Gastroville

We had two superb ROASTED LAMB dishes in traditional asadors. The Castilian style milk fed roast lamb from the “churra” breed is one of the true culinary treasures known to mankind. Traditional places, such as TININ in the fortified hillside town of Sepulveda, which is only 45 minutes from beautiful Segovia, and the relatively newer MANNIX, which is in the nondescript town of Campaspero, 15 minutes to Penafiel on the Duero river, and about one hour to Segovia, both excel in preparing great roast lamb. Typically the lamb is about three weeks old (the Mannix version was 20 days old) and about two quarters of baby lamb are roasted/baked in a semi-circular baker’s clay oven lit by wood fire. Clearly this method comes from the cooking of the mechoui lambs in North Africa and was brought to Spain by the Moors. But the mechoui lambs I had in Algeria were dryer in general, and the fact that top asadors roast the lamb slowly in low heat for hours, dousing them with a little water when necessary, may explain the eventual tenderness. It is in fact so tender that, as was demonstrated to us in Mannix by owner Marco Antonio, a sheer touch with a fingertip suffices to separate the bone from the meat before quartering the lamb, and the meat is so tender and intensely flavorful at the same time that it has to be tasted to believe how good lamb can get. One eats the kidney, liver, whatever comes with the particular cut, and it is an equal delight to soak up the juices with the round and crusty local bread called “torta arandina”. The lamb is accompanied by a simple salad of very fresh romaine lettuce, tomatoes and sweet white onions with a simple vinaigrette.

It is not easy to rank a restaurant which serves a single ingredient. Tinin is a cozier place than Mannix, but it has no wine list and the house Ribera Duero is only adequate. Mannix has a fine wine list, although the reception is a bit cool. They assumed that we did not have a reservation, and they didn’t want to accept us. This is understandable because the cordero lcchal is cooked to order and cooking begins before one arrives to the restaurant. So it is important to be punctual. The style is slightly different in the sense that Mannix lets the juices drip to the bottom of the clay pot, but somehow the lamb remains juicy. Were I to rank the best lamb dishes I remember to date, both of these portions would rank alongside the baby 6 weeks old Lozere lamb prepared by old Jamin/Robuchon in a salt crust. Sure, they are less refined, but at least equally tasty. I still do not believe that the pre-sale from Grevin prepared by Mikael (see the post) can surpass this level, but I will suspend ultimate judgment until I have the privilege to taste it. So I will recommend both of these places very strongly to the readers and, at gun point, I will choose Mannix over Tinin for the wine list and a somehow half notch more tender lamb. I would say that the single dish merits a 19.5/20 at Mannix and 19/20 at Tinin.

The COCHINILLO ASADO or suckling pig which is about 6 to 8 pounds is another Castilian specialty. It weighs no more than 6 to 8 pounds, and I have never seen such baby pig eaten anywhere but in Spain. In my opinion it has less flavor than the lamb, but when it is prepared in the traditional stone oven and served with its crisp and crunchy skin, it is a delight to taste. We had this dish both at the JOSE MARIA in SEGOVIA and at COQUE in a suburb of Madrid (Humanes). In Jose Maria I was the only one ordering it, and it was reheated. At Coque it was served as soon as it had come out of the oven, and they told us to wait about 5 minutes for the juices to settle and for eating it at optimum temperature. We devoured the big portion very quickly.

BECADA (Woodcock) is an altogether different animal than lamb or pork. This rare “queen of the forest,” as it is called by Spanish gourmets, is getting very hard to find in restaurants. It is now prohibited in France, extremely rare in Italy, and very difficult to find in Spain. It is especially hard to have becada in March, which is the end of the hunting season, but also a good time to have woodcock as the small bird becomes more plump at this time. Thanks to my friend Pedro Espinasa, who is well connected to the great Basque eatery ARCE in Madrid, they had reserved 5 portions for us, courtesy of the chef-owner Inaki Cambe who looks like a great chef too, besides actually being one. Inaki believes in hanging the bird for a long time—maybe a week to 10 days—to bring out the intense, metallic and gamey (an understatement) taste. He also makes a toast from its offal and roasts the small bird with its own juices and a dash of Armagnac. The result is truly outstanding; it is a reminder to all of us how the less manipulated non-industrial and natural food of our forebears must have tasted. It is the very opposite of the bland meat we eat on a daily basis, and the sheer taste of Arce’s woodcock with its long faisandage (hanging period) challenges our very notions of what food should taste like, and it is a shock to the taste buds. But this is a real and positive shock, not unlike the artificially created shocks of the modern chefs who test the limits of manipulating raw materials by borrowing industrial methods from the food industry and experimenting with textures. Of all the best becada dishes I have eaten, including good ones at Coque, very good ones at GOIZEKO KABI, CASA NICOLASA and ZUBEROA and outstanding ones at CHATEAUVIEUX (near Geneva) and ETXEBARRI, Arce’s version clearly belonged to the top category. It was also rendered more interesting when I paired it with a great Oloroso sherry, (I usually think of a big spicy red, such as a Chateauneuf-du-Pape) and the resulting marriage was outstanding. I owe a second thanks to my friend Pedro for suggesting the combination. When eating this superlative dish I thought that some sweet contrast, such as a berry chutney or fresh berries or some fruit with a good level of acidity, may have provided a welcome counterpart to the deep taste of woodcock, but Inaki may not have wanted any dilution of the deep taste.

Another memorable, if less rare, dish one can have in Madrid in all its glory is CALLOS MADRILENOS which is braised tripe served in a casserole with top quality chorizo and morcilla or blood sausage. We had a very good example of this dish at the taberna CASA LUCIO which is a Madrid institution apparently catering to well dressed middle aged and older men who are accompanied by some gorgeous, young, sparkling women dressed in black (what else?). The surprising thing is that the food is good, and even a total stranger like myself is treated well in the clubby atmosphere filled with regulars. The tripe dish is one of the specialties of the house, and it is a “stick to your ribs” type hearty and soul dish, especially good for a Semana Santa night when one could watch the colorful procession on the street (Calle Baja) with people dressed in purple and cone shaped hats. The marching men were carrying floats on their shoulders, and this was around 2 AM when we had just finished the last course and were ready for dessert. Talking about dessert, Casa Lucio has a stunning version of classic “arroz con leche” which goes very well after the heavy tripe.

I had also come to Madrid to taste some special seafood at the great COMBARRO which unfortunately turned out to be closed. We caught the last day of O’PAZO before its Semana Santa closing, which is another seafood temple, and we also had two meals at LA TRAINERA, and one simple lunch at EL BARRIL, which is a remarkable seafood tapas bar. Honestly I don’t know any restaurant, in all the capitals of Europe and the metropoles of the States which can challenge these Mariscos in terms of the variety of seafood, overall richness, opulence and sheer abundance. I found O’Pazo overall more consistent in delivering across the board high quality than Trainera. For instance, a classic Galician dish, such as “Vierias a la Gallega,” or scallops baked in the shell with sweet onions and bits of bacon, was better at O’Pazo than at Trainera. The RODABALLO (turbot) a la plancha, grilled whole (about 4 pounds) with sherry vinegar, roasted garlic, guindilla peppers and olive oil, was also outstanding at O’Pazo. The same classic Basque preparation also featured in a BESUGO preparation at Casa Lucio, and I went all the way to the kitchen to understand what Besugo is, and it turned out the be the “Mercan”, a highly prized reddish skinned fish of the “pageot” family, which can be translated as “red snapper” to English, but it would be silly to think that it is the same fish. Besugo has firm and dense meat, is on the dry side, and therefore the Basque style of preparation is optimum. I like this fish very much. I like Dover Sole a little less because it has less flavor, but chef Inaki at Arce baked a whole LENGUADO for the five of us, and the seven days old sole fish (I learned that sole needs 5 to 7 days for its flesh to soften and for its skin to separate from the body, so it was optimum) and the classic preparation with a butter, white wine and lemon sauce, was delicious.. The same technical excellence in terms of optimum cooking time and method of cooking was also displayed by the chefs of the ALBORAN restaurant, which is the ambassador of Andalucian cuisine in Madrid. Their fried SALMONETITES and GAMBAS with VERDURES, or baby rouget and prawns with fried zucchini, red and green peppers and white onions, was a textbook example of what fried fish should taste like: clean and juicy and without any excess oil and almost transparent.

Other than whole fish, outstanding shellfish preparations included several orders of big red gambas or CARABINEROS in both O’Pazo and La Trainera, big (300 grams) langoustines or Cigalas (better in O’Pazo than Trainera), one 1.5 kilogram Galician lobster (BOGAVANTE) a la plancha at Trainera, and a 1.2 kilogram LANGOSTA or spiny lobster at Trainera. Of all these majestic shellhish, especially the Carabineros (photo is below with langosta) and the bogavante were noteworthy in the sense that the quality of Galician blue lobster is very high and superior to the so called American, Maine, or green lobster. The carabineros, too, can only be tried in Spain, and they come from Southern Spain. They overshadowed the less than perfectly fresh cigalas at Trainera, which I suspected may have been imported from Northern Europe. On the other hand, the Galician PERCEBES at Trainera served in 200 grams portions were as good as expected, and these unique creatures which cling to the rocks and are hard to harvest (whose photos are below) are said to be found in Brittany or Seattle (goose barnacles), but I have never seen them in those places. Their taste is not unlike a clam (eaten raw, the clams or ALMEJAS naturals were also superb in Trainera and El Barril), but more firm and dense.

Of course it will be a sacrilege to spend a week in Spain and forsake the opportunity to eat Jamon Iberico from the pata negra species of pig, fed on acorns or pellota. I adore both the Guijuelo and Jabugo versions, and it is more a matter of individual grower and aging time that accounts for differences in taste. Serious restaurants cut their prized jamon with a special knife rather than a machine, and it must take considerable time to learn how to do this. We took tremendous pleasure watching the veteran waiter at Jose Maria in Segovia cut thin slices from their exceptional 99 Grand Reserva Guijuela (near Salamanca) and even greater pleasure devouring it with good Ribera Duero red.

Rating all these restaurants is not easy without yardsticks and comparators. Given our criteria outlined in Gastroville, and if I award a well deserved 17 to COMBARRO, then O’PAZO deserves 16 and LA TRAINERA should merit a 14. ALBORAN is not nearly as luxurious in ingredients as Trainera, but they excelled in baking, grilling, and frying, and even the details, such as the quality of vegetables used as garnies, were very high. Their prices are very fair, and it is not a touristic restaurant at all as it is located in an attractive middle class suburb of Madrid which is far from the center. It does merit a 15.

Both CASA LUCIO and JOSE MARIA are traditional places with no pretence to be other than what they are. If one orders carefully, it is possible to eat exceptionally well in these places. Jose Maria is famous for cochinillo asado, but I ordered only one portion as my partner was full, and it was reheated and therefore not on par with Coque’s version. Overall I found Casa Lucio more consistent than Jose Maria, and this is a great place for homey comfort food and people watching. I would recommend both places (but make sure you order cochinillo for two at Jose Maria), and would rank Jose Maria 13/20 and Casa Lucio 14/20.

Inaki at ARCE straddles both super modern (oysters with tomato sauce, raw meat combined pickled lamprey, etc) and ultra classic realms (La Reyniere and Brillat Savarin would have approved of his sole and woodcock), and I was more convinced with his achievements in the latter sphere. His desserts are a letdown after a stupendous final in the meal, but given that the highs are really high, I have no qualms recommending him and awarding a 15/20.

Much younger Mario Sandoval, who is below 30 years of age, is at ease with the ultra modern preparations he learned in some of Spain’s (and France’s) highly touted multiple star gastro tech centers. Now that the restaurant has one Michelin star, the restaurant has changed in favor of more formality, and there are fewer and fewer tables ordering Jose Ramon’s (Mario’s brother) outstanding cochinillo. Also gone is the generous serving of the jamon platter which dotted most of the tables in the past, and, instead, one now starts the meal with creative but somehow not too convincing tidbits, such as small cubes of beef with asparagus on a skewer (not nearly as interesting and tasty as a Turkish cop kebap), green apple sorbet, various vegetable chips, fine potato-leek soup, etc. It looked like locals (of Humanes) eat nowdays in the homey and simple downstairs room, and the modern upstairs room is reserved for well dressed visitors from Madrid. The wine list under the supervision of one of the brothers, Rafael, is now composed with the help of a French assistant, and Rafael has keen eyes and agile body movements, a legacy of his time spent in the bull rings. The fourth brother, friendly and easygoing Jose Ramon, who recognized us and offered some Manzanilla at the bar (but we were later charged for it!) is now tending the downstairs room under the watchful eyes of mama.

Mario’s creations are still mixed. He is able to strike very high notes with a classic such as “Arroz meloso con bonita escabechado berberechos” which is a soupy and fulfilling rice dish enriched by saffron, confit tuna, potatoes and clams. Excellent. But then he also fumbles badly with a “fusion de viera y pichon con alburicoque caramelizado” which is a layered dish with squab breast-scallop-squash and pieces of deep fried basil. Here the combination results in a muddy dish where different flavors contend to express themselves, but to no avail. If there were an expression about “the sum being smaller than the parts”, this is it. But then textural contrasts do work in the no nonsense lamb dish which follows the pigeon, That is, “cordero lechal en diferentes texturas para el palador” features lamb feet, brain, shoulder and ribs, and the result is not only conceptually interesting (to serve gelatinous feet and brain with the most rustic shoulder), but also delicious, and clearly this is a dish that requires tremendous attention to cooking times which are not easy to synchronize. Bravo. The desserts, prepared by Jose Ramon are also very good and especially his “torrija traditional con sepume de leche,” which presents condensed milk in three different textures and is a modern take on a most traditional Semana Santa dessert, proves that modernism, when intelligently thought out, can also mean a breadth of fresh air. Let’s hope that as Coque’s gets more recognized, the kitchen will continue to evolve in the direction of striking a happy balance between tradition and modernity. It will be exciting to watch how this restaurant will evolve, and I am looking forward for a revisit in 2006. Right now I would rank it 16/20, one point higher compared to my last visit which was one and a half years earlier.

I am looking forward to a return visit to Madrid, and we will continue visiting traditional restaurants, such as Dantxari, Rafa’s, Zalacain, Horcher, De La Riva, Casa d’a Troya, etc. In 2004, I had a troubling meal at the two star LA BROCHE which was conceptually intriguing, but no more, and I am not looking forward for a return visit anytime soon. On the other hand, I hope that Combarro will be waiting for us!

VM.