Jamonisimo, Barcelona

September 4th, 2009. 12PM.

This is it. The Best Ham In the World. I do feel like it changed my life, albeit slightly. Conversations about ham will never be the same again, because other people will praise the merits of Parma, or Iberico, or San Daniele, but I'll know that I had The Best. Of course, I don't have a lot of conversations about ham, so it won't be much of a problem. I should also say up front, "Thanks Chuck."

Be warned: this is a bit outside the normal bounds of the tourist areas. Do not try to walk there, as we did. It's picturesque for a while, then you get bored of the picturesquity of block after block of 6-story buildings and quaint squares at every intersection, but you still have the second half of the walk to get through. Also, note that they close from 1:30 to 4 or 4:30, so you'll need to eat on an American schedule. You could go somewhere for a proper lunch afterward, if you were a glutton for punishment.

So yeah, we were pretty happy when we finally got there. However I was a bit confused on first appearances, because it just looks like a deli  - fine, a deli with a whole lot of pig legs hanging around, but after only a few days in Spain I already thought that was normal. And a very clean, cool, modern deli at that, which was a bonus after a long, hot walk. I don't know what I was expecting - more restaurant, I suppose. Certainly I was confused at not seeing any tables, because I had been expecting for months to settle in to one for big plates of ham. It was a bit awkward getting started due to language issues, but once we talked to the Italian assistant, he set us straight and we got to work. They do have tables in back - two of them, in separate nooks that also hold fancy cookbooks (El Bulli, Charlie Trotter, etc) and racks of wine - and we claimed the bigger one with a resolution to eat ham until closing time.

I like to think the history of Jamonisimo goes like this: basic corner butcher really likes ham. Starts selling good ham. Starts looking for the best ham. Finds it. People start beating a path to the door. They can't resist eating on the sidewalk as soon as the ham is sliced. The butcher says "Why not sell them some cava too?" and renovates the shop to include two tables just for those odd customers who insist on viewing a butcher shop as a restaurant (the renovation appears quite recent). Famous people visit. Worldwide fame ensues. That brings us up to date. But to be hospitable, there's a proper menu, and it includes different varieties of meat, various cheeses, and the odd vegetable to make you feel like you're not just eating ham.

It's the varieties of ham that are really stunning though. We were stunned. You may actually find it too fussy if you just want slices of ham - not only can you choose between three locations (Andalucia, Salamanca, Extremadura), but you can also choose which part of the leg you want the meat cut from. For some reason it never ocurred to me that the front tastes different from the back tastes different from the top (this is in 'living' view, not 'slicing' view). But they sure do, and of course each origin of pig tastes different too. Regardless of the location, each of the legs is handled from birth to ham by one farmer (of course, they prefer to say 'artisan'), cured for a minimum of 30 months and made in quantities of only 8,000 per year. This only sounds like a lot if you don't think about industrial production volumes. For instance, the US alone slaughtered a shade under 84 MILLION pigs in 2009 through September (most recent USDA national data, I think).

Here's the key word: industrial. As a result of Jamonisimo, it has entered our vocabulary as a derogatory term for food. After we started eating and drinking, we all got more friendly - I think they were waiting to see if we'd be weird, but after several plates of ham we were buddies. And eventually we got around to asking the waiter what he thought of various hams. The best thing that's available in Japan is, I think, Prosciutto San Daniele, which is Italian but does come from the north and not too far from Spain. So, we said, as an Italian, what do you think of San Daniele. "Well," he said, "it's OK, but it's industrial. We don't really have a ham culture in Italy." Imagine that? An Italian says (paraphrasing) "Y'know, Italians really don't understand cured ham. That's why I came to Spain to work in this shop and study ham." Telling, damning, interesting, however you want to put it, we liked to hear it. Everyone likes to think they're clever.

Enough of the pontificating, let's get to the porn. Being American, I can't resist something labeled 'EXTREME', so even though this was from Extramadura, which probably has nothing to do with extremism, we started with it. This was just a plate of the good stuff, not Jamonisimo's 'tasting in textures' treatment. More on that later.

Shoulder of Extremadura, just to see what it's like...it's not even worth trying to describe these. They're just the best ham you can imagine.

Even after that we started thinking the pork was a little heavy. We ordered tomatoes, and the waiter popped out to get them. I hope the green-ness means they're an heirloom Spanish variety, but I'm not sure.

You know what these are? They're the best anchovies in the world. I think they were actually labeled that way on the menu. After growing up with anchovies being a bit of a punchline, something people would refuse to eat, I've come to the point where I like anchovies crumbled up in sauces or pastas, and I'm OK with whole ones on pizzas. But these were an entirely different species. They were incredible. As they should be, at almost 2 euros per fillet.

Spanish cheeses are a little limited in range, but nice. I think this was manchego and idiazabal, both of which come in at a really nice points on the soft-hard and sharp-mellow scales as far as I'm concerned. With some quince paste. Again, tasty, but an afterthought.

I was really worried before we arrived that my companions wouldn't be up to the challenge. I was wrong, and I'm sorry. We also ordered the mixed sausage plate to see what it was like...you'll recognize the salami-like thing nearest the viewer, and also the chorizo on the far side (both of which were, predictably, awesome). The thing I had read about but not had is the lomo in the middle.

It looks almost like a processed capicola (industrial, but I still like it) but is made rather more extravagantly from cured pork loin, which of course comes conveniently in this shape. Again, awesome. Yawn.

Why we didn't go 'whole hog' on the first order is beyond me, but for the second main plate (again, thanks for the stamina, guys!) we went for the Texturas of Salamanca. This means you get a three piles of slices, each from a different of the leg. I'd like to say I formed a distinct preference for the front or back or tip or whatever, but it's really too specific for me. The differences in taste and texture were clear at the time, but the memory is fuzzy!

Fuzzy...

All of this made me very happy. I'd like to think Luigi had a pretty good time too. [I'd like to think his name was Luigi, but I didn't ask.] He certainly looks happy. It's good to be proud of your product and watch people enjoy it.

We closed the place down! And went directly for a siesta.

Jamon jamon!
++93 439 08 47

Taller de Tapas, Barcelona

September 3rd, 2009. 9 PM.

Almost a week in Spain and no tapas crawl? I honestly wasn't that broken up about it. If I understand correctly, the point of tapas is to eat small plates of fresh, simple, tasty food while drinking in a convivial setting. In Japan that's available in a thousand places every night of the week. Still, it's inexcusable not to take in that local color, so we headed to El Born and the few streets with the most tapas places. This is actually a two-part review, but the second place was so crappy that it put us off going on to a third place. Bastards.

Taller de Tapas is well known, large, clean and professional. This may or may not be a good thing - a place like the nearby El Xampanyet is smaller, less clean and much more charming. But the food is supposed to be good at TdT, and I like the fact that they have tables. I know standing to eat and drink is part of the culture, but I can't get into rearing up on my hind legs, even if it means consuming chunks of roasted flesh with sweet peppers. The staff at TdT were dressed well and standing outside to welcome us in.

The menu seemed a bit like an embarassment of riches; we tried not to overorder. As always, I wanted to drink cava but tried to avoid seeming overly bossy about food by letting the group go for sangria again. Meh. TdT is dark, atmospheric in a recently-renovated way (probably newly-constructued, actually, but still with lots of old-seeming stonework), not that crowded but still noisy. The staff rushes around without seeming to see much, but it's not hard to corral one of them and order more food.

Croquettes are a normal tapas item. These were normal.

Big plate of grilled mackerel, bones and carcasses removed. Being Asian (kinda), we're happy to eat this stuff, maybe more than American tourists. It seems different from Japanese mackerel. Not better, just different.

Pread smeared with a thin layer of tomato is also a standard thing at tapas, and in fact in Spain. This was probably the best version we had anywhere, but it was far from being exciting.

Chorizos were pretty good.

The little green peppers that get roasted and served up in big plates taste just like Japanese shishito to me. Are they related? In any case, it's funny to eat something in Spain that you can't get in America, but can buy in 20-packs in any Japanese supermarket.

With all that food ordered in one rush, we took a little breather...just long enough to stick the camera out to the side of the table and get a picture. And start thinking about when we should cut things off so that we could try another place...

And then we received some 'main' dishes - country sausage with beans, one of the best things we had. I love a good sausage, in large part because I have them so rarely.

And again a piece of steak with pepper. This steak wasn't as good as the ones at Cervesaria Catalana. You should just go there. In fact, while I liked Taller de Tapas, and strolling around El Born at night, my basic review of the tapas scene is "Just go to Cervesaria Catalana". That said, we didn't get in to Cal Pep or El Xampanyet, and didn't try to go to Paco Meralga or Quimet & Quimet. But based on my own judgement of my own judgement in judging places from the exterior and menu, I'd say there's no place in El Born that matches CC.

We stopped the food at that point and headed out. With streets as interesting as this, who needs good food? Well, I for one still do, but it's a neat area. This street was deserted except for a stylish loungey restaurant place, but the streets next to it and intersecting it were some of the most busy around. We walked some more before picking another place.

Badly. This seemed to have a rougher, more casual aspect than TdT, but that roughness extended to the food preparation.

Meatballs. Can't go wrong with meatballs.

Fried squid. Bready, a bit soggy.

Spanish menu difficulties; probably wouldn't have gotten these deep-fried dough balls if we had known they were deep-fried dough balls. Not good.

Some in the party were still agitating for paella; I was still agitating for black rice, cooked with squid ink. We satisfied both dimensions with this dish. Unfortunately it wasn't much to write about.






And here we accidentally ordered a tripe soup. Again we didn't know it was tripe, and in the relative confusion of ordering a bunch of things we didn't know exactly how much we had gotten. When this came we tried to protest that we hadn't ordered it, and the waiter, bless him, pointed at one of our party and said "SHE ordered it." Which was true. In any case, we didn't eat much of it.



Ah well. A sad and uninspiring end to the evening. Things did get a lot better the next day when we visited some more tourist attractions and had The Best Ham In the World.

Taller de Tapas (via Laietana)
++93 481 62 33

Mimolet, Girona

September 3rd, 2009. 1:30 PM

Girona has a lot going for it - the medieval walled section aside, there are plenty of interesting-looking restaurants and shops! I decided this made sense after I learned one critical fact: Girona is actually the 'budget' airport of Barcelona, meaning if you take a RyanAir flight from London to Barcelona, you could well end up in Girona. There must be plenty of tourists saying "Well, let's 'ave a look, as long as we're here." The preserved sections, including the lovely views of buildings along the river, can't hurt either.

Mimolet was...across from our hotel. And we liked the cut of its jib. Kinda minimal, kinda brown.

Kinda contorted.

Seriously, finding a restaurant like this in the medieval quarter of a smallish Spanish city? Seemed like a find.

The potato chips by the left foot were stale.

Without video, you can't tell that this wall changed color slowly. But you can see the clean internal style and also another of those artist's models on the other table.

I'd like to say this was pea soup; it certainly included cockles and a drizzle of oil on the top. I'd also like to say I tried it, but I have no memory of the taste. Ah well.

This was sold as a typical dish; certainly I think it looks like fried eggs with chorizo. Come to think of it, the chorizo may actually have been blood sausage. I remember this somewhat fondly because of the skillet.

But I remember this most fondly because it was my starter...sweet corn, soft cheese and pieces of cherry...

In cherry soup! I saw this on the a ala carte menu and managed to get it included in the quite reasonable prix fixe lunch (EUR 26, I think, with a bunch of options per course). While it was in no way the equal of the previous night's cherries with smoked eel at Can Roca, it was in many ways a refreshing and tasty treat for a hot summer day. I would eat this all summer long if I could get cherries in quantity at price.

My fish. I really wasn't that happy with him. Two whole fillets that were a bit strong to my tastes, competently cooked but not fully boned, astride a fortress of vegetables that were in many respects raw. And not in an agreeable way (onion, heated through but still aggressively sharp in smell and taste).

Duck confit was much better. On apples, I think.

Getting fresh cheese with berries is always a nice idea, don't you agree? You see it so rarely in Japan or America, but it's a very light and pleasant way to enjoy the synergy of several sour things. And I love berries.

However I ordered this cylinder, which I remember as being frozen coconut mousse with pineapple compote. And it was good. An odd sort of dry texture to the mousse that I quite liked.

Were you to be in Girona you could be much worse than this place. But you might also enjoy freestyling some of the places tucked under dark arcades; there were a few Basque family-style places that looked quite interesting, whereas this food would be competently offered in many cities. In truth it seemed a little pale in comparison to the previous two nights (El Bulli and Can Roca), which is hardly fair.

Strangely, no cheese course.

++972 20 21 24

La Vienesa, Girona

September 3rd, 2009. 10 AM.

On our morning in Girona, we had a few more hours to walk around and feel medieval. The old areas are really nice - cleaner than those in Barcelona and targeting a more sedate tourist (no Irish bars, for example). Breakfast in Europe is a challenge to me, and usually comes down to bread and maybe a coffee...

As it did on this day, but fortunately from this very pretty shop. It must have been one of the nicest facades in the town, so don't get the idea that it's all this way.

There are a curious number of bakeries in Spain; more, it seems to me, than Paris. Based on what we ate, I don't get the sense that they have the same focus on quality or variety. I'd certainly like to do a more detailed study...

As mentioned a few days ago, Estrella's low-cal beer-like product is called FREE. Damm! It's still hard for me not to chuckle over this. Maybe by the time I'm 40 I'll be able to stop laughing at things like this.

Anyway, this was a pastry stop, followed by more walking, after we which we came upon the shop we really should have gone to in the first place.

Situated on a larger square in the old section, La Vienesa has a big, modern Italianate doorway that's out of keeping with the surroundings. Quite grand and luxurious feeling, when combined with the window displays it seemed like a place where I really wanted to eat and regretted already having had some pastry. I have a feeling the name is a Catalan version of 'Viennoiserie', or pastries, but I'm not going to check. What do they call Viennoiserie in Vienna? Heck, they don't even call Vienna Vienna in Vienna.

Look how nice! The window display is pastry presented like high-end chocolate. Looking at the poster for Xuixos, we realized we hadn't eaten anything of the genus 'fried dough' yet (e.g., churros), but this remained a small fail for the whole trip. Xuixos actually look more like elongated filled donuts, and as with all sugar-coated, cream-filled, deep fried products that I didn't eat, I'm sorry that I didn't eat some.

Also in the window was a small animatronic diorama relating the parable of Jesus with the wood and chocolate - see how the chocolate bits look like curls of wood falling from the bench, just like Jesus done it? This is cool in its own way but much less amusing than the shop down the street which had in its window a long line of figurines that looked for all the world like a miniature Klan rally, although with more purple, blue and black and robes than you ordinarily get (those being generally reserved for officers like the Klaliff and Klutz).

Inside there were all sorts of treats; I remain unsure what these jelly fruits were (and have failed at using the interwebz to locate info). They seem like candied fruit, but are too regular in shape and color. You'd think marzipan, but they're a bit clear...I'd like to be enlightened on this one. And I sorta regret not trying them, but we had had some breakfast and were already staring down a lunch reservation.

Remember I only write about places where I ate something, and here the excuse was a cool glass of orxata. I've just learned that this is different from Mexican horchata, which is made from rice - this one's actually made from tigernuts. har har. In any case, it's a lot like drinking sweetened soy milk or rice milk, but without the soy flavor (not that it's a bad flavor). I just hung out at the counter for a couple minutes, pretending I wasn't already full and scared to eat lunch.

Tigernuggetz.

++972 486 046

El Celler de Can Roca, Girona (2/2: Desserts)

September 2, 2009. 11:30 PM

Seriously, I wasn't sure what to expect from desserts at Can Roca. They're known for having cute twists that are more conceptual and could be described as precious, and I wasn't sure how I'd feel about them in practice. But I was hooked immediately, and looking back feel like there's a great overarching intelligence to them, plus some excellent execution hidden in the apparently casual forms.

The first of the menu desserts, Green Chromatism, shows off, yes, the conceptual and precious 'color dessert' theme that Jordi Roca has expounded. But this was a straight-up awesome dessert. Partly sweet, partly palate-cleanser, it mixed sugar and mint in unexpected ways (for example the green 'peas' at the front are candied shells filled with menthol oil (or something), and combined the whole with weird elements - the tangle is shredded cucumber. Just great.

This must be technically precious in some way, but only because I don't know how they did it. It was just great. Double great. It's a big apricot (looks like a nectarine to me) that's somehow frozen and jellified inside while retaining the beautiful exterior.  The menu describes it as 'caramelized', but that word is so overused now (the whole food discourse is practically infused with it, doncha think?), that I'd rather not think of it that way.

A kooky angle because I loved it so much. The popcorn is actually 'vanilla puffs', which I guess is also derived from liquid nitrogen in some way. I can't remember how they tasted (it's now over a month).

I can certainly remember the taste and texture of this though. Awesome, like cold syrup with an intense fruit flavor. Those were the two 'course' desserts, and we moved on to the special orders (one each).

This is Orange Chromatism. Beyond orange and papaya flavors, I'm not at all sure what it was! I like the look though - it's sort of festive-but-precise.

The Lactic Dessert is also an old favorite. This was mainly goat cheese-themed, including whipped cream, cotton candy, more solid textures, and a bit of fruit for contrast (I'd like to say papaya again but can't remember). It's really a 'textural study', I think, with the milk flavor as a constant throughout (I did say the desserts were conceptually precious, didn't I?). Again, I think this is precise execution in a faux-chaotic form (he also made a dessert called Anarchy for a while that was 40+ different elements arranged separately on the plate).

A Trip to Havana might be the most famous dessert, looking as it does like a burning cigar and a mojito chaser. The mojito was very sour and fresh, which was a good thing since the cigar really does have a pile of ashes in front of it. The experience of eating a dessert that tasted like a cigar will stay with me for a long, long time (even though it wasn't my dessert). Interestingly, we tried the 'cigar' by itself and seemed to discover that the tobacco flavor was actually smoked into the ice cream!

Mojito, in loving off-angle close-up.

Finally the dessert that I actually ate - Tresor by Lancome. Finishing off our examples of the famous desert concepts, this is a dessert that 'adapts' a famous fragrance (past targets have included Calvin Klein's Eternity). The idea is to isolate the different scents of the perfume (vanilla, mango...) and then mix them together, but with some thought given to form. This there are fresh fruit bits, sorbet, cream, and gelatin all mixed together. I love how this is complex but not overly fussy - the ingredients are somewhat jumbled, and you don't have the option to carefully eat them one-by-one. To finish off the conceit, they bring you a bit of paper with the actual scent on it. To me, not much resemblance, but I still liked this a lot.

Mignardises are thankfully a bit less extravagant here than at El Bulli; just one each of 5 flavors. Passion fruit, lime, vanilla, palet d'or (choco ganache) and rose. Helpfully labeled! If you can read Catalan.

You can see again how they make some effort to differentiate the textures. You can also see that the vanilla treatment is a thin gummy, which is dangerously reminiscent of the 'vanilla sheets' treatment at El Bulli. In conjunction with the oyster leaves, it made me wonder.

This sure was good. Best meal ever? Maybe, maybe not. But definitely thought-provoking and fascinating while remaining just within the bounds (for me) of the normal dinner course form and the relative comfort it provides. We stood outside in the quiet courtyard for a couple minutes, not at all eager to go back to normal life, until our taxi roared around the corner and we gave in.

I've heard that Spanish restaurants are unforgiving about email (as in, they just don't answer your requests) but I should also point out that ECdCR just hit me back within a day confirming exactly what I asked for (and which of course I mildly messed up on the night). The service in the restaurant was a bit distant, but professional, and even friendly by the end (like when we ran into our waitress outside, in street clothes). I thought the segmentation of the place was weird - from where we sat, you really can't see other customers much, and our table was divided from others on all sides by at least some type of barrier. In retrospect, my memory feels like we had dinner at Can Roca all by ourselves, which just adds to the memory.

Back at the hotel there was a medieval party, and things were already way out of hand among the carvings...

Sure I'd go back! Any time.

+34 972 222 157

El Celler de Can Roca, Girona (1/2: Mains)

September 2nd, 2009. 9:30 PM

El Celler de Can Roca is The 5th Best Restaurant In the World. If you averaged this dinner with last night's, I ate at the 3rd-best restaurant in the world two nights in a row. Can Roca is often mentioned as a place that deserves three stars but is stuck at 2, and the food is creative but tasty, weird but recognizable. Honestly, I was looking forward to this dinner more than El Bulli in some ways, and I wasn't disappointed at all.

The staff were a little disappointed with me, however. Getting too into the spirit of the Spanish late-dining thing, we showed up at 9:30 to find that our reservation had been for 9. Oh well, no harm done. I love the way the restaurant is outside the nice (Medieval, walled) area of Girona and is fairly unobtrusive.

This setting is evidently new; I'm not totally clear on what's what since I've read that they moved but also that the restaurant is next to their Mom's old restaurant. I say 'they' because the Roca brothers run the place - the oldest is the chef, the middle brother the sommelier, and the youngest the dessert chef. 

I liked how dark and quiet it was - no one else coming or going when we got there (and again when we left). Might be because we were later than the approved time!

Inside is similarly modern and airy in a spacey, otherworldly way. This atrium with lit trees is actually glassed in so that some 'outside' is visible from most places inside the restaurant. You'd think this was Scandanavian if it wasn't Spanish.

The wine list is massive - several books presented on a rolling cart - but we went with the pairings and the basic course. We also each got a supplementary dessert - some of the chef's desserts are quite well known, and I guess as a result of requests they just started offering them all the time. Considering how cool they are, the prices of the supplemental desserts are quite reasonable (EUR15, I think) as is the whole experience (considering). I've read that they decided to keep the prices down so that local people could still afford to come for special occasions.

La carte.

As if things weren't weirdly classy enough, the first thing they brought to the table was a tree. This is where I got a big smile on my face and figure that there would be all sorts of interesting stuff happening throughout the dinner. I'd like to think that they just left this for us to explore, but in practice they probably pointed out that it was a little olive tree, and hanging from it were little...

Caramelized olives, good. Black, slightly sweet, some sort of mildly crunchy coating, and most importantly hanging from special serving wires on a tree.

Other nibbles included these sesame crackers, served in a sliced rock (nuts +1, El Bulli flashback and mild fear)...

and fried eel spines. These might seem alien if you didn't live in Japan. As it was, I was a little bored by them.

But not bored enough to skip taking an up-close-and-personal shot. These eels did not give up their lives in vain; they'll reappear shortly in the first proper course.

Finally, a reconstituted frozen cherry that was served hand-to-hand (hence me taking a picture of it hanging. Such a great starter; sweet and tart and refreshing, with a neat texture.

No idea what this was or how it tasted (not on the menu, just a bigger nibble), but this is quite illustrative of their style. Tangles, angles, sauces and lumps. Not the most appetizing descriptors for food.

I believe this was a tuna jelly - like soft gelatin cubes that tasted like cooked tuna. Being a lover of canned tuna, I was a lover of this. Mild fear of Asian (Korean) influence since this came in a metal bowl but all was OK. +1 foam.

If anyone was worried about the food, this is where it stopped. We were all knocked back a bit (OK, a tiny bit, but still) by these pigeon bonbons. Something like pigeon meat and liver encased in a candy-looking shell. Intense and awesome.

NOW we were ready for the first of the 7 courses on the proper menu.

This was, for me, the hands-down winner of the evening. It's always sad to have the best thing first, but this was it. Starting with the basics - smoked eel in cherry soup. Sounds...riiiiight. But the eel was like the most beautiful smoked fish ever (and I love a good smoked whitefish, which I just now realized is probably a silver fish despite the name). The cherries came in at least 3 textures - the dark 'natural' ones (though these may have differed from each other), the lighter-color frozen one (like the earlier nibble; I don't really know if they were reconstituted) and the soup, poured around at the table. Edible flower garnish, other bits for texture...I want to eat this again someday (in fact, the memory of this forced me to order off-menu the next day to get another cherry soup, that one with soft cheese and corn. Not as good. Nothing could be as good.). This is the kind of thing I came here to eat, and it was worth it.

The high point was unfortunately followed by the low point - oysters topped with apple compote, pineapple, ginger, and spices - which included a fair amount of curry or at least cumin. And an oyster leaf, which I promptly ate. It wasn't as good as El Bulli's.

The thing that ruins this dish for me (as well as other reviewers) is the 'champagne'. Note the curved glass dish? It's a cut champagne bottle, and the concept here is a classic 'oysters and champagne'. Good as far as it goes, but the champagne, poured from a champagne bottle onto the dish, is heavily thickened with chemicals to make it gummy and artificial. Sure it holds the bubbles, and sure it looks neat, but the whole thing was to mucus-y for me. And the oyster was too strong too - strong enough that you could actually taste it under all that apple, pineapple, cumin and xantham gum. I'm not saying it was bad or anything, but it wasn't a great oyster.

Well, nuts to that, because we were back on track conceptually and tastefully with this terrific charcoal-grilled sole. The Mediterannean-themed sauces were variously vegetal and nutty (I want to say olive paste, basil, pine nut...), and the idea was to eat one bite with each. Maybe that's a bit of a conceit, but it was certainly varied, and the fish was certainly cooked very nicely. Also, they went to the effort of differentiating the bites of fish. See how in the middle there's a bit of orange garnish, and at the near end a single green leaf for the green sauce?

On top of the last bite you can just see the little 'gem', which from memory was a candy shell filled with olive oil. I could be wrong, but this was a fun way to hit a bit more flavor with a tiny crunch.

I reiterate, certainly cooked very nicely.

This 'Catalan Cod Pot Au Feu' was the second-best savory dish. Not that it had anything to do with pot au feu (and the cod was actually made from soy). I enjoyed this elaborate presentation (the arrangement of the pasta 'casserole' with vegetables especially), and the cooking of the cod was outstanding. I imagine it was sous vide, as the chef is known for that, but the flavor was extraordinary and the texture was a first for me (in a good way; the champagne gum was a first too).

In retrospect, they should lay off on pouring sauces and soups at the table. It's repetitive. But without this they would have no right whatsoever to call it a pot au feu.

And finally, suckling pig - another Catalan staple transformed to their style. I didn't think of it at the time, but maybe this is more directional eating like the fish. You could start with the first bite with just the deliciously crispy-skinned pork, then move on to the watermelon ball with embedded herb, then a bite of green onion, then repeat. In retrospect, I wonder if this is a joke about Chinese duck - served crisp-skinned with red peppers and green onions.

I was more than happy with all this. I can also imagine being happier (especially the oysters, but also the pig to some extent), but the creativity and flavor were well-balanced. I think this was great cooking, within the bounds of normalcy. I was also very surprised that the savory courses were already over, after spending 3+ hours and 25 courses on them the preceding night!

Of course, dessert, is where things got really impressive and weird, so let's not get up from the table for too long...

Figueres: Chocolate, ham, but not together

September 2nd, 2009. 1 PM.

On the way between Cadaques (base for El Bulli dinner) and Girona (dinner at Can Roca, #5 on the World's Best Restaurants list), we stopped by the medium-sized town of Figueres. This was mainly to visit the Dali museum, which we found disappointingly mobbed. As a result of the 1-hour-looking line to get in, we gave it a miss and just enjoyed walking around the town a bit. This is just some random pictures from Figueres, including our casual lunch on a bench on Las Ramblas in the middle of town.

Estrella seems to be the biggest brewer, at least around Barcelona where it's based, and their flagship beer is indeed Damm. I didn't stop chuckling over this all week. They make a low-calorie version called Damm Free.

Ohhh, I see - you were expecting architecture shots? No. Here'a chocolate shop that we wandered by and stopped in to. I have to say, I love the Catalan use of X's - Xocolata!

Inside was cool as a fridge, which is a good thing because it WAS a fridge. All the chocolates were just sitting out on the counter in neat rows like this. I question the dustiness as well as the ability to keep the temperature constant, but I love the aesthetic of it!

More gratuitous landscape shots.

Unstoppable. The sad thing is, based on what we bought here, it was just OK.

Big jars of macarons are always a welcome sight - so festive! Again, I don't think these will be quite the same as Pierre Herme, but the casual attitude toward them is very liberating for someone who lives in Tokyo, the un-liberation capital of the free world.





It was really time to eat, and I was really trying to steer things into a light lunch so that we'd be pleasantly set for a great dinner at The Fifth Best Restaurant In The World that night. Thus I suggested ham, cheese and bread on the street. This isn't an original idea; we had already walked past a terribly impressive ham seller caled Can Marti, and it seemed to be calling my name. I could swear that I saw Can Marti elsewhere (like Barcelona), but on the web site it looks like a single store. I feel good about that.

These chunks of pork...just sitting in the cooler...whispering "Jon...Jon...". Of course they were also saying "Andre..." if you were listening in the right way. There's so much meat here that the whole picture looks red and marbled.

The helpful butchers had helpfull set out some suggested options at all price points. Not one to beat around the bush on these things, I jumped on the two most expensive options for ham and ordered up a healthy serving of each.

I like to call this picture The Hamming Gardens Of Babylon. Actually I don't, I just made it up. But it's very much in keeping with the Dali theme of Figueres, as well as the ham theme.

This was the top of their line. Thick sliced, strong flavored...a little dry. Disappointing, honestly.

Second from the top, this was older and dryer and also had more marbling in a darkly fatty way. Maybe it's the style; if so, I don't like that style as much as the sweet, creamy, lovingly delicious ham I'm going to be blogging about when I finally reach the point of Friday's lunch (it's still Tuesday lunch in this blog's world).

Across from Las Ramblas was this cute coffee shop, Royal. I just took some pictures.

And here, the inside. Crookedness is caused by my desire not to stop in front of the place and take a picture of the patrons. I may be American, but I'm not that rude. Thus I took it on the fly, and it's kinda crooked. Ahh, for the time to fix all these pictures.

El Bulli, Roses: 3/3 - Sweets

The switch to sweets is unclear at El Bulli (as is the nature of the whole dinner and many of the courses). Our meal had already been underway for hours at this point. You would be flagging too, I promise. I keep thinking about this, and even if I look at the pictures and think critically, I can't understand the thematic development. It's hard for me to believe that they serve you 30+ things with no effort to connect between them though. As I said before with some of the weirder courses, I believe that the chefs mean everything they're doing. It just may be that they're more used to the challenging stuff than the diners are, and similarly that transitions that look clever on paper are too complex for someone to grasp when they're eating. 'Cuz it's eating, after all.

So here's something simple, technically clever, immensely refreshing, and just plain neat to start the sweet portion. It's a 'pond', which is a frozen glass bowl filled with a layer of ice. Just a layer, mind you. Under that layer the bowl is empty! Except possibly for some menthol flavor, which is either in the bowl or in the ice. I say menthol advisedly, because it was stronger than mints that you're used to. Curiously strong (R)?

Onto the surface of the pond they sprinkle brown sugar crystals...

And then green tea powder. And then you're allowed to crack the ice, which is fun and childlike, and then it's all minty and refreshing. Ready to go back for more courses!

Which is funny, because the first dessert kinda takes you back to the beginning of the meal - still refreshing, and in fact a cocktail. The orange bar is a slightly-slushy frozen passion fruit whisky sour. It was ridiculously refreshingly, errrrr, sour. The white thing, I dunno.

Then another technical item, refreshing and cooling but in a soothing and non-sharp way. This 10-inch ball of frozen coconut milk comes to the table whole, and after a brief pause while you admire the technical craftsmanship, the server cracks into it with a spoon.

And sprinkles curry powder on it, leaving you the shaker. It's weird - very pure flavor of coconut (because there's nothing else in it, I presume), with the flavor of curry, which usually indicates savory, while being cold and giving you the expectation of dessert-ness. No way to finish this, and it's funny to watch yours or the ones on other tables melt and devolve - homage to Dali?! Let's not overthink.

I believe the menu calls this 'puff pastry of pineapple'. We all found it to be verily void of value.

'Roses' was a funny dessert - again with the intense, sour flavors. I guess that's a refreshing theme for September 1st when it's still hot? What I remember about this was that the rose on the left was a very strong cassis puree, while the white stuff under the foam was yogurt-based. I don't remember any of it having any sugar to speak of. It was a bit much, but the technique was lovely, especially on the rose. Other than that, it looks a bit like many of the blobby plates that I've seen from prior years. I think I understand the blobbiness now though - El Bulli is less focused on presentation than I thought. It's more conceptual - "two flavors + 1 technique" - and if the result doesn't look like much, who cares?

There's a lot of speculation about how different the menu is between days and between tables. I'll tell you, our menu was very different from the others I've seen from 2009 - half or so compared to people who ate only a month apart (I think that's a lot, don't you?). I wasn't sure if other tables were getting different things on the night, but when I went to the bathroom at one point I saw another table eating this shellfish platter, and I was bummed. It looked so fresh and inviting...that I had to laugh when it showed up at our table and I realized I had been fully tricked and it was really the last dessert. Nice one. Great twist to finish!

Again, I saw another writer talking about how this giant lemon had been dehydrated and rehydrated. I'm not sure if that's true - at all. It's awfully juicy for that to be the case. The fact is, the skin was processed in some way such that it was completely edible and in fact sweet, while the flesh wasn't especially sour. I think part of both of those aspects was due to the type of lemon it is; I've read about these big Mediterannean lemons, and don't really know what to expect from them. But this piece that I ate, procesed or natural, was delicious. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd make up something like "cooked at low temperature in sugar solution, and maybe injected with more sugar". Who cares. Loved it.

And the shellfish! So cute! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise - this is a lychee (jelly, I think) pressed into the mussel shell. Nothing fancy beyond the presentation, really.

In the cockles was a star anise ice cream or the like. Again, a funny Asian twist on things, but very edible and enjoyable.

It's normal to get 'morphings' after these desserts, which are...well, I dunno, because we didn't get them. I think they're just more little surprises. Instead we got a humidor, packed to the absolute gills with chocolate-based petit fours (which could qualify as a big surprise). Looking at this is making me feel a little sick. I didn't even have room to try them all. Oog. The craziest thing is that it was all chocolate. The gravelly stuff under the individual nuggets is in fact chocolate gravel. The red plastic was only red plastic. I think. I didn't bite it.

Freeze-dried strawberries dipped in white chocolate. On the right are these odd spidery, rooty red things (blow up the picture) that were chocolate with a red powder coating (rasperry or beets, I have no memory).

The sponge technique made another appearance, this time (I think) with white chocolate. Actually I don't mind it reappearing here, because for a number of other diners it showed up as a black sesame sponge with miso paste earlier in the meal. That would have been +1 Nuts, -1 Japanese Influence.

Mini chocolate bars in various colors. No idea about flavors. Ooog. It's a rarity for me to see candy and not want to eat more, but oy my oog.

Finally, the far side of the humidor was filled with these rows of herbal chocolate leaves. Note that there is a third row under the mint leaves. Oog. Note also that we were a table of 4, and there are at least 10 of each of these. Oog. After a series of bite-sized plates, this was a sledgehammer of chocolate. It was sort of like the bottomless rice and soup at the end of a Japanese meal - 'fill up the cracks'.

Somehow, we had managed to be among the last patrons to leave the restaurant, so this is what we saw on the way out. I love this decor, and I especially like it like this, with the lights a little dim. Considering the sated, braindead frame of mind we were in, it was wonderful to feel like we were the last people, and that we were closing the restaurant down with the staff. Mellow. Chillaxed.














Would I go back? Sure, I guess. I love the fact that the menu was completely different than anything I had seen from previous years. Some of the techniques persisted, some of the flavors were similar, but it was all new. I got no sense, none at all, that the kitchen is past its prime or that the chefs are repeating past glories (the skeptic says "because they had none!" haha). Look at the lack of nitro use, the judicious application of foam, the limited quantities of LYO or whatever other processes and chemicals have been reviled in the past. I don't know what it's growing and evolving into, but the experience is certainly growing and evolving.

Also, I dispute the oft-muttered statement that the produce is low-quality. Where there was produce in its natural form (the shellfish and cephalopods being prime examples, except when they were filled with frozen sweets), the quality was excellent. Most of the produce is remodeled so extensively that you can't tell what it was like originally, and I think that's the real problem for people in our terroir-driven, locally-sourced, 'cut the nuts off the bull myself' high-end restaurant culture. I really don't care if the vegetable or mineral was free range, battery-raised or chemically grown; I just want it to taste good.

But you can tell from the above that I had no great love for the taste. The experience, sure. But the food had too much nuttiness and too much Asian-ness for me, and I missed the traditional arc of a grand dinner through cold, hot, veg, fish, meat and sweet. I guess if I could have understood what they were trying to do it might have been better, but the fact remains that if the food doesn't connect with the diner, the experience will miss something. As this did, for me.

But it wasn't missing enough to make me unhappy or bitter, and you know why? Because it was fascinating! I don't think there's a rule that says a restaurant is a place that offers things that taste great according to a certain set of criteria. I got to eat things I've never eaten before - ingredients, tastes, textures, the whole lot. Couple that with the joy of the unexpected and the occasional straight-up delicious item, and you've got a world-beating proposition.

That's why I plan to...well, probably give it a year or two before even trying to apply again. There's still a lotta foie and sashimi I'd like to eat.

El Bulli, Roses: 2/3 - Mains

At some point in the past, some wag must have offered the opinion that Ferran Adria has a persecution complex. That hypothetical (or apocryphal) person would have had a field day with the decor near where we were sitting - not only this sculpture high up in a niche in the wall, but also various art pieces that looked to have been donated by friends of El Bulli. These feature the restaurant logo, and in at least one case, Ferran's face. As I said before, I think this sort of criticism is misplaced, and the headshots probably shouldn't be taken for that kind of adoration, but it was a funny way to be greeted as we came into the body of the restaurant and sat down.

We were, unfortunately, in the inner room. This is a bit more formal, though not much - it has a separate area up 4 steps that contains several couches as well as the above artwork. I'll show you the main room later - it has a really cool Spanish-Rococco-beach-shack sort of decor. If you're lucky enough to go with a party of 4, I think you should ask for the sunken round table by the bar in that room. It's a little separate and looks the best.

The three tables for two across the room from us were occupied by couples of the young-and-handsome variety. One of our party described them as 'fund manager and trophy wife', if that helps you picture it. Two of them actually knew each other in advance. The big table at the front of this picture was empty until almost 10 PM when a group of Spaniards came in; since the restaurant assigns the start times, I can only imagine that they followed the 'locals eat late' philosophy. Their arrival also fortunately dispelled the idea that the inner room was only for English speakers...but if I ever go back, I'm still asking for the main room.

With that grumbling out of the way, we were off to the serious races...

...with flowers. Filled with nectar. Pick one up, pinch off the end, and suck the nectar out through the thin end. I'll spare you the picture of me with flower in mouth, OK? But this is fun. Sweet, tiny, cute...why not? I suppose this could be meant to confound expectations since the 'serious' part of the meal starts with something so manifestly playful, reminiscent of childhood honeysuckle (which I discovered was not part of anyone else's childhood!).

This coconut sponge was not appreciably less playful. I think I saw this texture described somewhere as a 'loofah', and that's pretty accurate (except really soft). It's coconut milk somehow softly frozen into this shape, yet pliable. It melted a little in your hands, then fully in your mouth. And tasted like coconut milk, but that's OK because it's about the texture (or the technical process, some would say. But those reviewers are...). Incidentally, it's another nut-based dish (loosely; coco-...+1).

Things got odder after that with this funny twist on Japanese food - nori-like sheets of raspberry, with wasabi. Cute, no?

And we continued in the raspberry vein with these actual nori handrolls, filled with raspberry sorbet. I wish I could remember the taste of these, because they were fun.

Even more fun when you've never had one before is an oyster leaf, in this case with a few drops of vinegarette 'dew'. I had never had one before, so this was fantastic! When you're in the El Bulli mindset, it's very tempting to think that they've done some kind of amazing process that makes this small, spinach-like leaf taste exactly like an oyster. My theory was that the faint white dusting on the leaf was dried oyster powder, which seems like the sort of technical foolishness they'd get up to. In fact, this is a completely natural ingredient - it's a plant that tastes for all the world like a nice, fresh oyster rolled up in a spinach leaf. It's uncanny. It was much less uncanny when we had them the next night at a different restaurant...(and I note that the next night's leaf was lower-quality, take that you El Bulli produce haterz).  Incidentally, note how instead of receiving an actual oyster with vinegar for an appetizer, you get...a leaf. On a very pretty plate.

Continuing to play with basic flavors in weird forms, this was a chicken canape that tasted like yakitori on a cracker. Only the meat was softened (very softened) chicken cartilege, and the cracker was crisply fried (very crisply-fried) chicken skin. The yakitori sauce was excellent. It would be nice to find a place using just that tare. The leaves looked kinda like pea sprouts, but I don't remember the taste. I was also worried about the sauce dripping through the plate onto the table, which seems to be a minor design flaw.

Things took a weird turn in the next two courses. This was Summer truffle two ways, and I think a play on the 'truffle' form, as in chocolates. They were 'one bite' concoctions because they had a truffled-flavored liquid inside that burst in your mouth. Different textures, with the farther one being wrapped in shaved truffle while the nearer one was in shredded truffle. Generally, no one found this cold, raw presentation to be that alluring; I suspect a bit of heat and some other flavor are needed to really get the truffle going.

I tried to consult the menu, but this course is just called 'Osmanthus', and employs El Bulli's 'single noodle spaghetti' technique, where they pipe some liquid into another and it sets there. Checking some other blogs, it looks like no one else really understood it either. I remember it as a spaghetti of hazelnuts in a soup of indeterminate oil (which must have been flavored with osmanthus flowers). I do remember that it was the grossest thing I ate all evening, and the rest of our table didn't finish it (I did, but only because...well, why not? Maybe it only gets good after you finish the whole bowl! Maybe it's a meditation on the aftertaste!)
Nuts, +1. This 'single noodle spaghetti' technique seems to get panned a lot in El Bulli reviews; I think it's too confronting for many people because of the texture. Another reviewer insists that it's 'reconstructed udon noodles', but I can't think of any reason why they'd serve a dish made from raw pasta dough.

Umeboshi on crackers. Tasted like umeboshi. Ferran, don't be gettin' all ninja on us...

Prawn, Two Firings was the subject of much enjoyment and discussion (actually someone remembers this as having been fired 3 times, but the name gives the lie to that; the review who thought it had 4 distinct temperature segments, from icy cold at one end to deep fried at the other, is also...). The point, I think, was to get the maximum value out of this lovely little prawn - best when the tail is barely cooked, but the legs are well cooked or even battered and fried. So this was batter on top and fried on a string or something, then the whole thing was dropped in briefly to finish (two firings?). Eat from the tail, you get the maximum benefit.

And after drink this spoonful of soup or sauce (Americaine) made from prawn heads. A whole prawn experience in optimized form, I think. If they could figure out how to get one segment of tail raw, maybe they would. Then you'd have raw, cooked and battered shrimp, and the best use of the heads (this replaces sucking the heads, which I'm not a huge fan of), all on one plate. If that's the intention, it was cute. If not, it still tasted great.

Like me, I'm sure you haven't been keeping track, so I'll point out that all courses until now have been finger-oriented. We received forks just before this dish. Which was almonds. Lots of almonds. Nuts ++++. But it's almonds different ways - fresh, gelled, frozen, re-formed almond butter. With a mound of tomato-water sorbet (in the back) and nut oil. And a slice of apricot (?), covered in red shiso (I sort of remember it as mango, but not the flavor, and I saw someone else call it apricot (could be) in olive powder (no). I'm also sure it's not a 'dehydrated and re-hydrated tangerine slice'.). Tomato, nuts, fruit...all added up to something a little disturbing, I think because of the contrast between the sorbet and the oil pool. I do love almonds.

Cockles with fennel and yuzu. The cockles are the brown bits; they were not at all the equals of those at Rias de Galicia (no crime in that, though). The fennel was soft and roasted, and obviously had some green oil on it. I would swear that the 2 and 8 o'clock bites on the plate were actually preserved lemon segments, but they were described as yuzu. I have no idea how this was supposed to fit together, but it didn't do a lot for me. I was also worried about cutting too close to the plates sloping edges; it was actually a raised platform with two sides having long legs bent from the same material as the top and rounding over to the table. Not much leakage protection, but we're not here for practicality!

This is, indeed, (steamed?) rose petals and artichoke petals with pesto, silver foil and some oil (I'd like to say nuts +1 but can't remember). Flowers make a thematic reappearance. I was disappointed at the sloppiness of the silver leaf applique, but this was unexpected and interesting, if not especially appetizing.

At our table this was the second-most disliked dish, after the single-strand spaghetti. While resembling a sandwich (cruel joke on cheesesteaks, the chosen sandwich of god), the bread is sort of pumpkin-flavored styrofoam, while the filling is mainly those summer truffles again, sliced thinly, topped with fresh almonds (again) and pumpkin oil. I'm not sure if it's thematic or repetitive when things appear in dishes multiple times (like nuts, +1), but I'd like them to be a bit elaborated. I got a spot of the bright-orange filling oil on my sleeve while eating. I thought for a couple days whether I should ever wash the shirt again, but in the end gave in, and mysteriously the stain came right out in water. Thus it probably wasn't oil in the way that I thought.

I see through a bit of a browse that some people thought this was a great dish (although they were rapt at the 'generous shavings of white truffle', which is sad considering that these are black summer truffles. It's great to be colorblind and not prejudiced, but for me white is always going to be better than black when it comes to truffles). Other reviewers thought this was an adaptation of ravioli through the inclusion of ingredients somewhat like a pumpkin agnolotti with pine nuts and truffles, or an adaptation of traditional Spanish sandwiches with truffles acting as ham, or a meditation on the levels of the earth, with truffles being roots, pumpkin growing at ground level, and almonds growing on trees. I dunno. I just didn't like it that much. The styrofoamy bread is weird in a way that I couldn't forgive considering how the taste was also lacking.

Have you noticed how little foam there's been up to now? And how little liquid nitrogen? Maybe it was used in other ways (God only knows how they made the 'bread' above), but it's not obvious in every dish where the trickery comes in. I respect that - many of the dishes are straightforward juxtapositions of ingredients, perhaps one with a technical element. But there are rarely that many things going on (cf recent fine dining where meats have to be presented three ways or more to qualify for admission: chicken leg, wing-shaped nitro-foam which is actually a clever pun because it's made from egg, and caramelized cock's comb). It's almost like they have a rule about how much you can complicate a dish, with each ingredient and technique taking up a space.

Anyway, here's some foam! Thing is, this was one of the favorite dishes on the night. It's sea anemone (the green, tangled, strandy things) with caviar and seaweed jelly, and I think the foam was lemon-ish (grass or verbena or something). I'm still kinda excited that I ate sea anemone, and anyway it was a unique texture and a nice, subtle, gently-crunchy ocean taste. I would love to eat this again to confirm.

When the grand palace restaurants of Paris can serve TV dinners, El Bulli can serve pre-packaged condiments. These were two varieties of pine nuts and one of spiced oil, I think, to be eaten in order. It's funny that they served this playful, dare I say it, nutty (+1) course between two delicate fish items, but I think there must be an internal logic to it.

Especially when you consider that the condiment packages were technical items - they dissolved in water, so you had to dip quickly in this 'shabu shabu' liquid and then eat. This was playfully served in a cup with a rounded bottom, which required a ring-shaped base in order to stand up. I playfully failed to notice this, and barely saved the cup from draining onto my lap after I playfully placed it directly on the table. Perhaps the conceptual ephemerality of the packages was meant to offset the heaviness of the nut-ness within, leaving it balanced as an intermezzo between seafoods? Riiiiight.

That's especially believable when you consider that the next two seafood 'mains' were quite strong in flavor. This squid dish was excellent - again, anyone who tells you El Bulli can't source a good squid and cook it to perfection is just wrong. If you find something to ruined, it's very likely they wanted it to have that aspect (though presumably the chefs didn't find it gross like you), but I can't imagine anyone finding this dish to be ruined. It's Thai at heart; I think the brown pool was largely tamarind-flavored, but in any case we all agreed that it was a good use of standard Thai flavors. A little disappointing, actually, since the flavors were so standard, but the taste and cooking were wonderful. I especially liked the finely-sliced, noodley bits on the far right of the plate; they were served facing the diner and led down into the body of the squid (which was also topped by small cuttlefish that you can't really distinguish above). This was one of the best dishes for me, and I'm pleased to say that it doesn't show up in a lot of other reviews (I'm pleased because the others have a lot of things I wish I had eaten!).

This abalone presentation was nuts. I think the point is sort of to reconstruct an abalone in its shell on a rock with seaweed, don't you? The abalone was very well cooked and tasty (assuming you like abalone), sliced and reassambled. Around it, the oval 'shell' portion was made of shimeji mushrooms cooked in a thickened Chinese-style sauce, and the antler-like green bits were probably seaweed in addition to imitating seaweed conceptually. That's a good trick, conceptually imitating something that you actually are.

From this angle, the replay shows how the mollusc was cut and reassembled (someone else described it as 'raw abalone alternating with blocks of lardo', but ours was certainly cooked. I'm not sure what the light-colored blocks were, but solid lard?). One thing I can't show you is how salty this was. It was one of the other times on the trip when my ordinarily salt-loving tongue was stunned into submission and crawled whimpering into my throat.

As I think about it, the overall appeal of this dish was indeed a bit Chinese, which lines up with the use of the popular luxury ingredient.

Not sure why this was called Natural Scampi, but there's nothing very natural about being split in two down your tail! Poor scampi... I thought this was an excellent-quality scampi, and the presentation was beautiful, what with the salt and the elaborate silver serving tray and all. The bummer of it was the sesame sauces (nuts +1; one a sweetened whole sesame and the other ground sesame/tahini), which totally overpowered the taste of the scampi. Poor little guy, going to waste like that. I'm now wondering if I missed the eating directions on this, because eating any of the sesame before any of the scampi would have guaranteed destruction of shrimpy flavors.

Sea cucumber? This was actually very pleasant, soft and yielding, much like a...the only issue was that the flavor was based on XO sauce, which didn't impress our Chinese member very much. Like the Thai dish before, it was viewed as a somewhat obvious take on ethnic flavor. But a great surprise since it was an ingredient that I think of as being gross, but the taste and texture were pleasant (or better).

This is one of the dishes that they're referring to when they ask you to confirm your dislikes and allergies before arrival. And also why they ask you that question before the food starts. And also why they specifically say "Can you eat rabbit brains and kidneys? And snail eggs?"  The crackers here seem in my memory to be like the fried chicken skin earlier, but I think they were just crackers. This was pretty great, actually - on the bounds of textural and flavoral acceptability, but on the right side of them and pushing outward a bit. The plate is cool too, isn't it? Reminds me of some of the sea creatures we ate earlier.

Snail eggs. Something like two Euros per gram. Difficult to harvest, somewhat innocuous of taste (the harvester even says that, not me), inferior to salmon eggs in texture...

I have one regret about our whole evening, and we've now come to it. After course after course of complete weirdness, one member of our party started to crack (I tried to get everyone ready for dinner with pep talks, but the food exceeded my expectations). Some normalcy was required. She ordered a coke. They were very nice about it, and promptly brought a coke in a glass bottle, and this glass of ice and lemon. But they left it on the sideboard, because the sommelier is evidently meant to serve all drinks on the first pour or something. He picked up the bottle, examined it, looked around in a horrified, quizzical way until he found the waitress, confirmed visually that this foul thing had in fact been ordered, and then looked at it in a quizzical and horrified way for a while.
And I didn't manage to take a picture. Shit.

Going from memory, this was lamb kidneys with ham soup and chamomille oil. The lamb kidneys were confronting - I don't think they were even sous vide, they were just barely cooked. Taste and texture was aggressive. The ham soup sounds nice but was lost or overpowered by the weirdness of nearly-raw kidneys. The chamomille oil, an invisible slick to the left of the meat, was an odd touch. No idea how this fit together. I'd have to eat it again and see if I could get used to it!

At this point we were pretty eager for another break and were happy to realize that the main dishes had finished. The first break we took was a little weirder. I had been led to believe by other reviewers that dining here was a luxurious and high-service affair, and if you got tired at some point during the onslaught of confronting dishes, you could raise your hand and ask for a couple minutes, at the convenience of the kitchen. When I tried this, the waitress seemed taken aback by the request. I know all the dishes are served with pinpoint timing, so I tried to make it clear that we would do it at the convenience of the kitchen, but she still seemed harried. Eventually someone else came over and told us to "Go right now!" It's a lot to take in, and you're paying for it, so I still think it's worth stepping out when you're tired.

Interestingly, here's what the kitchen looked like at this point - practically shut down. This is from the stairs that I showed in the first post. I guess the 'sweet' side of the kitchen, which I think is in a different room, is pulling the heavy duty at this stage of the night, and that's where we'll turn in the third post.

As you've noticed if you read through everything above (and are still reading), 2009 is clearly the breakout year for food blogging. There are tons of exhaustive treatments of the El Bulli experience online from this season (half of which seem to be written by gay men; I especially liked the comic book-style one). I'm a little sad that all of this writing is less special as a result but, like the El Bulli service experience, it's a good reminder that there really isn't anything that special about going to an expensive restaurant and eating a load of food. The epiphany is only in your head. I hope you liked the pictures at least!

El Bulli, Roses: 1/3 - Arrival, Snacks

September 1st, 2009. 8 PM.

It's hard to anticipate something for 10 months. It's even harder when it's The Best Restaurant In the World. You know I mean that ironically, right?  But it wasn't too long after Luis Garcia 'found a solution' in December 2008 for my friend Andre that El Bulli was voted into that title again for the 4th consecutive year and the 5th in total (2002). Every year the Top 50 list is peculiar (for example, it's unlikely that the best Japanese restaurant in the world is in New York, or that the list's only restaurant in Japan should be French and get tepid reviews domestically).  But it's still a list, and El Bulli is still #1. Again. And again. No one else has a list, not even Michelin. You have to respect the magazine for being bold enough to do something this silly, and you have to respect the restaurant for doing whatever it's doing to keep being #1. Even if it's just marketing.

Of course, El Bulli has been doing this at the same level for a long time. Many restaurants get tired, bored, old, after this many years. The chef moves on to other things, whether it's a different style or a different venue or an international chain of burger shops that cash in on his good name while providing a franchised version of the service and dishes that made him famous. In other cases, chefs reach fame and simply stop what they're doing - same menu, same dishes, same service, everything petrified (and in the worst case, Bernard Loiseau). Read a good essay about this by someone who knows much better than me here.  This is what was on my mind as we dressed for dinner, overlooking the Mediterranean. Did I mention how much I enjoyed staying in Cadaques? It's a 45-minute drive to El Bulli, but well worth it. No, the road through the national park is not drivable. We hiked some of it it in the morning, and it's a hiking trail.

The drive has distinct parts if you do it this way - back over the hills out of the sheltered Cadaques bay, down the mountain to Roses, a short tour of town that makes you glad you're not staying there, and then up another hill into scrubby brushland, exposed rock faces and pine trees. After twisting through this landscape, you start to see the ocean again, and then this is your first glimpse of the small bay where El Bulli lives. I'm glad it was still twilight so we could really appreciate it. Some reviewers describe the descent along the hills overlooking the bay as 'terrifying' or 'dangerous dirt roads'. They are wrong. It's really beautiful. The road is paved. Although it doesn't have guard rails...

It's quiet and pleasant - the only other things there are a hostel and some beachfront amenities. If you blow up this picture, you'll just be able to see the restaurant sign - the small lit patch in the middle. This sort of modesty can cut two ways - they're certainly under-promising and trying to reset your expectations by not having a more grand approach. But they can't reset you all the way - after 10 months (and maybe some previous failed attempts to get a booking) you come here expecting the Meal of Your Life at The Best Restaurant In the World. I wondered whether they were interested in delivering that experience.

The view from the parking lot is beautiful, no? While we contemplate this, a few points I'd like to mention.

Many people go to El Bulli in the wrong frame of mind. They expect to get bread with the food. They expect to get food with the food. It's not necessarily like that. You have to expect to be fed and surprised, and hopefully delighted, and you'll leave full.

But I say 'not neccessarily' advisedly - the dishes we ended up having are almost completely different from what I saw in reviews from previous years. I saw a TV piece that really decided my view of El Bulli. Anthony Bourdain visited the restaurant and sat at the kitchen table. As they ate together, (chef Ferran) Adria was beside himself with excitement over each dish - he wanted to see Bourdain eat it, and hopefully enjoy it, because he loved them so much. After seeing that, I no longer gave any credence to the idea that El Bulli is making stuff up for the sake of it, or, as other reviewers put it, 'chemistry experiment', 'emperor's new clothes', 'made me gag'. Those reviewers are wrong. I was convinced that the chefs were there to make things that taste good, and they really meant all of what they served. They've got different tongues from me, and I from you, so they might like something I found vile. I also suspect that, as consistently adventurous eaters, they're used to lots of things that freak out other people, but as long as the intention is there, why not give it a fair go? And a fair go is required, since the menu changes all the time and is probably never less than adventurous. If you manage to go, chances of you having any of the dishes that will follow are slim.

I hope that wasn't too pompous. It just pains me when people make confident blanket statements based solely on their own perceptions, like "The food was crap" or "Those reviewers are wrong."

These stairs are just to the right of the front door, but I never found out where they go. The lights you can see at the left are actually the kitchen. They do make food in the kitchen. It's not all chemically grown and brought in on flatbeds.

The greeting at the door was as muted as the sign. I don't actually recall them saying 'Welcome' or 'Hey, it's El Bulli!' or anything. It was more like "We all know why we're here, so let's skip the chitchat and get to work, OK?" Any excitement would be unseemly.

Another piece of evidence in Adria's favor - he's in the kitchen every night. Wearing an apron. I'll always remember how I went to Charlie Trotter in 1997 and Chef was there, stopping by our table to say hello...in a tweed jacket and obviously on his way out the door. I don't require a chef to be sweating it out every night, but I certainly appreciate the passion or obsessiveness of one who does. On this night, when we walked through the kitchen (as everyone is required to do before eating; it's part of the ritual), he was right there (on the right), looking pensive and a bit distracted. We shook hands. As everyone is required to do.

And here, the view from the first table. As with the other elements of service, I felt like there wasn't much interactivity. We weren't going to say no to taking our aperitifs and snacks on the terrace, overlooking the Mediterranean, but there wasn't really an option. Like the greeting, like the kitchen tour, it's a bit perfunctory. Maybe Basques are like that. Maybe you shouldn't expect to have the Best Meal of Your Life anywhere, just be happy if you get it. (I should say up front that I really enjoyed the experience, so any grumpiness is minor in the overall picture.)

Another thing, I didn't take any notes. I take too many pictures as it is, so I resolved early in the trip that I'd just take the pictures, and if a dish wasn't memorable enough for me to remember what was in it, that would be fine.

Everyone starts with cocktails. Previous years have included much more dramatic things, like carved ice blocks filled with margarita foam onto which rock salt is freshly grated. Ours was pleasantly understated - mojitos and caipirinhas. In stick form. These are made by soaking fresh sugarcane in the appropriate liquor; you bite and suck, then discard the pulp. I think it's a play on the fact that sugarcane becomes sugar, and then rum, and then mojitos, but I don't like reading that much into things. Good.

And snacks started at the same time. This 'handkerchief' was an eat-with-your-hands sheet of corn-flavored paper. Sweet, nutty and delicious, a favorite of everyone. Very good.

Did I say nutty? One of the oddest surprises of this meal was the way the menu revolved around nuts. I haven't noticed this single-theme bias in other people's reviews, so I can conclude only that we were a little unlucky in what happened to be on offer this year. This month. Today.

The second batch of cocktails was a gin fizz, I believe. It was really another quick burst of surprise, since the gin mixture was topped by a hot foam.

Which had the consistency of real shaving cream, if you've ever had a shave from a barber who uses a foam dispenser. Hot foam on top of a cold drink was neat. There was too much happening on the table as the snacks below arrived, so it was lukewarm by the time I got close to the bottom. Part of the difficulty is that they serve so many things so quickly here; if you're OK snacking on them, it's cool, but I suspect many people try to eat everything as it comes, which is tough. You're all keyed up for the meal of Your Life, it's natural to gobble a little.





With little ado, they serve what may be El Bulli's signature dish - olives. There were actually people at our table who had not read about these, and I think that's great. Makes it all the more surprising. Also a good introduction to the 'specific eating techniques' portion of the evening - you'll be in serious trouble if you try to nibble.

Because they're not olives, they're gelatinous spheres filled with olive oil and concentrated olive flavor. They're good. Many people think they're a-MAZ-ing. I DO think the concept and execution are excellent, and a perfect illustration of the restaurant's philosophy. I love how they serve them in jars filled with oil and herbs, and they look mostly like the olives you expect, but they're different and in some ways better. They're not olives, they're their own great thing. If you were to say "I had olives at Cal Pep for 1 Euro that blew these away!", you'd be stating your preference for traditionally-constituted things, not invalidating the existence of El Bulli. Don't lay your trip on them, maaaaaan.



These peanuts were another technical dish, since they were thin, frozen shells filled with peanut butter. Clever, nutty (did someone say nutty?), eat-in-two-seconds-or-else...I tried and failed to perform the necessary, and ended up with peanut butter on my hands when the shell flash-melted and sort of exploded. Fortunately not on my pants.

Someone said 'nuts' again. These are sesame with sesame. I don't remember the technical details or texture; they weren't outstanding, but were a nice snack.

And this is vanilla film. The play between salty and sweet continues throughout the night, and is a bit unsettling for normal eaters (including me). Come to think of it, this may not actually have been sweet, and I may just be confused in memoriam by the fact that it was vanilla.

This was the first of several 'Asian moments', most of which were slightly disappointing to those at our table who are or who live in Asia. Which was everyone. Thankfully the course was not the unmitigated Japanese-fest of some prior years, and these nuggets were also a good idea. They're actually cherries, pickled like umeboshi. More sweet, less sour, refreshing (it was actually getting a bit hot on the terrace already)...would be worth trying at home if you could get ready access to a lot of cherries. And these cool bent-metal plates.





So that's it for the 'approach shots'. I'm not counting courses, but I think those were about 35% nut-oriented. Most people who are expecting the Meal of Their Life start keeping score around this point; the corn paper handkerchief was a terrific combination of flavor and technique, while the drinks were fun and the cherries were a neat twist. I didn't like the vanilla film, but others did. And that's fine - those are the expectations you should have.

Some people will be puzzled...

While others will be overjoyed.

At any rate, we were having plenty of fun, and more than ready to get into the serious food.