Ot - Barcelona

[Schneier]

(eGullet doesn't allow you to search for two-character words, so I can't promise that there isn't another thread on this restaurant. I did page through the forum and didn't see one, though.)

Ot is a tiny restaurant: six tables and no more than 28 people. There's no menu, just a single eight-course meal for 48 euros.

The meal started off with bread and olive oil: three different breads and two different olive oils. And some small green olives from La Mancha. It was a pretty restaurant: the walls were painted bright orange and the ceiling bright green. The wood was blonde, and the tables nicely set. With only six tables, it felt lively but intimate.

First came two tapas. On the left was a small glass of soup: chopped lettuce, sea urchin, and black pudding (sausage). It was delicious; the brineiness of the sea urchin blended with the earthiness of the sausage.

On the right was a small piece of pickled mackerel, served with a bit of lemon and celery jelly. Good.

The first appetizer was a mango and foie gras canneloni, served with Dalira (a Spanish sweet wine) and coffee sauce, and a bit of greens on the side. Another delicious dish. The mango and foie gras combination was a surprise, and the sauces were strong without overpowering.

Next came soup: chickpea cream soup. The soup came with pieces of quail cooked with caraway and some coconut ice cream. I like the hot-and-cold-at-the same-time trick, and this dish did that. Another surprising and tasty blend of flavors.

First main course: fish. Turbot with something he called "sea mountain sauce." I think this means that it was made with fish and poultry stock mixed together, but I'm not sure. Anyway, the dish was served with celery puree, coriander oil, and cock crests. Yeah, that's right: cock crests. I don't think I've ever eaten cock crests before. They sure don't taste like much.

The fish, however, was tasty, and the sauces were tasty too.

The second main was rabbit loin with mushrooms, potato crisps, French mustard, and chocolate sauce. According to the waiter, the mustard/chocolate combination was discovered accidentally when one of the waiters dropped a piece of chocolate into mustard: kind of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup moment. I was surprised, too, but the flavors really blended interestingly. This was my favorite course of the night.

Cheese came next: a Spanish cheese kind of like Brie, Muenster from France, and a weird grainy strong Spanish goat cheese whose name I never quite understood.

First dessert: milk and rice mixed together, served with tangerine sorbet. Good.

Second dessert: sweet potato ice cream, mascarpone cream, chestnuts, and a sweet wine sauce. Delicious.

And to end, yet more sweets: a bit of elderberry foam, a peach-scented marshmallow, a fruit gelee, and a chocolate truffle thing.

All good, and surprisingly reasonable. My waiter spoke excellent English, which made the whole meal a lot easier. And he poured me a variety of interesting Spanish wines with the meal, none of which I had ever heard of or can remember.

Bruce

[docsconz]

Another nice report, Bruce.

When I was in Catalunya and San Sebastian in Sept., I found foie gras combined with either figs (predominantly) or mango. The canneloni sound good and are a take on the traditional Catalan dish. Which element comprised the "pasta", mango or foie?

[vserna]

"Mar i muntanya", not very precisely translated as "sea mountain" is a reference to a 1950s Catalan fashion - a combination dish of chicken and spiny lobster (langouste). Surf & turf with a Mediterranean twist, if you will.

[Bux]

"Mar i muntanya", not very precisely translated as "sea mountain" is a reference to a 1950s Catalan fashion - a combination dish of chicken and spiny lobster (langouste). Surf & turf with a Mediterranean twist, if you will.

←

I've seen "mar i muntanya" from time to time on a menu and never given a thought to it's origin. I assume it was a traditional concept and I've been under the impression that it covered a range of combinations. I guess fifty years is long enough time to become tradition in gastronomic terms--especially in Catalunya. Oddly enough "surf and turf" in the US, conjures up the most banal of restaurants and the most banal of plates.

[docsconz]

The mar i muntanya concept has certainly gone well beyond chicken and lobster. It seems to have become a pervasive concept in modern as well as some traditional Catalan cooking. It was certainly everywhere I was when dining over there with many interesting and novel combinations.

[pedro]

I'd say mar i muntanya dishes appear earlier than the fifties. At least they appear in Pla's Quadern gris, which reflects a period covering the late 10s to the late 20s of the twentieth century. Certainly, Pla's Llagosta i pollastre (chicken and lobster, one of the most famous mar i muntanya combinations) was published in 1952.

My guess is that in the fifties this tradition experimented a recovery once the horrifying consequences of the Civil War (1936 - 1939) to food started to mitigate, at least in the upper echelons of Spanish society.

[Schneier]

When I was in Catalunya and San Sebastian in Sept., I found foie gras combined with either figs (predominantly) or mango. The canneloni sound good and are a take on the traditional Catalan dish. Which element comprised the "pasta", mango or foie?

←

The mango.

Bruce

[Schneier]

Note: <a href="http://www.otrestaurant.net">Ot</a> has moved. If you look for reviews on the net and see an address on Torres street, that's wrong. (Although if you go there, the waiter at the old address will happily tell you how to get to Ot's new location. But it's a walk, and it's probably hot out.) The real address is Carrer Corsega 537.

I first visited Ot in 2004, when it was eight tables in a back alley in Gracia. The new location is much prettier and upscale, but it's only ten tables -- so you have to wonder why they bothered. In any case, it's a great meal.

We started off with a tasting of three olive oils, then one of those gelatin "olives" that taste better at El Bulli. Then some fried potato shreds and a delicious small clam-like seafood thingy on a stick.

Appetizer #1: "Watermelon, ficoide glacial, langostine ceviche and olive." Think of a square of watermelon, and some crunchy green thing that felt like seaweed on top -- that was the <a href="http://www.frenchgardening.com/item.tmpl?SKU=SEVE41">ficoide glacial</a> -- and then some lobster, all drizzled with olive oil. Delicious.

Appetizer #2: "Cod tripe risotto with sobrasada." Sobrasada is a pork sausage from Majorca. This dish was just about perfect in every way.

Main #1: "Corb fish, mussel caramelized and baby vegetables." A nicely cooked piece of whitish fish with carrot air on top, served with a caramelized mussel, mussel sauce, and couscous with vegetables and mint. Another perfect dish. I could have eaten a bowl of those caramelized mussels.

Main #2: "Beef cheek with leeks, licorice and peach compote with rosemary." Another delicious dish, although I would have liked more leeks and less licorice sauce.

Dessert: "Mascarpone mousse, coffee sauce, hibiscus sorbet." I'm not a coffee fan, so this dish didn't work for me. But rumor has it that it was delicious.

I think Ot is one of the secret treasures of Barcelona.

Bruce

[Schneier]

The problem with this thread is that the software won't let you search on two-letter terms. So it's impossible for anyone to find this thread unless they search for it manually.

I have no idea how to fix this problem.

Bruce