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El Bulli I have no idea?


Chris Cognac

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I keep reading El Bulli this or El Bulli that...I have tried to figure out this place...Is it real, is it an elaborate e gullet running gag, whats the deal!...Ya I know I am a burrito and burger guy so I may not be "sophisticated" enough to know about it ie "El Bulli, yes Thurston and I dined there last week before the theater, fabulous darling"...so whats the scoop all you New Yorkers, fill in a regular west coast schlub on this El Bulli place....if it even exists..

If it does exist, will I need to look for a good interest rate on my second mortgage to purchase a meal there....Do they have burrito's?

Moo, Cluck, Oink.....they all taste good!

The Hungry Detective

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Its not in New York. Its a restaurant in Spain. And it has a six month waiting list, at least.

Jason Perlow, Co-Founder eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters

Foodies who Review South Florida (Facebook) | offthebroiler.com - Food Blog (archived) | View my food photos on Instagram

Twittter: @jperlow | Mastodon @jperlow@journa.host

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But New York is the right place to ask, because New Yorkers know everything.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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The mind reels at the image of a loud, brash Texan wearing a cowboy hat, smoking a big fat cigar and sitting down for dinner at El Bulli and harassing the waitstaff due to the lack of burritos.

"What? No burritos? What about fajitas? Don't you Spaniards cook anything us normal people like to eat? What's this foam shit?"

Jason Perlow, Co-Founder eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters

Foodies who Review South Florida (Facebook) | offthebroiler.com - Food Blog (archived) | View my food photos on Instagram

Twittter: @jperlow | Mastodon @jperlow@journa.host

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The mind reels at the image of a loud, brash Texan wearing a cowboy hat, smoking a big fat cigar and sitting down for dinner at El Bulli and harassing the waitstaff due to the lack of burritos.

"What? No burritos? What about fajitas? Don't you Spaniards cook anything us normal people like to eat? What's this foam shit?"

Jason, that is too funny!!

Ya-Roo Yang aka "Bond Girl"

The Adventures of Bond Girl

I don't ask for much, but whatever you do give me, make it of the highest quality.

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Actually, I heard that Adria is experimenting with a burrito foam. I don't think he's got all the kinks out yet, though.

So to speak.

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

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I didn't know what it was either until I found this site. Imagine a wild, wonderful food science Mecca. The concepts are amazing.

In a sense, El Bulli is to cuisine what Willy Wonka was to candy. Reservations are the golden tickets and the snozzberries are made of air. :smile:

If you do a search, there are a few threads on the subject.

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Unfortunately, Arthur Lubow's New York Times Magazine piece on Ferran Adria and El Bulli is now in the premium archive. For the Cliff's Notes version, however, you can check out this summary from the James Beard Foundation. Scroll down and start at . . .

Used to be when we talked about haute cuisine, dishes with fancy French names popped into our heads. The very phrase “haute cuisine” is French. But current culinary currents suggest you may want to brush up on your Spanish (or Catalonian and Basque). In the new culinary world order, the Spaniards are making a serious play for the title “Kings of Gastronomy.” Their food revolution started almost 30 years ago in San Sebastián with Juan Mari Arzak and Pedro Subijana, whose restaurants now sparkle with Michelin stars (three for the former, two for the latter). Then, in the late eighties, Catalan Ferran Adrià ramped up the New Spanish Cuisine movement, establishing a culinary tour de force in Catalonia at the three-starred El Bulli.

Here's the Adria bit in the Time 100

Also, if you can get hold of the current issue of Food Arts there's quite a good piece about El Bulli by Anthony Bourdain.

As for right here on eGullet, well, you've come to the right place for information about El Bulli. Big time. From our own most excellent Webzine, The Daily Gullet:

Eight at El Bulli, A Journey to Dining's Outer Reaches, by Jonathan Day and Robert Brown, Monday, April 21, 2003

Table Dancing: The Last Article You Will Read On Ferran Adria (Today), by Timothy C. Davis, Thursday, August 21, 2003

Finally, some eGullet threads of interest:

The Cabinet of Dr. Adria, A visit to the el Bulli Laboratory

Avant garde cooking and El Bulli, A tradition of its own?

El Bulli: 1998-2002, A culinary book for the ages

El Bulli--From wonderful to absurd

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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The mind reels at the image of a loud, brash Texan wearing a cowboy hat, smoking a big fat cigar and sitting down for dinner at El Bulli and harassing the waitstaff due to the lack of burritos.

"What? No burritos? What about fajitas? Don't you Spaniards cook anything us normal people like to eat? What's this foam shit?"

Made me snort protein shake all over the keyboard. :raz:

Soba

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Now now. The Texans are among the best-behaved of American tourists. On the whole, I find them to be better travelers than the New Yorkers and New Jerseyites. I guarantee you, you'll never find a Texan being a pain in the ass at El Bulli with the typical New Yorker's list of special requirements: "Sauce-on-the-side, no-red-meat, shellfish-allergy, gluten-intolerant, no-peanuts, and no-carbs."

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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Yeah Chris, but then again you will probably never hear some guy from Jersey City or the Upper East Side asking the waiter at El Bulli for some BBQ Sauce to go with "that duck liver stuff". :raz::laugh:

Brooks Hamaker, aka "Mayhaw Man"

There's a train everyday, leaving either way...

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Now now. The Texans are among the best-behaved of American tourists. On the whole, I find them to be better travelers than the New Yorkers and New Jerseyites. I guarantee you, you'll never find a Texan being a pain in the ass at El Bulli with the typical New Yorker's list of special requirements: "Sauce-on-the-side, no-red-meat, shellfish-allergy, gluten-intolerant, no-peanuts, and no-carbs."

Maybe you haven't been around Texas oil-field workers when they're out on the town. A friend of mine that worked heavy construction (jack-up barges) from Singapore to Scotland (and the Middle East) for over forty years once remarked that Arabs couldn't understand us cuz the only Americans they'd ever seen were from Texas. (With due apologies to Fifi, Jaymes, and the rest of the crew from Texas.) :biggrin:

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It may be comforting to Chris to know that in the eyes of at least one prestigious journal, UK's Restaurant Magazine, El Bulli lost its place as best restaurant in the world in 2002 to The French Laundry in 2003. That'll save him a little on the airfare.

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"Sauce-on-the-side, no-red-meat, shellfish-allergy, gluten-intolerant, no-peanuts, and no-carbs."

Aren't those Californian requirements too? Specifically the power Hollywood lunch kind. :biggrin:

Soba

I think that it is more "raw food and atkins" now!

So I save airfare...but thats the least expensive part..I hear that French Laundry is not part of the 2 for 1 entertainment book places!

Edited by Chris Cognac (log)

Moo, Cluck, Oink.....they all taste good!

The Hungry Detective

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Hi, guys.  Since El Bulli is in Spain, we're moving this thread from the NY Forum to the Spain & Portugal forum.  Carry on!  :smile:

Hey Sam, it seems like things are drifting toward the French Laundry. Maybe it should be moved to France. :biggrin:

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Hi, guys.  Since El Bulli is in Spain, we're moving this thread from the NY Forum to the Spain & Portugal forum.  Carry on!  :smile:

Hey Sam, it seems like things are drifting toward the French Laundry. Maybe it should be moved to France. :biggrin:

Don't make me give you the eye with all your funny talk, now!

Oh... wait... :wink:

--

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If it does exist, will I need to look for a good interest rate on my second mortgage to purchase a meal there....Do they have burrito's?

As you've no doubt already learned. It exists and they don't serve burritos. For what it's worth, the cost of the prix fixe tasting menu was around 125 euros last year. (It's only open for the season--early spring through fall--and booked solid for next year already.) With the weak dollar that's a good $150+, but nowhere near what you'd pay in Paris where places such as Arpege have 300 euro tasting menus. Tax and service are included, although it's common to leave a couple of percents more for a tip. Still that's not the 8.50% tax and close to 20% tip expected in NYC. What's the tab for the tasting menu at the French Laundry? All things considered, El Bulli is not outrageously priced. Ferran Adria, is probably the most reknowned chef in the western world right now and pretty much in a class by himself. This has been a postion the French have had a lock on for a couple of centuries at least, or so it seems. So this is a big deal.

Robert Buxbaum

WorldTable

Recent WorldTable posts include: comments about reporting on Michelin stars in The NY Times, the NJ proposal to ban foie gras, Michael Ruhlman's comments in blogs about the NJ proposal and Bill Buford's New Yorker article on the Food Network.

My mailbox is full. You may contact me via worldtable.com.

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Mmmm... Ferran and burritos. Not as far-fetched as some would think. Then again, if he ever gets some inspiration in this field, it'll probably be with something less Tex-Mex and more genuinely Aztec or Maya... As he was recently telling a Spanish interviewer...

"Last March I went to Mexico and they gave me some worms called escamoles, and I had all sorts of trouble convincing myself to eat them, and then it turns out they were delicious. Then again, what are our angulas (baby eels)? Well, worms. And our 'centolla' (sea spider)? A big spider."

In the same interview, Adrià says he has had "four or five magical meals" in his life, one at Michel Bras' restaurant (modern Spanish cooks should erect a monument to Bras, who was long their spiritual leader...), one of Kaiseki imperial cuisine in Japan, and "two in the United States". He doesn't say where, but I'm pretty certain one of the two was at Charlie Trotter's. He also says that "by far, China is the most important culinary nation, and it's in constant evolution, not immobile as some believe."

That said, Ferran can get some decent Mexican inspiration close to home. Spain is as full of Tex-Mex fast food as the rest of Europe, but Madrid is the only European city that I know where a couple of serious Mexican restaurants (Entre Suspiro y Suspiro, Taquería del Alamillo) of 'foodie quality' can be found.

Victor de la Serna

elmundovino

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