Joe Ray

Thursday, April 01, 2010

HAIL TO THE BEAN!

Now, I understand.

For years, I’d tried the classic faves a la Catalana - a broad bean dish without ever understanding why dish makes up part of the Catalan canon. Wrong places? Bad luck? Who knows? It’s all over now.

I’d wondered about the Sants’ neighborhood’s Can Manel - which typically has, say, a whole roast suckling pig and some grilled artichokes in the front window - looked like it could be great or a dud and the only way to know would be to try it.

I finally bit the other day - they have a menu del dia for 10 euros and I was hungry.

It was clear when the beans were set in front of me that I’d have a new outlook on things.

Sitting by myself, I must have said, “Man, these are good!” to myself 25 times. The beans are rich, hearty and buttery-textured, brought to life with small quantities of - get this - three kinds of pork products.

“Bacon, blood sausage and jamon,” explains the waiter.

While my main - slices of pork loin (more pork!) with fries - is admittedly less interesting, they use good product.

I’ll be back.

Restaurant Can Manel - MAP
Galileo, 85
Barcelona
+34 93 339 10 47

| More

Monday, March 29, 2010

LUCK IN THE BASEMENT

El Bulli interview finished, I head to Cadaqués to Can Rafa, a sojurn I’ve been trying to make for months…except every time I go, it’s closed and this time is no exception.

I’m alone and looking for a place where I won’t feel like too much of a chump sitting by myself and can still eat well. On this night, that doesn’t exist in Cadaqués. In desperation, I leave town and call my friend Twin Stomach for somewhere to try in the nearby El Port de la Selva but the phone rings and rings…

In town, I knock on the door where a set of stout-bellied accordion players are practicing and they point me toward El Celler, a family-run seafront place set apart from the town’s more kitschy offerings.

There are fantastic anchovies with gobs of good olive oil and a bit of tomato which are fantastic together on top of their warm, homemade bread. I have a great duck breast in fig sauce and the front of house owner does a perfect job of alternately chatting and leaving me to enjoy my meal.

Count on about 25 euros.

El Celler - MAP
C/ Llancà 8-10
El Port de la Selva
+34 972 126 435

| More

Thursday, March 25, 2010

ITALIAN CRESCENDO, WITH MOTORCYCLES

BARCELONA

“It’s too expensive,” was the first thing out of a friend’s mouth when I mentioned we were heading to Xemei.

“But it’s goooood,” was the second.

“Best risotto of my life,” said another friend, “made with cod tripe!”

I was sold, plus there was serendipity involved. Food writer Carme Gasull proposed going at right around the same time.

On the weekend, Xemei is bustling with the open concept kitchen with the restaurant’s namesake Venetian twins running the show. It’s a loud, fun and casual atmosphere that stimulates the mind and the appetite.

We start, sharing a giant appetizer dish that’s an Italo-Catalan tapas with cod fritters, anchovies in vinegar on a fresh tomato salsa, a tender slab of mackerel. It’s all fine, but I’m thinking of the “expensive” comment more than the “good” one.

The waiter stops by, proposing a new bottle of wine and when I ask about the screw cap, he launches into a bizarre, five-minute explanation about screw caps, corks, evaporation and, to synthesize, how this case of special Italian wine, initially bound for America happened to end up in their restaurant.

It’s harmless fun, but I want to ask the guy if he actually believes what he’s saying.

“We’ve got a phrase here: he sold you a motorcycle,” says Edu. “He just wanted to sell you the bottle.”

The wine is peculiar but fine, but more important, the mains knock our socks off. All of them. The girls get mushroom risotto and Edu has spaghetti in squid ink that tickles our umami sensors and is served looking like cross between a Sicilian sfogliatelle pastry and a perfect beehive hairdo. I get a squid and artichoke dish - each element cooked separately and perfectly, the whole with fantastic textures.

Expensive? Motorcycles aren’t cheap, but it’s not that bad. Goooood? Yep.

We’ll be back.

Count on 40€, with wine.

Xemei - MAP
Passeig de l’Exposició, 85
+34 93 553 51 40

| More

Friday, March 12, 2010

GEOTHERMAL CUISINE

OLOT, Spain

The first thing you notice on a tour of the kitchen at Les Cols is that there’s a water garden fed from the heavens in the middle of it. This makes sense. An ardent but not annoying locavore, chef Fina Puigdevall is intent on building your relationship to the ground beneath your feet - this volcanic area where she was born.

She immediately shines spotlights on local ingredients - buckwheat, cured sausage from Olot, wild mushrooms, the cabbage that gives the restaurant its name and even wonderfully fragrant black truffles. One dish features an egg from the black chickens running around outside the window.

The clever thief would begin by swiping Puigdevall’s purveyor list;  in retrospect, what’s odd is that there’s no standout dish, nothing so wildly good that it makes you want to do cartwheels between the tables, yet hers is is food with roots. These are deep and wild flavors, strength pulled up from the soil - a geothermal cuisine.

Puigdevall is like a wayward member of Rene Redzepi’s New Nordic cuisine gang - you half-expect to find Sigur Ros jamming in the henhouse.

You spend a bit of time like this, thinking of where she fits into the scheme of things - some say she’s the next Carme Ruscalleda but you quickly realize their styles don’t match, give up the ghost and start enjoying things.

There is pea soup - a bright and happy green canvas supporting tiny cubes of balsamic, a micro-scoop of peanut ice cream, a bright yellow dollop of saffron sauce and a deep orange sea urchin. Squint from above and it looks like abstract art made with a set of Crayolas.

‘Pumpkin in five different ways’ has similar beauty, showcasing an ingredient that deserves the attention. Tendrils might grow from our fingers, roots from our feet.

In another dish, salt cod floats on brandade, those under spinach and chard everything heating the truffle (see above). You stare, you smell, you think, you hesitate to destroy it with a fork, then you smile. The beauty in the presentation of these dishes is subtle when looked at individually and breathtaking when considered together.

Equally as sublime is the space.

Using iron, glass and stone, the design of this restaurant hits what they missed at Can Fabes. While spots inside Santi Santamaria’s nearby restaurant can feel like the inside of a tank, Puigdevall clearly spent a long time talking to an architect who listened.

The sliding and pivoting glass doors and arches make the chef’s 13th century home modern and the main dining room are set slightly into the earth, so your eyes are level with the grass. We’re here on one of those winter days where you look at a picture of the backyard in summertime and it’s so green it might as well be another planet, yet even in winter, that subtle shift makes you notice shoots and buds you wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

When your gaze extends upward, it might linger on clouds clinging to the hills or you might spend two minutes watching a drop of water work its way down the giant window. On any other date, this much time spent gazing outside would signal disaster. Here, you’re simply taking time to reconnect to the world around you.

The hotel rooms here are minimalist glass and metal cubes and I would love to return and spend the whole afternoon - post lunch - in the bathtub with a bottle of wine watching the clouds stick to the hills and contemplating the meal I just ate.

Service is well done, without hovering, and low key. Bravo for the bravery to offer a cart full of very worthy Catalan cheeses.

A tasting menu is 70 euros plus wine.

Les Cols – MAP
Carretera de la Canya
Olot, Spain
+34 97 226 9209
www.lescols.com

Follow me on Twitter: @joe_diner and on Facebook.

| More

Monday, March 08, 2010

MOVING THE ROCK

GIRONA, Spain

Living in Ferran Adrià’s shadow is not an enviable position. Or maybe it’s liberating. Or maybe it just is.

Joan Roca of El Celler de Can Roca is one of the greats in a region of greats like Santi Santamaria, Carme Ruscalleda and, of course senyor Adrià - and his style is closest to the latter.

Roca’s also got a ‘James Bond of the Catalan culinary set’ thing going. He’s a bit of a tough guy with some cool gadgets - he’s a big cheese in the world of sous vide cooking, for example, writing the book on the subject long before Thomas Keller did. After the service is finished, you can imagine Roca, standing by the entrance, smoking a cigarette and looking cool.

Every once in a while though, the Adrià comparison’s gotta drive him nuts. Early on in our meal, it seems as though most of the dishes in the ‘snacks’ catetgory (little amuse gueules that come out before the tasting menu really starts) could have been nicked from Adrià’s book - like little ‘caramelized olives’ which arrive dangling from a bonsai olive tree, little Campari ‘bonbon’ balloons served on a bed of crushed ice or Parmesan ‘tulips’ nesting in a rock - but then - poof! - it’s gone; you stop comparing and start enjoying.

This might have been about when the sea urchins arrived. On the menu, the dish is called “crustacean velouté with cauliflower toffee and tangerine,” but my notes read “little, edible sexual organs from the sea.” RRRRRRROW!

Soon after, there’s a plate called ‘artichoke with duck liver, eel and orange’ - that launches ‘brown food’ into the stratosphere, followed immediately by a single grilled sole filet flanked by individual dabs of olive oil, fennel, bergamot, orange, pine nut and green olive emulsions. The whole thing’s got a musical look to it, like a deconstructed music scale - and there’s Roca, standing by himself in the middle of a big field, smiling, waving.

When we try the cod pot-au-feu, which draws a direct line to some perfect chowder of my youth and I come to the realization I needed - I want Roca to teach.

“He does,” says my dining partner - most notably at Girona’s catering and tourism school.

Adrià has so much to teach, but it’s a specialized class - I don’t want 1,000 little Adrià copycats running around out there, but I want as many as possible with a foundation built by Roca.

Desserts, by brother Jordi Roca, are as good, complex and beautiful as the mains. Josep Roca’s wine list has wheels.

Tasting menus run from 90 to 135 euros. Spend as much as you like on wine.

El Celler de Can Roca - MAP
Can Sunyer, 48
Girona, Spain
+34 972 222 157
www.cellercanroca.com

Follow me on Twitter: @joe_diner and on Facebook.

| More

Thursday, February 25, 2010

SUN IN THE GARDEN

PARIS

After days of weather misery, a break in the clouds at lunchtime created a rule dictated by deprivation: sit in the sun.

I got lucky.

In the lonely, hilly heart of the 20th, the locals-only set at Le Jardin includes artists, teachers, funky clothing designers and old friends playing hooky and catchup over a bottle of wine, all sitting on the warm side of the giant windows.

They’ve got the right idea. The plat du jour is nine euros on this day and couscous runs from nine to fifteen - the vegetable stew served with theirs is made pungent with cabbage and a meaty broth. I’d have been completely happy with this alone.

Downside? The pocket-sized kitchen gets overwhelmed by a table of six. Everyone waits, but if no one cares, is it a downside? We’re sitting in the sun.

This isn’t the stuff you cross town for, but it’s worth an uphill walk if you’re nearby. Count on 9-15 euros.

Le Jardin MAP
52, Rue de la Bidassoa
75020 Paris
+33 1 46 36 27 99

| More

Saturday, February 13, 2010

BEEF HEARTS AND HOME RUNS

I was a bit sad when Chateaubriand changed hands a few years back - I loved the feel of the place, the beautiful anglophone woman who owned and ran it, her polka dot dresses and 50s-era swoopy hair. Most of all, I loved that the house specialty was beef cheeks - it takes guts to stake your reputation on a dish like that - but they were right in doing so; it was fantastic.

That said, chef Iñaki Aizpitarte, became a media darling when he took over and it was well-deserved.

It still is. I was here almost a year ago and have no trouble remembering what I had for lunch: blood sausage on a bed of squash puree with little bits of almond and pear to add flavor and texture. Recently, we visited again again - my first Aizpitarte dinner - and it was even more memorable.

Aizpitarte does a 45 euro, four-course tasting meal that changes frequently and places him squarely in front of the modern edge of the gastro-bistro movement, trying bold and inventive pairings that will keeps the meal at the center of conversation.

The star of the meal was a smoked herring broth with fall vegetables and cubes of foie gras. Inside, slightly-cooked chestnuts, charred button mushrooms and black radish shared space with triangles of pickled onion that lent elements of surprise and fun to the dish. The foie gras - something I rarely rave about - melted slightly, giving depth and texture to the broth and made everyone at the table wide-eyed and happy; every dish afterward was watched very closely.

A big, luscious block of cod followed, served on a sauce with sweet onions and flanked by king oyster mushrooms. The fish held form until it reached my mouth; I could have stopped there and gone home happy.

A meat course - veal covered with a black radish ‘paper’ served with a cod-liver sauce, and a little dollop of onions macerated in fish sauce - didn’t quite work; mixing fish and meat is the chef’s equivalent of big game hunting (I once sat in on late-night telephone lessons between an aspiring chef and a three-star chef on how to cook beef heart and cuttlefish in a Dutch oven), but it signals Aizpitarte’s larger intentions - where his heart is.

After one bite, I spent ten minutes trying to explain my thought - a double on a home run swing - to the French diners at our table.

Besides, he followed up with a crowd-pleasing triple, mixing beets and pears at dessert.

Dinner is 45 euros, plus wine. Smiles are free and plentiful.

Le Chateaubriand - MAP
129 Avenue Parmentier
Paris
+33 1 43 57 45 95

| More

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

COMFORT ON WINTER’S MENU

After lunch at Jeu de Quilles, I really wanted not to like dinner at Au Bon Coin when it was set in front of me. (So much so, I seem to have accidentally erased all photo evidence of the meal.)

Came out too fast. Skimpy portion of string beans, I thought as my main course arrived. Then I dabbed a spud in the sauce next to my steak and reconsidered.

Au Bon Coin is packed with locals on the wonderful north side of Montmartre for a reason. The quality/price ratio is where it should be. ‘Comfort’ should be on the menu.

“I was here a week ago and the didn’t have the stuffed cabbage. They only have it in the darkest part of winter,” said my friend and dining companion who lives three blocks away. On this night, it’s on the menu and it arrives, dark, pungent and delicious a moment or two after my pièce de Charolais.

Is it me, or are the days getting longer?

Count on about 20€ with a drink or two.

Au Bon Coin MAP
49 Rue des Cloÿs‬
75018 Paris
‎+33 1 46 06 91 36 ‎

P.S. - If you’re going to make a night out of it, start with an apéro at the nearby La Renaissance - 112 Rue Championnet - where Tarantino shot a scene from “Inglorious Basterds.” With any luck, there will be an impeccably-dressed woman delivering your drink. “Wearing jeans in public,” she once told me, “is despicable.”

| More

Saturday, January 30, 2010

More For The Carnivores

As our cote de boeuf is set down in the center of the table, Pierre makes a general announcement, putting his hands up to his mouth, megaphone-style.

“Vegetarians are now invited to clear the area!” he bellows.

My word, yes they are.

I made a sort of promise to check out the ‘bicycle built for two of the steak world’ at L’Escargot after checking out the offerings at Le Bastringue and was far from disappointed.

There’s a price difference - 32 euros at Bastringue and 40 at L’Escargot (remembering each diner is paying half of that) and you can taste the difference: L’Escargot has better and more flavorful meat (likely linked to chef Fred Valade’s triperie down the road), but each one is a great value for the price.  One nitpick: L’Escargot would also do well to get some real steak knives.

There were nice vegetable side courses with my meal tonight, complete with Valade’s signature flaming thyme garnish ... and, no fault of their own, after a few bites, I completely forgot about them. Desserts were fabulous. I’d get the homemade chantilly (served on top of the ‘choco ivoire & son biscuit caribbeanesque’ which I once launched onto my lap) over and over again as a solo dish.

L’Escargot MAP
50, rue de La Villette
75019 Paris
+33 1 42 06 03 96

Full disclosure: I am known (though not notorious) at L’Escargot as it’s about a block away from my flat. They didn’t know we were coming, but they knew I was there. That said, even in Paris, you can’t conjure different beef at 9 p.m. on a Wednesday night.

| More

Monday, January 25, 2010

SUN ON A PLATE

PARIS - My tolerance for number of days cooped up in the kitchen in an effort to avoid bad weather ended today. I should have come out sooner.

Acting on a tip from a friend…who recently acted on a tip from Francois...I cross town on my bike, popping up to meet friends in the lower reaches of the 14th arrondissement at Le Jeu de Quilles.

I’m a bit early and watch a table of six guys who were clearly on an afternoon out at one of their favorite spots, downing good wine and asking the chef about where to get a whole lamb to roast.

Ann has barely sat down when she says,  “The sun’s out!” with a smile like she was recognizing a long-lost friend who’d grown a beard since the last time they met.

The prix fixe lunch plan is simple: choose from three appetizers, two mains and a handful of desserts for 25 euros. There’s an à la carte menu that makes me want to come back for dinner. In form and function, it quite resembles the original version of Spring and Le 122.

Along with a generous, high-end charcuterie plate, highlights included an oeuf cocotte, swimming in a wonderful shallot-y red wine sauce and resting on a hidden strip of pork fat.  There’s also a braised pork main with a hot, pudding-like side of polenta laced with Emmental and tasting of real corn bread.

“This tastes like America!” I blurt.

Dessert was a still-bubbling pear and apple crumble, arriving with a ‘watch your fingers’ warning from the waitress. Imagine hot, crushed Pecan Sandies above hot, buttery fruit and all the dairy farmers you’re supporting with this one dish!

Sun on a plate.

Lunch prix fixe menu: 25 euros (21 if you skip dessert, but why would you want to do that?). There is no prix fixe at dinner where appetizers run between 12 and 20 euros and mains are in the mid-20s.

Le Jeu de Quilles MAP
45 rue Boulard
75014 Paris
+33 1 53 90 76 22

| More