Enjoying Catalan Cooking

Cataluña has built a reputation for fine, innovative restaurants. Most famously, Ferdinand Adriá’s El Bulli, located in Roses, a small town up the Mediterranean coast from Barcelona, often is cited as the best restaurant in the world. We have regularly been enjoying far more modest restaurants, both in the neighborhood and the Barri Gotic, that offer straightforward preparation of (mostly) traditional Catalan dishes (perhaps a post for another day). But until recently we had not tried any of the more ambitious restaurants offering “New Catalan” cooking. Robert provided the spur to do so by gifting us for Christmas with dinner at a restaurant of our choice.

Choosing was itself fun, as we enjoyed reading online descriptions and reviews of some of the alternatives in Barcelona – Comerc 24, Cinc Sentits, Hisop, Abac, to name a few. We settled on Alkimia, a one-star Michelin restaurant that also turns out to be a “neighborhood” restaurant since it is only a few blocks away from our flat.

Then all we had to do was wait for the day and time of our reservation. Waiting for the time was the most difficult: in true Spanish style the earliest evening reservation is at 9pm. The restaurant itself is fairly small – perhaps 20 tables – with a minimalist décor. The emphasis definitely is on the food.
Alkimia specializes in reinventions of Catalan dishes. So we decided to order the Menú de Tradicions – a series of small servings of traditional Catalan specialties. Each was both superb, and inventive.

I certainly can’t find words that do justice to the food, but here are descriptions of the dishes -- in some cases with a clip of the menu description for those who would like to translate the Catalan.

1. “P’amb tomaquet” a la Alkimia: Small chunks of toasted bread floating in essence of tomato, filtered tomato juice, with a little olive oil added, all served in a small, narrow column of a glass with a thin slice of saucisson laid on top. This dish is a deconstruction of p’amb tomàquet (bread with tomato), the traditional Catalan dish made by topping toasted bread slices with olive oil, and then rubbing the bread with a quarter of fresh tomato and sprinkling with a little sea salt.

2. Small portion of white beans (a staple of Catalan cooking), with a piece of grilled calçots (the spring onion adored by Catalans – see the earlier post) in chicken broth, topped with a frothy emulsion of butter.

3. Slices of raw, marinated tuna and the “shell” of a tomato, with dollops of “cheese” (a bit like fromage blanc), served on a base of strawberry sauce. (The tomato shell was a peeled tomato with its inside removed, leaving flesh with a color and consistency very similar to the tuna slices. Only when we bit into a tomato slice did we realize tomato was mixed in with the tuna.)
4. A small cannelloni filled with intensely flavored chicken, coated with thick béchamel sauce and topped by bits of toasted almonds, accompanied by a “bulls-eye” of layered sauces (probably chicken broth, olive oil and the béchamel) in a round depression in the plate.
5. Rice with saffron topped with a crawfish -- a rich variation on paella de mariscos.
6. Sea bass with small potatoes in a white sauce.

7. Small slices of beautifully rare, perfectly marbled beef accompanied by tiny deep-fried potato slices (no, I won't call them potato chips), drizzled with an egg yolk sauce -- all served on a heated slab of slate. (At least we think it was beef; bou can mean either beef or ox in Catalan, but it sure tasted like beef.) And for desserts, or postres:

8. Peach "gazpacho”: tiny cubes of cucumber and fruit in a “soup” of peach purée accompanied by dollops of yoghurt.
9. Small square of a coffee-caramel cake accompanied by vanilla ice cream in a lemon sauce.

10. A plate of three small “candies” (macaroon; a chocolate with coconut center; a square of layered coffee, yoghurt and fruit) plus a ball of chocolate-covered mint ice cream served on a wooden skewer stuck into a holder on the plate.

Each dish arrived in a distinctive serving plate custom-shaped for that dish.

A truly memorable meal, one of the best we can remember; each dish offering its own incredibly rich, intense, and contrasting flavors and textures. Trying to think of others worthy of comparison kept taking us back to the best meals we’ve had in France. But of all of them I think this was probably the most inventive cooking I have ever enjoyed.

Fruits and Vegetables

Have we mentioned recently how much we are enjoying the abundance of excellent fruits and vegetables in Barcelona?

Here is Pat posing on our balcony with the blog-worthy treasure trove she returned with an hour ago.
And they were a great bargain (you will note that Pat is smiling).

• 2 kilos of artichokes (count of 9) for 1 euro (about $1.25 now)
  
• 2 kilos of tomatoes (15) for 1 euro
• 1 kilo of big ripe stawberries for 2 euros

Furthermore, when the price is quoted for 2 (or 3) kilos, you are not allowed to buy less. When Pat went to the counter with less than 2 kilos of tomatoes, they sent her back for more to make weight.

She was happy to comply.

¡Calçots!

While out walking this past Sunday midday, we saw a notice that a calçotada -- a calçots feast -- was starting soon in a nearby plaza in Gracia. Calçots are a Catalan specialty; large, sweet. spring onions generated by re-sprouting previously harvested onions.

When we arrived, the plaza already was filled with people having a good time.

Traditional calçots preparation was underway. First, string the calçots on lengths of wire and put on the grill.Regularly re-stock the fire with vine clippings so that it stays hot and burns with a nice low flame to char the calçots.
When nicely charred, take the calçots off the fire and wrap in paper to steam and stay warm until served.
Meanwhile, prepare the special calçots sauce. Grind together in a mortar garlic, olive oil, almonds and hazelnuts, tomato, vinegar, a little dried chile pepper, and some dried bread for thickening. The result, a wonderful, richly flavored, red-orange paste to dip the calçots in.
To accompany the calçots, another traditional Catalan dish: p'amb tomaquet -- bread with tomato. Slice coarse, crusty bread, pour on some olive oil, then rub the bread with fresh tomato.
Then all was ready. Everyone got their own bundle of calçots and a bib (this is messy fun). To eat, pull off the charred outside, dip the calçot in sauce, lean your head back -- and enjoy! And we all did.

I think I need to work on my head lean.Fun for all ages -- and check out the "mountain"of calçots discards.
Delicious.

Visitors from France

Pat's high school friend from Canton, Judy Logsdon Dubois, visited with her daughter Kellie and grandaughters Ines and Shanye. At Thanksgiving we had visited them at their house near Toulouse (and posted on the trip). They had a busy three days touring the sights of Barcelona.

Ines and Shanye at Casa de las Punxes (Puig i Caldafalch's modernisme building).


















Ines participating in the sights of La Rambla.


















At La Boqueria -- the market just off La Rambla -- Kellie, Ines, and Shanye picking out sweets and Pat and Judy taking in the sights, sounds -- and smells.




















Posing in the Placa Reial.Kellie blowing out her birthday candles after a dinner at our flat.
We made time for lunch at our favorite neighborhood restaurant (the arroz negro was especially good that day); Judy and Pat at our outside table in the courtyard.Kellie and Shanye checking out the ceiling and skylight at Domenich i Montaner's nearby Hospital de la Santa Creu i de Sant Pau.




















Ines and Shanye trying to keep their feet dry at the beach.
Not entirely successfully.








Kellie and Ines interpreting Gaudi's arcade of arches at Park Guell.
And no visit to Barcelona would be complete without a group portrait around the trencadis lizard fountain at Park Guell.

A short visit to Sitges

We recently were invited down to Sitges for lunch and a guided tour of the town by Tomás and his wife Marta, who have a flat in Sitges. Tomás was a colleague of Pat's at the IMF who also has retired to Spain.

The day was beautiful and Sitges was delightful.

We didn't know much about Sitges, only that it was a beach town just south of Barcelona that had become something of an artist community at the end of the 19th century, after the painter Santiago Rusinyol settled there. It turned out to be more interesting than that makes it sound.

We found that Sitges in fact has not one, but two beaches -- one with a long, delightful waterfront promenade we enjoyed walking. The unexpected pleasure, however, was the picturesque old town, with narrow streets and interesting buildings.











































We learned that, consistent with its history as an artistic community, the Carnival celebartion in Sitges is famous. That was only a few days away at the time of our visit and the decorations were going up.


The streets of the old town lead out to a church on a rocky point that separates the town's two beaches, and provides what understandably has become a standard postcard image of the town.

We are looking forward to going back in warmer weather to enjoy the beach and beachfront cafes -- and the museum (which includes works collected and painted by Rusinyol).

Tarragona

A few weeks ago we took a day trip to Tarragona – just over an hour down the Mediterranean coast by train.

Today Tarragona is a smallish city on the coast, but for the Romans it was the capital of Hispania Citerior, Nearer Spain. The Scipio brothers established their headquarters at Tarragona, or Tarraco as they called it, when they came about 218 BC to attack a nearby colony established by the Carthaginians. Within a decade Rome controlled most of the Iberian peninsula, and the city grew. In the first century AD Rome granted imperial status to Hispania Criterior.

The heart of old Tarraco was and is on a rocky outcropping by the sea, a sort of acropolis, surrounded by a wall (some of which predates the Romans). In the first century AD, Rome built an extensive complex of public buildings on this outcropping. Two large, adjoining public squares occupied most of the raised ground. The lower was a provincial forum with the administrative offices of the province and markets in the square surrounding an open area. The other, on higher ground, was dedicated to the “imperial cult” (according to a tourist brochure) with a Temple of Jupiter. Immediately below the provincial forum was a large Circus, and there was an amphitheater by the seashore. An aqueduct was built to bring brought water to the city. [A portion of the aqueduct remains about 3 miles outside the city, but we didn’t get out there.] Only traces of all this are left today, but those traces, and models of the layout, indicate how developed a Roman city this was.

Barcelona has its own Roman ruins -- remains of Roman walls and excavated building foundations. Compared to Tarraco, however, Roman Barcino was a minor town, little more than a fortified Roman camp, that was not established until considerably later, in the first century BC.

The train from Barcelona comes in along the sea, under the walls of the old city. We walked up the hill up to the old city, past part of the old city walls, and stopped first at the Archeological Museum. It has an impressive collection of Roman mosaics…
Statutes…












And everyday objects …













Nearby is the largest group of ruins in the city, including a building that was one of the lower corners of the provincial forum (and in the 12th century was converted into a castle).
The lower rooms of this building still show the barrel vaults of the provincial forum. Displayed in one of these is a carved sarcophagus (discovered nearby on the sea bottom in 1948).
From the top of this building you can see a curved section of Circus seating to the right (the tower at left is from the 14th century).
The complex also preserves a long barrel vault that ran underneath one side of the Circus.






Nearby, below the city walls by the sea, is what is left of the amphitheater (it was long used as a convenient quarry).

At the top of the old city is the cathedral, which was constructed, beginning in the 12th century, on the site of the Roman temple. We were not especially impressed with the cathedral itself, perhaps because it was undergoing extensive renovation and its best-known work of art, a 15th century altar painting, was partially obscured by a large diorama that had been installed as part of some celebration of Catalunya (other dioramas were installed in some of the vaults of the Roman ruins).

But we did enjoy the cathedral cloisters, which were very large with an interesting mix of styles: round Romanesque arches between columns collected in groups of three by pointed gothic arches set above panels with Moorish-influenced round opening and decorations.
And a very nice Romanesque doorway connecting the cloisters and cathedral.














At the end of the day we walked down to the modern waterfront, where there is a marina and the usual lineup of seafood restaurants. There also is a nice promenade with a series of interesting sculptures in shallow pools.






Our day in Tarragona also included a necessary element of touring in Spain. All museums, monuments and churches were closed from about 1.30 to 4.30. So we found ourselves a nice restaurant and enjoyed a long, relaxing lunch. Adjusting to local customs can be very pleasant.