region's most interesting treasure: the old moscatel romano (muscat of Alexandria) vineyards on precipitous schist slopes. The wines themselves are made following arcane local methods, mostly from dried grapes à la 'vin de paille' or 'passito' wines. Curiously, the appellation's regulations demand that the winery be within the city limits of Málaga, dozens or perhaps hundreds of miles from the vineyards! This absurd situation has been alleviated by the creation of a new appellation, Sierra de Málaga, for wineries near the vineyards, such as Telmo Rodríguez's Molino Real. This, a non-oxidative style wine fermented in cask, has revolutionized the region's habits. Great stuff. Names to look out for in traditional Málaga, after Scholtz's sad demise, are Gomara (terrific Trasañejo) and López Hermanos (Don Salvador Moscatel is one of Spain's greatest sweet wines).
  10. vserna, which specific producer(s) would you recommend for "great" iberico? Sánchez Romero Carvajal is the classic name, as explained by Miguel. In Spain, the current quality leader (very hard to find now) is Joselito, from Guijuelo. Amazing texture and complexity, particularly at the Gran Reserva level. Guijuelo, near Salamanca, is the northernmost producing area for quality ibérico ham, and it's very interesting because this geographical situation illustrates the importance of the curing process: pigs are not raised in Guijuelo at all, but in the holm oak-rich 'dehesas' of Extremadura, over 100 miles to the southwest. They are only sacrificed and the hams cured in Guijuelo (and the chorizos and 'lomos', which are spiced pork loins kept in sausage casings, made). The secret is that winters are much colder in Guijuelo than in Extremadura or the southern Huelva mountains where the famed villages of Jabugo and Cumbres Mayores are. Therefore, less salt is needed for curing the hams in the colder climate, and this results in a lighter, more pristine finished product. At least, that's what Guijuelo fanatics argue. At any rate, Joselito is a real Rolls Royce of a producer.
  11. vserna

    Winter Warmers

    You keep heaping such undeserved compliments on me, and then you brilliantly demonstrate all my failings: my amateur status is immediately clear. I’ll still attempt, if you will allow me, a few more amateurish responses, which you can debunk easily, as a real pro. On Europvin: I’ve known Chris Cannan for many years, and I can tell you that he doesn’t need any “PR strategy” to perfectly place the wines that he represents in the market he seeks - the top-end one. Perhaps I don’t understand exactly what you mean by “brand name”, but I can assure you that the few Spanish names in Chris’ portfolio have very big brand names in Spain: Vega Sicilia, La Rioja Alta, Mauro, Belondrade y Lurton and Lustau (at least, the Almacenista range). On this subject, I have some (uncharacteristically) professional reasons to believe that practically all of Spain’s quality producers reject “major importers”, which are most effective downmarket, with basic wines. Indeed, the choice of importer may have been crucial in Lustau’s surprisingly upmarket placement in the U.S. See, Spain’s top two quality producers, Alvaro Palacios of L’Ermita and Peter Sisseck of Pingus, have a very small outfit called the Rare Wine Company, run (with devilish effectiveness) by Manny Berk from a small town in Connecticut, as their U.S. importer. All other top-notch Spanish producers are imported by the decidedly minor companies run by Steve Metzler, Eric Solomon, Jorge Ordóñez and Fran Kysela, plus Cannan, of course. On Graham’s port: I am somewhat familiar, in a dilettante sort of way, with fine vineyards producing ripe fruit, from Vosne to Serralunga to the Green Valley to (would you believe?) even Spain’s forlorn Manchuela. But I also know that major vintage ports from the big Vila Nova de Gaia houses look for a ‘house style’ that dominates all other factors and are the terroir-poor product of arcane blends of grapes from very diverse places. Let’s take your terroir-driven view that Quinta de Malvedos is “the heart” of Graham’s: why, then, would the style of, say, Taylor’s be so different from Graham’s if its own “heart”, the Quinta de Vargellas, is extremely similar in terroir and mesoclimate to Malvedos? When Ramonet makes his Montrachet, OTOH, it’s not a blend but a wine entirely made with grapes from a tiny parcel (0.6 acre) on that vineyard, and terroir takes precedence over all other considerations. Or so I have been led to believe, from my amateur’s vantage point. On Spanish guides: I mentioned Peñín because it’s the leading guide, but I could have quoted Gourmetour, Campsa or, goodness gracious, even www.elmundovino.com. None of us considers Lustau as one of the very top producers of sherry, taking in the breadth of its range and not just the tiny Almacenista niche. Indeed, a recent in-depth study of the best Pedro Ximénez sweet sherries in Spain hardly mentioned Lustau: http://elmundovino.elmundo.es/elmundovino/...icia=1077187594 Then again, in Spain it’s quite possible that we don’t know how to taste sherry.
  12. vserna

    Winter Warmers

    Respectfully, as a mere amateur, allow me to point out the following facts: 1. Leaving more or less residual sugar in wine is not really dependent on the vineyard, but a winemaking decision. 2. The Quinta dos Malvedos is indeed at the bottom of the steep valley, right on the Douro river where the Túa river joins it, and as such it's in the hottest part of the valley where grape ripeness can be greater. But it's not in any different position, as far as terroir, microclimate and potential ripeness, as other top estates right on the river, like Taylor's Quinta de Vargellas, Martinez's Quinta da Eira Velha or the independent Quinta de la Rosa, among many others. 3. Quinta dos Malvedos supplies only a part of the grapes used by Graham's, even though it's vinified on its own in non-declared years. Graham's also uses the fruit from a number of other estates, most notably the Quinta do Vale de Malhadas and the Quinta da Vila Velha, both in notably cooler terroirs than Malvedos. So I would have to reject the idea that Graham's is sweeter because their grapes are sweeter than anyone else's. That just wouldn't make much sense to me, either from a viticultural or an oenologic viewpoint. But that's just my opinion, of course. On Lustau, I would also beg to differ. It's just one more producer as far as we see it in Spain - but one with a wonderful attention-catching line, the Almacenistas, and a devilishly effective US importer, Europvin. Spanish wine writers are less sanguine about the range, and I agree with them. I see in the 2004 edition of the leading Spanish wine guide, the Guía Peñín, that none of their currently released wines gets more than a very good (but not great) rating of 90 on the American-style 100-point scale Peñín uses, while San Emilio gets a modest 80 points and Emperatriz Eugenia a rather forgettable 75+, with some severe comments to boot. There's much better stuff out there in the wide world of sherry, believe me! Again, just my opinion. But I think it may be interesting for eGulleteers to hear a number of different views.
  13. Caius Apicius is Cristino Alvarez, the food columnist for the Efe news agency. Indeed he should know his subject well. He's from La Coruña...
  14. If fabada plus veal cheeks plus a little modest wine plus dessert and coffee are still under 20 euros, then I'd heartily recommend it. But Asturianos is in Madrid, not in the tourist trap down there...
  15. vserna

    Winter Warmers

    How could anyone with a great wine knowledge be so wrong about Graham's? See, this ratifies the fact that I'm just a rank amateur. Lustau's range, of decent quality (except for its Almacenista wines, which are outstanding), is particularly advisable to American beginners since it's probably the only wide range of sherries now available on the US market. In Spain or other European countries I'd rather advise other wines, but it's a moot point because one must adapt oneself to market conditions. If Michael were in the UK, then he'd have a much wider choice.
  16. vserna

    Winter Warmers

    I'm just an average fan of port, nothing else. (Did I imply I was Michael Broadbent in disguise? If I gave that impression, sorry. Nothing further from the truth.) I'd just advise Taylor's or Fonseca's ranges rather than Graham's. I don't think Graham's, being so extreme, is truly the best introduction to port. The beginner might begin to ask for insulin after the third different bottle of the stuff, all of them sweet as candy...
  17. vserna

    Winter Warmers

    Graham's is considered a definitive style of Port by every major wine publication. On what do you base your dislike of this (for lack of a better word) revered producer. I would most appreciate if you could expand on your dislike of Graham's and perhaps find supporting criticism of any of the wines produced by Graham's. Please note that I wrote that "I'm not a great fan" of Graham's. You translate that into a "dislike". This is going way beyond my statement. Graham's style is certainly not "definitive" because there isn't any one "definitive" style among the various, often quite different, Porto houses. If Graham's were "definitive", that would mean that neither Dow's nor Taylor Fladgate's nor Fonseca's nor anyone else could be considered "definitive". There cannot be a plethora of "definitives" - there can be one of "great" or "very good" ports. And Graham's is very good, no doubt. Just not my No. 1 cup of tea. What Graham's style is is sweet, intensely sweet port. Always (or almost) sweetest among the top houses. I am not wild about overly sweet port; that's why I appreciate Dow's drier style more, and why I'm always interested in efforts in that same direction; for instance, among Quinta producers, Infantado's 'meio seco' (medium-dry) style.
  18. I hate to say so, but I couldn't, except for tapas places. Eating well in a regular restaurant for 10-20 euros was possible in another time, in another Spain. You have to go up at least to the next level, 20-30 euros, to get anything culinarily attractive.
  19. vserna

    Winter Warmers

    I'm not a great fan of Graham's either. One port house that's made superb progress in Vintage wines (it was always great in cask-aged ports and in its unique Garrafeiras) is Niepoort.
  20. You can find a lot in past discussions here. For instance: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...=0entry205962 Best restaurants within 50 miles of Málaga and Marbella: Tragabuches (Ronda), Café de París (Málaga), Adolfo (Málaga), El Higuerón (Fuengirola; peculiar Andalusian-Asturian combination, with the renowned Oviedo chef Fernando Martín at the helm), El Roqueo (Torremolinos), La Meridiana (Marbella, Spanish and Italian cuisine), La Hacienda (Marbella), Taipan (Marbella; one of Spain's best Chinese restaurants), La Finca (near Loja on the Málaga-Granada road), Noelia (Antequera). Mesón El Copo (Los Barrios, near Algeciras).
  21. They are not things of the past in Spain. In those villages that still have working bakeries, in the Castilian lamb triangle and nearby, the lambs are still roasted that way. They are indeed dwindling in numbers: 'progress' means pre-cooked bread that will be quickly finished in an electric oven.
  22. That's because the founder, Manolo Cores, was so crazy about chocolate as a kid that he got that nickname. But the restaurant's real specialty (and a new thing in Galicia back in the 1970s) is grilled beef! (Red meat was not a common staple in Galicia a few years back.)
  23. Kid's indeed widespread in Spain. After all, only goats can survive on many of our rocky, dry mountains...
  24. Re Pedro's question: Tomás Urrialde Garzón, the former chef at Cándido who went from there to a Segovia hotel, installed two separate ovens for suckling pig and for baby lamb in his new place. If I remember his explanations to me (that was some 20 years ago, and he is now retired), the lamb needed the low heat from underneath and the pig needed it from above, to toast the skin to a crackling golden brown (a necessary element in suckling pig). But don't quote me on this - I have a rather vague recollection. Re kid: The Spanish name is 'cabrito', it's close in taste and texture to baby lamb but leaner and with a slightly spicier taste. There's no precise 'triangle' that I know about, since this is really more widespread than either suckling pig or baby lamb, but the general region would go from the Guadarrama mountain range north of Madrid to Salamanca to the north and then to Extremadura to the east. But in the Guadalajara/Cuenca region of Alcarria, east of Madrid, it's also a local specialty. Many restaurants will serve all three roasts. I know one in Las Navas del Marqués, in the Avila mountains, where they always serve kid but call it baby lamb, "because the Madrid tourists are more familiar with lamb"! Kid is delicious, and the better modern chefs are often interested in it. Mario Sandoval, the 26 year-old 'boy wonder' of Coque, at Humanes de Madrid (the up-and-coming star near the Spanish capital), has a "cabrito asado en leche ahumada con migas y trufa", i.e. a roast kid in smoked milk with 'migas' (fried bread crumbs) and black truffle". What's 'smoked milk'? I'll have to ask Mario...
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