docsconz

Don, I for one appreciate your being an intermediary for Mr. Theise and you are doing a fine job, but I would love it if he would reply directly. I believe he is qualified to be a member Seriously, Terry, if you are following this and other discussions, please don't hesitate to join us directly. We appreciate the insights and experience you have expressed here through Don and would love more of them and others without having to put Don through the all the stress of being a go between.

All you have to do is click "Show all" under the clickable smilies.

I have already emailed a request for next August. I will keep my fingers crossed. At this moment El Bulli is the one restaurant in the world that I feel I absolutely have to get to that I haven't already eaten at. After reading the desciption of Michel Bras on the French Board that may be another and then I am also waiting for Alinea.

Good luck. IMO it is worth it.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if this were true nor would it be the first place for something like this to have occured. The town of Getaria was fairly out in the open about supporting ETA with plenty of graffiti and posted photos of prisoners around town. This was less obvious in San Sebastian/Donostia.

Pinotxo is very good. El Quim de la Boqueria is also excellent. In fact, I found it preferable (slightly). Another great option is Kiosk Universal. This is particularly superb for fresh grilled seafood. It would be very easy and good to eat lunch at the Boqueria every day. It also helps that all three places are located very near to each other.

Hello Boris! That is a wonderful area. While it is great to go out and experience the cooking of a land via its restaurants there is something to be said for staying ina place with a well-equiped kitchen. I certainly would have liked that in Spain. The markets in Barcelona, Bilbao and San Sebastian were gorgeous. For the most part I was only able to photograph and admire them. It would have been fun to actually purchase some of that fresh fish, shellfish o cuts of meat and play with it myself. I did that the first time I visited Italy when we rented a villa just outside Siena. Each day w would go out for a meal and cook a meal. Whether lunch or dinner depended on the plan for the day. It was loads of fun. That certainly would be true in Campania and the rest of Italy as well.

Could it be the uniforms and/or the emphasis on female waitstaff? I don't really know given that I've never been to Austria.

Now that is what I call wine criticism You didn't enjoy it, did you Sounds good....I guess. Rock on Don! Seriously, thanks for the heads up.

What a waste! Union Pacific in its prime with Rocco actually in the kitchen remains one of the best and most memorable meals of my life. If we were in ancient Greece someone would write a tragedy based on this.

I was with my son and involved with the Slow Food Congress for part of the time and at Agriturismo Seliano another part. For the remainder we ate well, but without anything to really make a major impression on my memory. We did eat a night at The Hotel San Pietro in Positano where we stayed. It was very good, but not truly extraordinary. The best food for that part of the trip was at seliano, where the prime stars were the cheeses, the bufala and the tomato. A true revelation was a homemade fusilli with a simple tomato sauce using nothing but pomodorini del Vesuvio. That one dish was absolutely amazing and to me the essence of Italian cuisine not so much because it was pasta with tomato sauce, but because of the perfection of the ingredients and their ultimate simplicity.

Fabulous post! Now I know how terry does such a great job with his selections. My FD experience in France is limited, however, I would say my recent experience in northern Spain is largely different. The service, while still elegant wsa less formal or regimented than as described here. does that jibe with others experiences? The description of Bras is otherworldly. Can it actually live up to it? I guess I'll have to go there myself. Thanks.

Because it can be annoying I only do it if I'm with people of a similar mindset such as I was with on my trip or if I'm by myself (fortunately, not too often). In any case I try to be as unobtrusive as possible, hence the lack of flash. What have been some of your favorite dishes there? Any that haven't worked for you?

Congratulations! I wish I was going to the Salone del Gusto, but I have to work sometime . I'm still waiting for those last two weeks .

I have no problem with fruit in many savory dishes so long as the sweetness is adequately balanced either by spiciness, salt, bitterness or richness. The first time I had seared tuna with mango salsa at The Coyote Cafe in the mid-80's was a revelation. Of course that had a little heat to go with the fruit.

One thing the Condes de Barcelona did very well was cater our initial get together with various tapas. The best one was immaculately fried sweet shrimp right out of the fryer. Those were outstanding and still inspire profound salivation.

Even wine shop owners and salespeople need a life. I'm sure there are ways around that. My personal peeve was legislation that a specific day is off limits. I don't really have a problem with the idea of it being any day of the store's choosing. On the other hand, I don't have a problem with eliminating blue laws entirely.

Based on this list I still have a lot of eating to do in Italy. The only restaurant on the entire list I've been to is Don Alfonso. Maybe because Italian food is so good at the less than haute cuisine level, I really haven't felt much of a need to seek out these restaurants in the past. My Italian food explorations have been more ingredient based than specific restaurant based.

Robert, I'll leave that to Jordi to discuss. Suffice to say that it was not the food industry. As far as the sweetness issue, I believe we have seen a generalized blurring of savory and sweet in many circles of haute cuisine. While I often enjoy the inroads of savory into dessert , I appreciate the foray of sweet into savory less. I find as I am getting older my tolerance for sweetness getting less. I can't eat Twinkies anymore. I need more balance to my sugar at whatever point in the meal it is served. This is particularly true with seet wines. I can't stand a wine that is only built around sugar. The sweetness is important, but must be braced with enough acidity to give it backbone. While not acid, it was the salt with Jordi's maple syrup that made that interesting and acceptable at the start of the meal, although I would still have preferred it later.

Excellent report, Alberto. Good criticism. This restaurant was not on my radar last year when I was last in Campania. I would that it was.

Miguel is a treasure.

Thanks, Ted. It's coming I still need to do reports on Can Fabes, Abac, the Priorato, The Boqueria, La Brecha and the market in Bilbao as well as Pica No Chao in adddition to Cacao Sampaka. Uploading the photos takes a lot of time.

Cool. I'm sure some will disagree. I was glad when they allowed stores to open on Sundays. I thought it reasonable that they requireed at least one day closed, though.

I had the pleasure of visiting Jordi at his restaurant in Barcelona on my recent trip, although in my sated state I couldn't really do the restaurant justice. I had come from an extensive and fabulous lunch at Sant Pau earlier in the day and directly from a chocolate demonstration and tasting at Cacao Sampaka a few blocks away. Unfortunately, this would be my only chance to dine at Cinc Sentits on this trip. Others such as my wife who would have accompanied me simply couldn't. To be honest if it was another restaurant I would have passed as well. Instead I went by myself and explained my predicament to Jordi and his charming sister Amelia. I left my fate in their hands. They came up with an abbreviated omakase for me - five light courses The restaurant has clean modern lines. It is very comfortable and the night I was there quite busy. I was started with Jordi's signature "shot" of maple syrup with cream, cava sabayon and maldon rock salt. This is a superb dish. The marriage of the salt with the sweet syrup and rich creams is superb. The presence of this at the beginning of the meal was not ideal in my already full state, however. I would have preferred it as a pre-dessert. Nevertheless I watched the reactions of other diners to whom this was served. They looked uniformly positive. This was followed by a very well prepared foie gras torchon with crushed carquinyoli cookies (a Catalan cookie) and violet marmalade served in a chinese spoon. Next came the one dish that I thought was overworked. It was perfectly cooked, sweet langoustine with chilled ajoblanco soup along with cubed melon and slivered marcona almonds. If this dish had been left without the soup it would have been perfect. The soup by itself would have been tasty, although sweet. At this point for me, this dish was simply too sweet. Even so, I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more in a different physiological state. This was followed by a truly fantastic dish that actually left me wanting more (no mean feat at this point in the evening for me). It was the porcini-cruste lamb chops with caramelized leek puree and demi-glace. The meat was cooked to a perfect medium rare and had real porcini flavor. This was awesome. My dessert was superb and light. It was meant as a pre-dessert in the tasting menu, but was perfect for me. It was "textures of Royal Gala apples" with apple granite, cubed fresh apple, sauternes gelee with marialuisa infusion served in a martini glass. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of it. Jordi is a remarkable fellow. He came from another life and as a largely self-taught chef followed his dream and opened a superb restaurant that appears to be flourishing in a City with no shortage of excellent cooking. Jordi, I wish you and your family the best of luck and look forward to returning when I have a better appetite.