Catalan Face Stuffing

I've eaten too many meals with few updates, so the updates to come will just be some of the most memorable (not to discount the others, but I'm just simply too far behind to cover all of it and remember all the best details).  

I was on the road for most of July, and when I'm traveling at a pace like that, I try to visit a fancy place every once in a while to eat a ridiculous meal.  It's a bit awkward alone on a business trip, but hey, what can you do?  I had one night in Valencia (before heading to Barçelona for the weekend) and did a bit of reading about the local restaurants...one that caught my eye was called Riff.  When I found the place, the front door was locked...so I rang...apparently they don't want just anybody walking it, yet they let me past in flip-flops.  Must have been a slow night.  I got one of the 8 or so tables, and then opted for the tasting menu on the left, the cheaper of the menu options.  

I wasn't sure on the research before I ate there, but found out later this is a one star...and naturally there were a couple things not included on the menu...starting with some olives and a croustillant of some sort of cheese (no explanation given).  Next up was a cucumber cream with cucumber foam and a cucumber sorbet, accompanied by a hearty cheese bread...delicious and light, a perfect way to start off the meal.

Next up (sorry for the shaky picture, I'll blame the cava) was a watermelon sorbet with salmon roe and osetra caviar...the flavor balance was incredible, the lightly sweet sorbet worked well with every tiny explosion of the roe.  I got the hint that Bernd Knöller was into a bit of experimental cuisine, and I was certainly enjoying it. My descriptions of these two amuse bouche courses are a bit lousy, considering it wasn't written on a menu and I had to try to memorize what they told me in broken English...

Now onto the real plates... and no, this was not presented with the salad thrown all over the plate...but you couldn't see the delicious chorizo and octopus when it was covered in summer greens.  The chorizo was simply extraordinary and of course the octopus was perfectly fresh...all on top of a cream dressing with a bit of bite to it.  Not exactly a "light" starter but I wasn't complaining.  

It was hard to pick a favorite course out of this, but the roast snapper with mussel tartare and seed crust was the star of the night.  The snapper was cooked perfectly...not a centimeter (yes, I've converted to metric) was over or under-cooked...the seeds provided a nice richness and the tartare was subtle but the mussels had wonderful freshness to them.  I was told it was a smaller variety, but didn't catch the name...

I was a bit scared when this came out...but luckily the taste wasn't nearly as intimidating.  Simply small fried noodles with squid ink (and squid ink foam) and spring vegetables.  While it was visually impressive, the taste wasn't very complex... bit salty but not much of a profile to talk about.  On we go. 

Another stellar dish.  "Just" a piece of lamb slow roasted for 40 hours with african herbs and rosemary.  Simple, nothing fancy, and of course the meat just fell apart and was perfectly tender.  I don't know what else to say other than it was perfect.  It's just a shame it takes a long time to get meat to this stage, not exactly practical for your nightly meal. 

Lastly was apricots with white chocolate and kataif noodles... but wait, there's more than that on the plate???  Some vanilla ice cream, some chocolate mousse type thing....whatever it all was, it was delicious.  The apricots were fresh and tender, the chocolate melted perfectly, and enough dark chocolate around for me to finish up the wine....

I didn't even mention the service at Riff...it was impeccable.  Even without the food, it was amazing service...and the chef came out to describe the main dishes passionately.  I would certainly return here next time I'm in Valencia, but if this was so good, I'm wondering what the other starred restaurants are like there.  It's too bad I haven't found this kind of value in Paris yet...

Surprise 3 course business lunch...

Occasionally I get treated to a meal the comes out of nowhere...this was one of those meals.  I had a day trip down to Toulouse full of meetings.  Usually when I go to Toulouse for business, we end up eating in the canteen right at the customer site, which is mediocre at best.  Before this last trip, I told my colleague that I really would like to avoid the canteen if at all possible.  Once we finished the morning of meetings, we headed to lunch with two customers, and one of them decided to call a certain restaurant none of us had heard of to get reservations.

We got reservations and sat outside on a beautiful spring day in Toulouse with just a light breeze.   When I saw the menu I knew we were in for a treat because, well, this place looked amazing just from the descriptions.  The customer offhandedly remarked that this was mentioned in the latest Michelin guide.  Don't think it got any "étoiles", but a mention is usually a good sign.  To my surprise, we were to have a leisurely lunch which of course means 3 courses and wine.  A treat and a perfect way to break up the monotony of a day of meetings.
 

I started with the sablé de Rocamadour (tarte with cheese) on top of baby spinach, with hazelnut oil, piment d'espellete (AOC pepper) and a tomato confit.  The cheese was perfectly complemented by the tart, and the piment d'espellete added just a touch of heat to the dish...I'm a sucker for the piment, so I was very happy to find it especially it it's home region.

Next up was a filet of cabillaud with fresh seasonal vegetables and a wonderful pesto and a bit of chopped sundried tomatoes.  Nothing really original in this dish but the fish was cooked perfectly and the pesto was fresh and tasty.   

Last  up was the "Toulousmisu", a take on tiramisu using local violet to flavor the cream....coffee cream on the bottom, and small violet sugar crystals on top, with a couple violet marshmallows.  Sounds a bit like overload, but was incredibly light and the flavor wasn't too strong. 

I slacked this time and did not track the wine....all I remember is it was white, crisp, and perfect for a good meal in the sun.

The restaurant was La Table des Merville,  I would highly recommend it if you're around Castanet Tolosan, but not knowing how good the restaurants are in central Toulouse, not sure if it is worth a trek out of the city...

Now, time for the weekend in Paris!  Moscow next week, I'm guessing vodka pairings.

Bretagne continued eating...

Onward on the food-laden streets of Bretagne, we arrived back in Quiberon after a thorough soaking on the bike adventure around Belle-Ile-en-Mer.  On the ferry over I researched a few restaurants, and the top couple on the list were already booked full.  Not too surprising for a Friday night on a big holiday weekend, but disappointing nonetheless.  We found a place with very good reviews that we were able to get into, Jules Verne, a bit down the quai.  Naturally we started with the Quiberon oysters just to see how good they were, and, well, they were incredible.  There's something about the sauce that comes with almost every oyster here that complements them perfectly, just enough acid from the vinegar and the shallots add a bit of spice.  I'm no oyster connoisseur, in fact I didn't have one I liked until a few months ago.  Maybe it was the fault of the oysters, or maybe I've just grown to love them, either way I prefer them with this concoction. 

Next up was some sautéed scallops with a butter cream sauce and sautéed thinly sliced apples.  Good, but really nothing to write home about. The wine was wonderful, but that seems to be par for the course; this time was a perfectly chilled Pouilly Fumé.  The restaurant itself was a bit odd...tables far apart as to create privacy for your conversations, but music so low you could hear every word of everyone in the room.  There was something just generally awkward feeling about the place...food was good but not astonishing, and I'd have to downgrade based on the bizarre ambiance. 

Next up was an early morning rush off to Quimper to try to get to the kayaks on time...picked up some sandwiches en route and managed to get in a nice traffic jam (bouchon) getting off of the presqu'ile of Quiberon.  Luckily the kayak people were willing to meet us at the start point, and would give us a ride to the car afterwards.  We grabbed some sandwiches (nothing to report) on the way but no photos were necessary as they were somewhat smashed from being in the kayaks.  After battling winds and reversing tides at the end we headed into Quimper for some dinner.  Again did some research and found an interesting créperie a bit out of the center of the city. 

The restaurant was called Les Délices du Cap Horn and I would highly recommend it.  When we first walked in it wasn't busy, but I think this is just due to the location.  The proprietor was the most impassioned by his products I have seen yet in France, and shared his love of all his regional favorites.  To accompany the crèpes we had a Cournouaille AOC cider, which was certainly the best cider I've ever had in my limited experience.

I had the forestière galette with bacon, egg, mushrooms, onions and cheese, but also got to sample the Cap Horn, with flambéed scallops, bacon, and mushrooms with a cream sauce.  Honestly the best I've ever tasted.  We also tried a crèpe with local camembert and honey, which was astonishingly good and just had enough sweetness to perfectly compliment the fresh local cheese. 

Sadly the trip was winding to a close, the next day we only had time for a lunch on the route back to Nantes before the evening trains.  Seems we saved the best for last in terms of seafood.  We called and were able to get into Chez Jacky which was called THE place to taste the Belon oysters.  Not only was the view and building gorgeous, but service was impeccable and the oysters were amazingly fresh, the Belon oysters particularly interesting...as I said I'm no Oyster expert, so I'll leave the descriptions to the experts.  I just know they were delicious.

This was followed by Scallops à La Bretonne.  The picture does them no justice.  Imagine scallops slowly marinating in a butter jacuzzi, with spices slowly thrown in.  The texture was more like a confit, I'm inclined to believe these will be similar to the scallop confit I bought in a confiserie and aim to cook this coming weekend...I don't believe I did anything but make "mmmmm" sounds with every bite.  Certainly the best cooked up Scallops I have ever had (can't really compare to perfectly sautéed because, well, the freshness was drowned in butter). 

This was the end of the Bretagne trip unfortunately, but it included the essentials: salted caramels, crepes, gallettes and wonderful seafood.   4 days wasn't nearly long enough....

This is food. I talk about it. First stop, Bretagne.

I've been uploading pictures of delicious food (and some not) with my phone and have gotten some heckling because I fail to include any sort of description.  Sometimes the food pictured is enough by itself to induce hunger, so I figured why increase the torture?  But, this stupid thing could be a way for me to remember the great meals I've had, or simply why I'm fat.

Well...the latest trip I had was a 4 day weekend in Bretagne, which was certainly going to include lots of food and luckily some bike and kayak action.  But let's get to the food.  Since I didn't really think I'd start a food blog, I failed to include pictures of every single course but there's no real need to be all inclusive here....

First night:  Nantes.  The first restaurant we ate in had decent reviews but really was nothing to write about, the only interesting part was the dessert (pictured): a baked chocolate mousse with Lu biscuits on top.  Simple enough, but the biscuits were perfectly toasted and the mousse was light and perfectly creamy.  A fitting tribute to the Lu tribute in it's birthplace.

The next morning was brunch in La Cigale.  This place I remember and would absolutely recommend, although part of me wished we had been there for dinner.  The restaurant was stunningly ornate, and the brunch was overflowing with tartines, viennoisseries, fresh squeezed orange juice and also a smoked salmon salad with a crisp chevre dumpling.  Only thing that would have made this better would have been the good old San Francisco bottomless mimosas.


We followed the coast through Guerande and ended up stopping in Piriac sur Mer for dinner.  The only place we found that appealed to us was a créperie called Lacomère...the service was attrocious but I'll not get into that, the oysters were fresh and the crepes were delicious.  Mussels, langoustines and fish all in a delicious cream/butter sauce on a galette.  Accompanied by a nice Muscadet.  I can't recommend the place based on the service alone (we were practically forgotten), but for the first galettes in Bretagne thus far we were doing well. 

We left Vannes early to head to Quiberon to drop off the car and head straight to Belle-Ile-en-Mer.  After arriving in Belle-Ile, we stopped by the local market for chèvre with shallots, salted caramels, ham and some amazing charcuterie made with cider (I swear it was nammed Palette Breton but a google search just gives me links to Palet Breton which are biscuits).  All accompanied by bread picked up in Vannes in the morning.   Accompanied by a red wine I'd picked up in Budapest a few days before...which was disappointing considering the quality of wine I had while in country.  Stupid airport shops and EasyJet checked baggage policies. 

To be continued....