Return to Barcelona

[sumac]

Thank you........I have some amazing sources for information plus my husband and I have been serious food people since the late '60s and would love to share. We manage to get to Europe 3 times a year (not nearly enough) and have been to all the food churches and the holes in the wall with authentic whatevers. I am so new here that I am not sure how to share what I have, but am trying and will be more forthright in the future. What is happening in Spain is incredible. We used to only go to France, but now are tuned into the whole scene in Spain. We leave this Thursday for 10 days in France and I will report back on that in the appropriate thread. Yes, we are into Astrance (for our 3rd time) and thanks to you and some other advice, we'll be trying Magnolia for the first time. For any of you going to Barcelona.......do not miss Alkimia and Comerc 24 and Santa Maria (chef Paco Guzman) and Shunka for Japonese. We have been lucky to have eaten at el buli and be sure to get a kitchen tour if you can! also can fabes on our third time in march just keeps getting better. we brought the chef a special wine from the states as a gift; our best friends are the vintners. wow, he was so touched and he went the extra mile for us and seated us at the kitchen table. to die for.

[sumac]

i am going to stick my neck out if you are looking for seafood. we also had a mediocre experience at cal l'isdre. here goes:

o retiro do marineiro (classical seafood)

paris 200

08008 barcelona

tel: 93 237 78 43

[Bux]

Admittedly, we sort of fell into Ca L'Isidre looking for another place and our expectations were of a restaurant serving good updated traditional food. It may have been easy to please us, but we were pleased enough to recommend it to others and at least two people who I've found are not that easy to please, seemed happy to recommend it here after I did.

As for how to share what you have about food and restaurants, each of us will have his, or her, own style. I favor posting all you care to share when you return from a trip and things are fresh in your mind. Some people favor posting their complete menus at major gastronomic restaurants, while others prefer to offer a more subjective sense of their meals. Think of us as friends with an appetite to talking about food as well as eating it. As for the backlog, if it strikes you, start a thread or just wait until some piece of your history is pertinent to someone else's new thread. Most of all, I just hope you enjoy the site and explore its many parts.

Sumac -- when you say classical seafood, it might be useful for those who haven't been to Barcelona to know what you had or recommend. I've tended to avoid paella on my recent trips. Partially it's because it just seems to have gotten so touristy and partially because it has gotten so touristy that restaurants carry prepared "sous vide" preparations just to serve to tourists who demand paella. However it's the other rice dishes I crave and with which I'm rarely disappointed at honest moderately priced restaurants. This is true not only in Catalonia, but in other parts of Spain as well.

[robert brown]

Sumac, the Old Timers' Club needs members. Welcome aboard now that we know you have lived through the Golden Age of Dining in France!!! Keep those posts coming. People such as you are vital resources to the site. Some people think they are God's gift to eGullet and without them, the site is nowhere. But then people such as you (and I could name others) find the site, start posting often and it's onward and upward.

[sumac]

thank you. I will definitely report back. We leave Thursday for France and will be home after the 5th of May, so look on the France threads for me as I will write. One mission of the trip is to get a source for fleur de sel for some chef friends. We will be in the salt flats and who knows. Yes, I am proud to be an Old Timer and will be happy to tell any one what it was like eating at Lutece or Bocuse in 1968.

[robert brown]

My brother has a menu from when he ate at Bocuse in 1968. That's quite amazing that you did that. We just bought the fleur de sel of the Camargue when we were there a few weeks ago. We like it a lot. It's real potent. Where are you going in France?

[Bux]

The Salt Flats in Guerande, I presume? Should be off topic in the Spain board. We kept seeing Malden salt on our food in Spain.

Absolutely must get the fleur de sel at the source. I'm also a fan of the sel gris. I'm absolutely convinced the impurities make it so delicious. I don't think you have to declare it either. The last time I marked "yes" to the question "are you bringing in food," they told me to stop wasting their time if all I had was chocolate. I always thought chocolate was a major buidling block in the food pyramid.

[vserna]

If you are suggesting that one should go to Can Gaig instead of Hispania as a welcome contrast or antidote to two and three-star dining in the region, then I withdraw my enthusiastic suggestion of eating at Hispania, sparing the members the schlepp out there and back.

Well, there's not that much stress involved when eating at the Racó de Can Fabes, because despite the pyrotechnics there's a basic interest in delivering the raw materials in pristine condition - a broadbean cream with codfish, a marvelous breast of duck, roasted rare, with a cocoa sauce... they all say what they are, basically. El Bulli can be a bit more stressful intellectually, of course, but lots of fun too.

Gaig is only a little more inventive than Hispania, but just as solid in that it shares the same deep bonds with the Catalan traditions: if you will, these two and Santi Santamaria are on the same wavelength, with increasing elements of modernity incorporated. Carles Gaig is now 55, he's been the chef for 30 years in a family business (a modest tavern: Taverna d'en Gaig, rebuilt in 1989) that has been going since 1869 - which is just the moment when the Barcelona bourgeoisie began to have it good and modern Catalan home cooking started to take shape, with a number of French and Italian elements becoming intertwined with Catalan country cooking. So we're not talking high fashion or young wild chefs here, but rather deep roots. However, Carles is just a fine pro who's not been content with repeating the house standards for 30 years - instead, he's been growing all the time. The result is very impressive IMHO.

A 'caldereta' (stew) of lobster, rock fish and clams sounds like one of those fishermen's pots, but the guy transforms it into a delicate, technically dashing dish. He'll roast a pig's chin (sounds strange, but a particularly delectable cut of meat!) and serve it with thyme-flavored potatoes. A red scorpion fish (rascasse) will come with a rice vinaigrette. He'll even get into the eternal steak tartare to flavor it with Calvados and serve it with a 'granité' of green apples to counteract the spicy raw beef. The menu changes four times a year, but of course he'll usually include a few 'classics' of the house, notably the paella of pigeon and cèpe mushrooms, the pig's trotters and the hyper-traditional Barcelona-style cannelloni the Gaig family has been making forever. But then he also has the deboned pig's trotters stuffed with duck confit...

All in all, it's a very genuine experience. No masterpieces here, agreed - but a sort of sublimation of comfort food.

Edited April 21, 2003 by vserna (log)

[thelastsupper]

vserna--

If you could, what is the catalan/castilian name for pig chin? I've been trying to remember . . .

[Suzi Edwards]

Hi Bux,

Went to Can Majo last Thursday and it was really, really good. We started with a sort of mini lobster dish (waiter didn't know the translation and I don't have the piece of paper with the spanish word on it. They were something con rio which i'm assuming makes them freshwater crustacea) in a great spicy sauce that was dotted with pancetta and followed it with a paella. Simple and great.

Interestingly, and I think this goes for a lot of places in Spain, they have translated their menu into English, but not the specials menu. So if you want the really good stuff it's well worth knowing some Spanish. Or check out what the locals have and just point.

Another highlight of Barcelona for me was Espai Sucre, the world's only desert restaurant, which I think is quite new and delivered a meal way beyond the novelty value I was expecting.

I have a full report that I want to post (From KFC to El Bulli) Perhaps a regular can suggest if I should include it as a reply to this thread, the El Bulli one that's active at the moment, or start a new one? Etiqutte advice much appreciated. :-)

[robert brown]

Tarka, welcome back. There is a tendency to put Barcelona and environs on a Barcelona thread (this very one for now), and El Bulli reports on more dedicated thread such as the "TDG:Eight at El Bulli". If you want to join the Symposium discussion with comments about Adria or El Bulli in the context of the culinary avant-garde, then the current discussion in Symposium is the best place. Thus you have three forums you could post in.

[Bux]

It's always rewarding when a recommendation of a minor restaurant delivers the satisfaction I had to someone else. I still get confused between the many varieties of fresh and salt water crayfish, shrimp, prawns and "little lobsters" in France and Spain. The rice dishes we've had at Can Majo have always been the wetter ones, but I think you're safe with any form of rice and seafood there as well as any seafood a la plancha or with sauce. As Mrs. B's first language is Spanish, we do have the advantage of glancing at the menu and then asking what's fresh or special today.

We've yet to visit Espai Sucre and it's high on my list. All sweets -- desserts, chocolates, etc. -- are getting a lot of attention in Barcelona. If chefs worldwide are focused on Catalonia right now, none seem more so than pastry chefs. I can't think of another place that's dedicated to sugar as Espai Sucre and which is not just a pastry shop or salon du the, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more pop up in Barcelona and other places. I remember eating in Jardin de l'Opera many years ago in Toulouse. It was just to the side of the main theater/opera house/recital hall in Toulouse. It was a gastronomic restaurant with one or two stars serving traditional meals to omnivores, but it also offerred an after theater tasting menu of some five dessert courses.

I'm eagerly looking forward to your full report. Let's say I'm eagerly looking forward to hearing abourt El Bulli and curious to read what you have to say about KFC. The etiquette of posting is not all that formal. The guidelines are to post where the information is of best use to the community. That community includes the majority of members who lurk and never post as well as those who contribute heavily and have much to say on the issues. I think both are best served by contributing to current threads wherever possible. This thread is but a week old and going very strongly. I'd urge you to continue it with your report(s.) You may find that parts of the report may need threads of their own or that comments on certain restaurants, such as El Bulli for example, serve best in a thread devoted to that restaurant. This information and opinion on this site will never be neatly pigeon holed as there are just too many overlapping interests and subjects. Use your best judgement. If necessary we can always move a post and merge or split threads to make things work better.

[Bux]

Tarka, welcome back. There is a tendency to put Barcelona and environs on a Barcelona thread (this very one for now), and El Bulli reports on more dedicated thread such as the "TDG:Eight at El Bulli". If you want to join the Symposium discussion with comments about Adria or El Bulli in the context of the culinary avant-garde, then the current discussion in Symposium is the best place. Thus you have three forums you could post in.

Well put. I would note that it's three theads in two forums -- there are theads currenly running on El Bulli here in the Spain board and in the Symposium. The one here is open to unmoderated discussion while the one in the Symposium is more directed. The two threads complement each other, at least I see it that way.

[vserna]

vserna--

If you could, what is the catalan/castilian name for pig chin? I've been trying to remember . . .

In Castilian Spanish, it's 'papada de cerdo'.

[Matthew Grant]

I have a full report that I want to post (From KFC to El Bulli) Perhaps a regular can suggest if I should include it as a reply to this thread, the El Bulli one that's active at the moment, or start a new one? Etiqutte advice much appreciated. :-)

Hurry up Tarka, i want a second opinion of El Bulli!

[vserna]

The Salt Flats in Guerande, I presume? Should be off topic in the Spain board. We kept seeing Malden salt on our food in Spain. 

Actually, Bux, Malden and Guérande are almost even in the salt preference sweepstakes among modern Spanish restaurants. In butter, I'd say it's also a near-dead heat between Echiré and Isigny. And, as you saw, our legendary nationalism is so watered down these days (at least in Madrid) that Tuscan and Umbrian extra virgin oils compete with their Andalusian and Catalan counterparts on restaurant tables...

[Elissa]

Arthur Lubow on Barcelona