El Corral Del Indianu

[Tonyfinch]

This Michelin starred restaurant on the main street of a non-descript town (Arriondas) which acts as a gateway to the Picos de Europa was a total contrast to every other restaurant we ate at in the Asturias. It was only here that you could see the influence of French nouvelle cuisine and presumably that also of Ferran Adria-a 50 Euro tasting menu of ten highly wrought miniscule portions all trying to convey the essence of the ingredients via a tiny mouthful.

Its a very pleasant restaurant, quite a formal atmosphere with a burnished wooden floor, one wall a beautifully deep turquoise with modern art, and a garden area for outside eating. A young Venuzuelan chap spoke a little English and French and along with my menuspeak Spanish we were able to communicate adequately enough for the purpose. However, the English menu again bore no relation to the Spanish one. Even the prices were completely different Luckily we realised in time to discard it as useless.

However after a while I began to wonder about the mind of the chef-one J.A. Campoviejo. I mean I don't want huge portions in a tasting menu but here it would have been impossible to put less food on the plate if you tried.For example "Marinated Sardine with a Tomato and Orange Soup and Apple ice Cream" presented with HALF a Sardine I mean what sort of person serves up half a sardine? Similarly "Tuna in a Cider Cream Sauce with Crispy Pork" had six tiny breadcrumb size lardons counted out on each plate. I mean you couldn't make lardons smaller. And then to count out exactly six?

The whole meal was like this. Tiny little jewels on a plate. It looked exquisite, but it looked like doll's food. There were lots of ice creams and gelees-oyster ice cream, onoin ice cream, Asturian cheese ice cream, apple ice cream, gellees of lettuce, tomato, pimiento, all in teaspoon sized amounts. There wasn't much chewing going on. You could have eaten this meal with no teeth.

Some of the tastes were amazingly intense. The onion ice cream sang of roasted onion. The chorizo oil in the Pote Asturiano (the only vaguely regional dish but totally deconstructed) was all the chorizo flavour you could want. The green vegatable gellee was incredible-an aspic distillation of fresh green vegetable. The chocolate mousse with-yes you guessed it-orange ice cream, was a peerless version.

This chef has got to be ploughing a lonely furrow. The restaurant was three quarters empty on a Saturday night. In a scrubby provincial town in the middle of this rural mountainous region where most restaurants serve up hearty portions of hearty food, who wants to eat this stuff?

I wouldn't have minded a chat with the chef but s/he never emerged. An interesting restaurant, but definitely a fish out of water and into ice cream.

Edited August 23, 2003 by Tonyfinch (log)

[Lord Michael Lewis]

Curiously (or not), Rafael Garcia Santos reviewed El Corral del Indianu in today's El Correo. He gave it 7.5 out of a possible 10, and wrote enthusiastically. But seeing as how he never seems to award anything less than a six, I can't really work out if he thinks it's good or average.

[vserna]

O well, never right... So it's just too much food at Casa Gerardo, and too little at Corral del Indianu. These Spanish restaurants certainly are devilish, and there's always something wrong to be found in them...

I'd say I'm most comfortable with a ten-course tasting menu if it comes in tiny portions. But then again, there are appetites, and there are appetites... But you do leave the wrong impression that José Antonio Campoviejo (he's a he) only serves gelées and ice creams. He does serve some very substantial fish and meat. There's a good alternative in Spain to tasting menus: composing one yourself, with two firsts, two seconds and two desserts and perhaps one extra, intriguing starter, and ordering them in half-portions. That'll be a seven-course menu with enough substance to satisfy those with an apetite for more than just foams.

[Bux]

There's a good alternative in Spain to tasting menus:

... ordering ... in half-portions.

Many years ago at Arzak, the hostess heard us discussing the tasting menu and commenting that there were some dishes on the a la carte menu each of us wanted and she suggested we each order three dishes each a la carte and that she would have each dish split and brought out as a progression of six courses. We were delighted to find each dish plated as if it were intended to be served as a half portion. We've never thought to order half courses, but we have asked to have dishes shared in Spain since. Sometimes they are plated and sometimes they are brought out and placed in the center of the table in a serving dish with a clean plate for each of us to use--sort of family style. We've noticed that sharing of dishes at a table to be common in certain restaurants. We've seen tables of six order three or four appetizers to be shared. Not infrequently, we've found three half courses and dessert more than ample for two in hearty local restaurants.

Not a lot of restaurants in France are amenable to this practice, but Lion d'Or in Romorantin in the Loire, encouraged diners to compose a tasting menu by noting which courses could be split and shared.

[Tonyfinch]

O well, never right... So it's just too much food at Casa Gerardo, and too little at Corral del Indianu. These Spanish restaurants certainly are devilish, and there's always something wrong to be found in them...

I made it quite clear that El Corral Del Indianu was unlike any other restaurant we encountered in terms of portion size. And yes in that sense alone it was an amazing contrast to Casa Gerardo. Why do you see that in terms of negative criticism? It was this very contrast that made the restaurants so interesting in their different ways. I was fascinated by both meals.

Maybe if one ordered from the carte at ECDI one would get more substantial portions. But the fact is this meal did not reflect that. And because the restaurant was virtually empty I couldn't get a glimpse of what others were ordering.

That's why I would have liked to have talked to the chef (assuming we could have communicated). I had a lot of questions I would have liked to have asked him, but as I say he never emerged from the kitchen (assuming he was in there).

Edited August 25, 2003 by Tonyfinch (log)

[AmyH]

Please be kind as this is my first egullet post. We dined at El Corral del Indianu about one month ago. This was post San Sebastian dining at Zuberoa (tasting menu for dinner); Arzak (tasting menu for lunch) and Mugaritz ( the more experimental tasting menu for dinner) -- posts are on another board, because while I love reading the egullet forum, I don't feel I'm in the same league. We moved on to the Picos for some hiking with the expectation that we would also move on to some more traditional/simple cooking (roasted meats, fabada, cabrales cheeses etc).

We also dined on a Saturday evening at about 9:00 and the restaurant was sparsely populated. I do speak bad high school/college Spanish.

Our waiter (same as Tony's?) did not speak any English and yet we were able to communicate with Spanish and comical pantemime. We did not order the tasting menu and we did not have English menus.

We ordered carmelized sweetbreads to start and the rape con limon and traditional grilled steak with cabrale cheese. Of all of the portions and tastings we ate during our trip, the carmelized sweetbreads have left the most lasting impression -- incredibly tender and perfectly sauteed in a deeply brown carmelized reduction. We literally groaned with each mouthful of this dish and it was a very good sized portion. I really can't explain why this dish has stuck with me so vividly, but there it is. The same with the fish and meat dishes -- we found the portions quite ample, the dishes well executed, seasoned and displayed --the flavor combinations were not overwrought or forced. The desserts were also very, very good -- a traditional arroz con leche, an incredible chocolate mousse combined with orange gelee and mint and a trio of very intensely flavored citrus ice creams.

A woman came out of the kitchen, I thought it was the chef, but obviously given vserna's post, it was not, (perhaps his wife?) and inquired about our dinner. When I explained in my bad spanish that we thought the sweetbreads were incredible and asked how they were prepared, we were able to engage in a broken dialogue of discussion. By the time we left, it was a full on downpour and she offered my husband an umbrella to use to get our car. I defintely got the impression that if we (or Tony) had asked to either speak with the chef or tour the kitchen, we would have been most welcome to do so. While it is true that Elena or Juan Arzak consider working the room to be part of the *** dining experience, I don't think this is the norm at most restaurants -- we did not see Arbelaritz at Zuberoa.

In short, we were pleasantly surprised by our meal. Sure, we assumed that since it was a michelin star it would have a certain quality, but given the location -- a poorly lit main street in a small mountain town, I really was not expecting the level of creativity or whimsy that we had in SS. And yet, we thought the meal -- foodwise, presentation and execution, was very, very good, with even a hint of great -- those sweetbreads!

Thanks for reading

[Bux]

Amy, you have no need for artificial kindness from me, unless it's to chide you for thanking us for reading your post. I thank you for that post. Well at least I thank you for providing an interesting post that confirms a good reason for our interest in covering the coast between Bibao and Galicia. I'm less happy to have that interest heightened as we're solidifying reservations that will take us to la Rioja for a few days rather than on into Asturias after the Pais Vasco, but life is full of little disappointments.

I don't know what league you take us to be, but dining and talking about food is a noncompetitive sport and eGullet is a place where we play for the love of the sport, not to win or lose. I could give you a dozen reasons why we welcome posts at varying levels of knowledge and even appreciation. I think your post has added a real dimension to this thread and I hope we hear more from you, because I sense you belong here and will enjoy the exchange of opinions as well as benefit from participating as I do.

[Mrs. B]

I'd say I'm most comfortable with a ten-course tasting menu if it comes in tiny portions.

I agree, small portions are great. Specially in Spain when you have dinner so late at night. At our age we don't go clubbing after dinner so it is nice not to leave a restaurant so stuffed you can barely breath. Besides, large portions become boring after a few bites.

[AmyH]

I'm less happy to have that interest heightened as we're solidifying reservations that will take us to la Rioja for a few days rather than on into Asturias after the Pais Vasco, but life is full of little disappointments.

Bux-

I am not sure where in la Rioja your travels will bring you, but I can highly recommend two vineyards to visit if you are in the area of Laguardia -- Bodega Ysios and Bodega Ugarte, and if it is possible, do both on the same day to enjoy the contrast between the incredibly old caves at Ugarte and the state of the art machinery and presentation at the architecturally spectacular Bodega Ysios. Ysios was designed by famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, it has an undulating stainless steel roof that echoes the mountains behind. A foursome that was waiting for a tour was convinced that it was designed by Gehry, but alas, that is a different building entirely (for Riscal) and not anywhere near completion. We had dinner at Marixa in Laguardia upon several recommendations and we were quite dissapointed. I believe it may be more known for lunch versus dinner. We enjoyed our dinner at the Castillo del Collado (great small hotel) much better but we did not tell this to Javier, the owner of Collado as his nephew runs Marixa!

Thanks for the warm welcome.

[vserna]

A woman came out of the kitchen, I thought it was the chef, but obviously given vserna's post, it was not, (perhaps his wife?) and inquired about our dinner.

It was probably Yolanda Vega, Amy. She is supposedly the 'sous-chef', but actually she forms a perfect team with JA Campoviejo and they are both equally important in the kitchen there.