Joe Ray

Monday, December 28, 2009

Who Needs Teeth In A Half-Cellar of Goodness?

I reconnect with the city a few steps below street level.
We share a little plate of artichokes hearts that are drizzled with olive oil and spritzed with fleur de sel. They’re so tender, you don’t need teeth.

There’s also a little wheel of oil-bathed goat cheese that’s somehow has the wonderful tang of cheddar. We get a bacalao-tomato dish with olives and a separate plate of olives that I’m supposed to share. Oops.
We wipe up our fingers with the ubiquitous useless napkins and wash it down with vermouth and seltzer water.
It’s good to be home.

Count on about 10-20€

La Bodegueta – MAP

Rambla de Catalunya 100

Barcelona

+34 932 154 894

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Saturday, December 05, 2009

The Consecrated Onion - The Great Rioja Tapas Crawl Part III

LOGRONO, Spain

“At El Soldado de Tudelilla, get the tomato salad and the little sardine sandwich with sport peppers,*” says Artadi.

We do.

The notes for the little sandwich (a pincho) say “Why don’t we eat more sardines in the U.S.A.?”

The question floats into space as I take a bite and flag the stout-bellied barman for a tomato salad which turns out to be the star of the show.

Said barman makes the salad on the bar beneath our noses by plucking a tomato from of the cooler with the wine and the onions and cuts it into bite-sized chunks with a pocket knife. He does the same with the onion.

“This is not just any onion,” he says, “This is the white onion of Fuentes de Ebro,” which, we’ll learn, is more mild than a Vidalia.

“It is a town consecrated to the onion,” he says.

He adds a can of still faintly-pink tuna to the plate and drops a few olives over the top before giving the whole thing a shot of vinegar, a 15-count drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of gros sel.

It’s a little mountain on a plate that disappears in a heartbeat.

“We’re going to be late,” I say.

“I don’t care,” comes the response.

Perfect.

Count on about 10 euros for salad, sardines and a glass of wine or two

El Soldado de Tudelilla MAP
C/ San Agustín 33
Logroño, Spain
+34 941 209 624

*Truth be told, he said “guindilla.”

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Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Cebas, C’est Bon! - The Great Rioja Tapas Crawl Part II

LOGRONO, Spain

“At bar Cebas, get everything,” says Artadi.

Pressed, he mentions a tortilla and the anchovies and the chroizo I immediately burn my mouth on when we get there.

“It’s hot!” I warn my friend before burning myself again.

The tortilla is fantastic, I even had a lamb’s ear sandwich (!), but the sublime star is a toothpick with a pair of olives and a pair of anchovies sandwiching a guindilla – a pickled green pepper folks in the Midwest would call a sport pepper.

There’s vinegar, spicy heat, salt and texture, all at once – it’s mind-blowing goodness, especially when coupled with any of the wines on their wonderful list (just scan the wall – it’s somewhere near Artadi’s picture with the owners).

Count on a few well-spent euros for snacks.

Bar Sebas - MAP
Caille del Albornoz, 3
Logroño, Spain
+34 94 122 0196

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Monday, November 30, 2009

Mushroom Pops - The Great Rioja Tapas Crawl Part I

In the Rioja, we ask winemaker Juan Carlos Artadi where to go on and around Logroño’s Caille del Laurel – a foodie heaven of a street with nothing but tapas bars. Technically, we’re in the region for a wine conference, but this is the place that gets my blood racing.

“First, go to Bar Soriano and get mushrooms à la plancha,” he says.

It’s a shoebox of a place with a mushroom-shaped sign hanging out front, thousands of those useless Spanish napkins littering the floor, three men behind the bar and a heavenly smell.

“Some mushrooms?” I say tentatively, looking for a menu.

“Vamos!” he calls to the man at the griddle, confirming there is no menu. Soriano is a one trick pony I could ride all day.

Moments later, two tiny towers of hollowed-out button mushrooms arrive, undersides facing heaven, cupping their own juices and one tiny shrimp.

“How do you eat them?”

The bartender smiles the gentle smile he must give to all the rookies and motions that we should push the toothpick that holds them together down through the bottom, turning the whole thing into something of a mushroom Push-Up Pop, allowing you to eat them one by one and finish with the juice-soaked bread. Rrrrowww!!!

We’re off to a good start…

Bar Soriano MAP
Travesia Laurel 2
Logroño
+34 941 22 88 07

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe’s travel blog, Globe-trotting.

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Monday, July 20, 2009

Spuds & Rocks - Bravas Part II

BARCELONA

Before revisiting this classic, I check directions and find an online guide to Barna that says I might be the only tourist in the place.

Fat chance. Two ladies in the back are flipping through a Time Out guide and above the bar, there’s a framed, two-page spread from the Wall Street Journal about Bar Tomas’ raison d’être: “Splendid Spuds: Spain’s Obsession with Patatas Bravas.”

No matter. For spuds this good, I’m willing to share.

Just remember the Two B’s: Bravas and Beer. Like seafood in Omaha, most of the rest of the offerings (save Coke and Fanta in glass bottles) can be ignored.

The spuds are downy on the inside, crisp on the outside and partially submerged under a blob of aioli from heaven and served by a guy whose voice sounds like a yard of rocks in a cement mixer.

Perfect.

Bar Tomás – MAP
C/ Major De Sarrià 49
08017 Barcelona
932 031 077

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Monday, July 06, 2009

Sex Food 3: Tapas of The Stars

BARCELONA – Go to Inopia on any given night and despite the bright lights and bustle typical of many tapas bars, there’s also something a bit bizarre: a bouncer.

It’s a little weird, but though I’m sure there’s a bit of favoritism, the bouncer is mostly there to keep the inside full without drowning the chefs and waitstaff.

Then night we’re there, Tapas 24 and Comerc 24 chef Carles Abellan, along with a chunk of the local 7 Canibales food writers are all waiting in line with the rest of us.

Inside, the lights glare and four of us sit on stools facing some sort of hen/bachelorette party, yet the Cava arrives and tickles our palates and a plate or two of food lands in front of us and is gobbled up – we take on our own momentum.

A cutting board of thin-sliced cooked ham appears and disappears, fried artichoke hearts cradle a quail’s egg and raw fish eggs.

This is before they bring out the big guns.

Lomo de atún a la parrilla con mojo should just be called ‘Kobe tuna.’ The mojo sauce is lost in the shuffle, but the fish, wonderfully fatty, marbled and full of flavor has been grilled, making it smoky, meaty, carnal and crisp.

At dessert, the waiter sprays an anise liquor over a bowl of cherries. There’s a sweet and almost vegetable flavor of the spray, followed by the explosion of the taut cherry skin. The fruit’s sweet and acidic flavors compete for your attention as they fill your mouth and dribble down your chin.

RRRRRowwwww!!! No mas! No mas!!!!

Count on 10-15 euros if you’re feeling peckish and upwards of 40 if you’re hungry and thirsty.

Inopia - MAP
www.barinopia.com
C/Tamarit 104
08015 Barcelona
+34 934 245 231

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