I've become a Basquetcase.

A handful of years ago, I read somewhere that there was a language in north-central Spain – southwestern France that was nothing at all like any other language in Europe, and was quite possibly the oldest language in the continent. I must live a pretty sheltered life, I thought, how the heck have I not heard of this ? I then learn that this area between Spain & France, is neither Spain nor France. Wha ?

But anyways, this began what became my intense fascination with the Basque Country, or Euskadi, as it is known in Basque (Euskera). I learned about the history, the struggles, the politics, the language, and I learned that these Basques are legendary eaters and cooks. And I’m still learning.

I was finally able to see this place I’ve been dreaming about with my own two eyes (and mouth), and it was grand.

Acknowledgments: Many thanks to PIGMON and Rafa for their guidance and wisdom, which helped me immensely on this trip

Bilbao



Thanks to Frank Gehry & the Guggenheim Foundation, everybody now knows Bilbao. Take a walk down the main strip, Gran Via Lopez de Haro, and you’d never know this town used to be old, grey, industrial, and boring. You can buy a belt for 400 euros now. But you can also leave behind the bustling cosmopolitan downtown, walk along the Nervion River, towards the Casco Viejo and see Bilbao how it looked pretty much when it was built. This is the heart of town.

After being in transit for basically 24+ hours (what you get for being cheap), and a few bad airplane meals, I figured I should probably drink a lot of water and eat something fresh and healthy like a salad.

I’m not sure what happened, but I ended up with this:




Bacalao croquettes.


A little too cheesy for me, but tasty nonetheless.

And, like literally every night of my trip, it ended with this:


Patxaran

Mark Kurlansky, in The Basque History of the World, writes: “The singular remarkable fact about the Basques is that they still exist.” They’ve fought countless battles, numerous groups have tried to take their land, and yet they remain. With all that traffic going through Basqueland, they were bound to pick up a few things from groups making their way through the Pyrenees. What I was surprised to learn was that at some point in history, the good people of Milwaukee left a very important bit of culture with the Basques – the Milwaukee Magic Trick, which these Basques must have embraced with open arms, as they execute it with perfection. I knew I would have to get the hang of this thing right out the gates if I was going to find my way around here. Surprisingly, this bit of history is nowhere to be found in the literature.

I think the food in Bilbao is a bit overlooked in favour of San Sebastian dining, with their famous pintxos (tapas) bars and the Michelin-starred joints in the nabe. But Bilbao also has some excellent pintxos bars, as well as some very good traditional Basque cooking (more on that later).

On my first day, I decided to do a walking tour of the city, which is quite easy to do. Only problem is that it is a rainy time of year, so I got pretty much soaked in the first hour (despite umbrella), but once you’ve got a good puddle in each shoe, there’s no point caring anymore. Stop into a bar, have a drink and a snack, and keep walking.

Pintxos are everywhere, of course, and at first I thought they were all great, but over the course of my two weeks there, I really started picking up on more of the great and less of the good. The only time I really missed the mark was if I ate a stale one at a quiet bar that was mostly a drinking (and smoking) joint. Otherwise, you will always eat well. The bread was ubiquitously good everywhere I went, and that helps.

There are so many bloody kinds of pintxos that it would be a serious undertaking to document them all with detailed descriptions. Part of the problem for me is that I barely speak a lick of Spanish, and there are rarely any signs describing the pintxos, so you basically point at what looks good and try to guess at what all is in it.

One of my favourites, are the simple white anchovies in olive oil with garlic and lemon juice, usually garnished with sliced chilis and parsley. A little plate of that, hunk of good bread to mop things up, and a txakoli was a daily prescription.



Txakoli is a young, slightly tart, slightly floral, slightly effervescent white wine of the region. I couldn’t get enough of this stuff, especially since it’s really a PITA to find around my parts. I probably consumed about a bottle of txakoli a day, which really isn’t too crazy considering you probably duck into a bar about every half-hour over the course of the day. It’s a great way to see and experience a town. It’s also important to note that drinks in the bars are typically txikitos, small 2-3 gulp drinks. Beer (a zurito) was, unfortunately, mostly Heineken at the majority of places, though there’s usually a better selection of beer by the bottle.

Jamon is also everywhere. I was astonished to see the "Rockettes line of hams" in even the tiniest little dump bars. I ate my pig’s share of jamon everyday and still regret not eating more.



The best pintxos are in the old quarter (Casco Viejo), which is a labyrinth of tiny streets and alleyways that’s fun to get lost into for a day. Aside from the shops and bars, there are also a couple of pretty cool museums and churches if you want to put your tourist hat on.



At first, all the pintxos bars look the same as far as their offerings go, then you start realizing that there are certain ones that specialize in certain things. Made-to-order, decorative gourmet pintxos, tortilla, stews, seafood … take your pick.

Here’s a place (I think it’s called Melilla y Fez) I liked to go drink sidra (cider) at and eat a variety of tortilla:





In addition to tortilla, they also have some other pintxos:



Another great place that specializes in stews is Rio-Oja:









My plate of oxtail stew:







Café Bilbao in the Plaza Nueva wins competitions for their pintxos, and I wish I had snapped more pics of them because they are easy on the eyes:



Pintxos from another great place in the Plaza Nueva:








Right at the entrance to the Casco Viejo is apparently the largest indoor market in Europe – the three-floor, Mercado de la Ribera.

Before I quit for the night, here’s the obligatory barrage of market shots:













Smile:






























Forgive my stream-of-consciousness writing, but I am actually rushing to get this all down on paper since I lost all my notes from the trip and cannot rely on memory alone. More to come over the next few days.

-Nab

I have a new goal in life. Thanks for the heads-up on Basque country as a travel and dining destination, and not just a historical and linguistic curiosity.

Keep the percebes (pronounced "peth-AY-bays" across much of the Biscay coast) on the QT, tatter - those are our secret. Perhaps my favorite shellfish. And I can eat merluza all day - it's fished right offshore Santander (just a little bit deeper than the sardines), and is the ambassador of Cantabrian seafood. So flaky and tender with just some drawn butter and pimientos padrones on the side. Thanks for the opportunity to make my 1000th post on a comfort food from my namesake.

Forgive me for forgetting to acknowledge you, Santander, but I also must thank you greatly for your advice. Even though I didn't make it to Santander itself, your input was very helpful and greatly appreciated.

Percebes aren't THAT secret around here...

Great report, Tatterdemalion. Gorgeous photos, tinged with nostalgia for me (I didn't go to that part of Spain, but still).

Ah, Frankenstein, an old spirit in those parts...

Percebes aren't THAT secret around here...

Shh! Mike! You're part of the secret.

Wonderful post and photos, tatterdemalion! Thank you and I'd love to see more!

Very enjoyable post. Thanks! One of the coolest things about this region: the traditional men's cooking clubs. I've talked about forming one here - lot's of interest, but so far it hasn't gotten off square one.

Bill/SFNM

A great post and really nice pictures. Talk about fresh seafood...those pictures were practically talking to me.

I've always loved that sculpture by Jeff Koons outside of the Guggenheim.

He was in the running for doing the sculpture in Millennium Park, until officials went with Anish Kapoor's bean. I'd like to see what he had proposed.

Awesome post. Can't wait for more. This is a region I really want to get to, now even more so.

Bill/SFNM wrote:One of the coolest things about this region: the traditional men's cooking clubs. I've talked about forming one here - lot's of interest, but so far it hasn't gotten off square one.

Bill/SFNM

No doubt, Bill. I was determined to find my way into one of these famous gastronomic societies but, alas, it's not that easy. These are private affairs, restricted to members only. I asked around, but not knowing Spanish or Basque doesn't help, and Canadian charm doesn't go too far there either. Most of them nowadays are in the San Sebastian area, with I think about 75 of them in San Sebastian, and at one point (maybe still) the mayor of SS was required to eat in each of them at least once a year. Nice perk. Women are allowed in some of them nowadays, but it still is not common to my knowledge.

From reading your cooking posts here, Bill, it sounds like you are not far off from one of these clubs as it is.

Thanks all for the kind words.

tatterdemalion wrote:No doubt, Bill. I was determined to find my way into one of these famous gastronomic societies but, alas, it's not that easy. These are private affairs, restricted to members only. I asked around, but not knowing Spanish or Basque doesn't help, and Canadian charm doesn't go too far there either. Most of them nowadays are in the San Sebastian area, with I think about 75 of them in San Sebastian, and at one point (maybe still) the mayor of SS was required to eat in each of them at least once a year. Nice perk. Women are allowed in some of them nowadays, but it still is not common to my knowledge.

I had the good fortune to be invited to one in San Sebastian in 2006. The men gathered in the late afternoon for some very serious prep and cooking along with equally serious drinking and much joking around. The wives all showed up as the cooking was being finished with more wine drinking. During the meal (more wine, singing, and just pure joy of being with friends and good food) there was much lively debate about what foods were to be eaten next week, where they would be sourced, and who would be responsible for buying and cooking what. More wine, more singing. A person was hired to come in the next morning to clean up. Brilliant!

Great pictorial post, Tatterdemalion!

Are the seafood prices kg/euro or 500g/euro? Just trying to get some perspective and price points.

Those are some familiar sites- Spain is infectious- have been dreaming of my time there ever since. Next round I'll have to explore the pinxtos of the north!
I saw percebes all over the markets, but had no clue how to prepare them and never found them on any menus.
Nice one, tatterdemalion!

Bill -- that sounds exactly like what I've dreamed up in my head ! You lucky dog.

Jay K -- I think it is euro/kg unless otherwise stated for a specific quantity.

----

Bilbao cont'd ...

Ama Lurre
Maximo Aguirre Kalea 1
48011 Bilbao, Spain
+34 944 237 122
Website

Like animals who innately know what plants to eat and which ones to avoid, many of us are also programmed to avoid eating in hotels and to pass by multiple restaurants that smell of tourists only to wait for that one that just feels right according to spidey-sense. This is fine and dandy, but I think it’s okay to let that guard down in Basqueland a little bit. This is a culture where most everybody takes their food seriously, and it’s not easy to survive serving junk. Not only that, but you’ll find locals eating in the same spots crawling with tourists who don’t care or even know what they’re eating. That’s not to say that there aren’t closely guarded secret spots, and as Bill/SFNM points out above, there are gastronomic societies where some serious cooking and eating goes on behind closed doors. But gastronomy is a major part of Basque culture, common people included, and the quality and care and passion in preparing the food is all over the place.

I was initially reluctant to eat anything in the vicinity of my hotel which was across the street from the Gugg and the excellent Museo de Bellas Artes (don’t skip this place), however, there was a small place that I had read good things about and that came recommended to me, and heck, I was tired and soaking wet from walking all day, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

When I walked into Ama Lurre, I thought I walked into a local mob hangout where a meeting was in full swing. The front bar-room was about half-filled exclusively by older men in 3-piece suits, puffing stogies and playing cards. The barman was probably mid-sixties, slicked back hair, crisp shirt and tie with vest, and never cracked a smile during my entire meal (though I did get a sense of his graciousness). There is also a back dining room, for more formal affairs, and there was one group of men sitting at the back corner table enjoying a mountain of shellfish. Indeed, seafood and shellfish in particular is the name of the game here.

I went for the tasting menu, 7 courses and a bottle of wine, for something like 45 euros.

Tarrina de foie


Ensalada Ama Lurre – simple salad, with tuna and salmon and a whitefish, drizzled with good olive oil and vinegar. Pretty straightforward, but very good.


Calabacines rellenos – stuffed zucchini.


Can’t remember exactly what all it was stuffed with, but it was all vegetable matter from what I could tell. Quite tasty, though texturally kinda mushy.


Txipirones encebollados – baby squid, stuffed with baby squid, with sweet caramelized onions and a tender potato disc.


The txipirones I had all over were always the perfect balance between tender & chewy.


Gambas a la planxa – grilled shrimp, and that’s it. This is what it’s all about – doing very little with some amazing raw material. These things explode flavour.


Vieiras al txakoli gratinadas – scallops gratin.


Though you can’t see them, this was loaded with diced scallops. If you asked me to eat scallops gratin or scallops with any cheese, I’d probably decline. I would eat this again in a heartbeat though.


Queso caliente de cabra con jalea de manzana – warmed goat cheese with apple jelly. This little goat cheese volcano erupted with lava that was so strong that I was caught off-guard by the pungency of a goat cheese. The apple jelly took the edge off nicely.


Helado de queso.


This was more like new Basque cuisine, and even though I didn’t intend on eating much of that, I’m sure I glad I did here. Delicious.

Time to run to the airport for now,

Nab

Now I know where I'll be when TODG does the Camino! I'm going to be soooo easy to persuade to make the trip. Tnx so much tatterdemalion!

Geo

Perceiberos - Harvesting's almost as exciting as Deadliest Catch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O3-SFBY ... re=related

I also didn't realize they were so animate when alive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBTxccXoKPU

Nab,

Incredible, really terrific, thanks for sharing your trip and photos.

Enjoy,
Gary

Percebes look just like the gooseneck barnacles that cover much of the Pacific Northwest. I would imagine they're pretty closely related, if not just the same thing on a different shore.

Cynthia wrote:Percebes look just like the gooseneck barnacles that cover much of the Pacific Northwest. I would imagine they're pretty closely related, if not just the same thing on a different shore.

Funny you should mention that - an article I was reading when I posted above.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A961948260

Tatterdemalion,
Glad to se you had a great time, eating your way through the basque country.
There has been something mentioned about "percebes". Am I to understand that they can be found in Chicago?
Many years ago, I could get then from a spanish restaurant in Seattle, named "la Paloma", that I don´t think exists any longer. The owner used to get them for almost no cost and export them to Spain, since they were almost the same product, with somewhat less flavor than the spanish ones.
Could it be possible that the old connection is still operational? I would be very interested in knowing.
As far as the private gastro societys of the basque country, long time ago there was a similar one in Chicago, that operated for few years until almost everyone moved away.
Pigmon knows a lot about it, since he was one the members.
By the way, there were no basques in it, but similar rules applied. We were able to convince our respective ladies, to allow us to make it "males only".
Not very politically correct, now a days!!!!

Asador Etxebarri
Asador Etxebarri
Plaza San Juan, 1
48291 Axpe-Marzana
Atxondo- Bizkaia
Tel. 946583042
Website

Aside from the car, I really had no itinerary or reservations for this trip, just thought I’d let the Basque winds blow me where they may. Except for one place, where my reservations were written in stone.

Asador Etxebarri is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and when you actually see the place you wonder how anybody even knows about it at all. Of course, many people in the area, celeb chefs included, have known about it for a while, and I believe it was just in the past few years that it has been catching the attention of media across the globe. According to one ranking, they are the 44th best restaurant in the world. And not a single star.



Downstairs is a bar / cider house where locals congregate.



The backyard:


The restaurant was opened by Victor Arguinzoniz over 15 years ago in the tiny village of Axpe, where he has lived his whole life. From what I could tell, the village is comprised of about a dozen buildings/homes and that’s it. He’s never seen a day of professional training in his life, just self-taught in his own kitchen doing things the way he likes to. And the way he likes to do things is over a fire. Exclusively.

The kitchen is lined on one side by five grills that he made and installed himself, and the other by two hearths where he makes his own charcoal, using only two kinds of wood if I’m not mistaken: oak and grapevines. Note the hand-cranks which allow him to adjust the proximity to the heat, which is obviously a pretty important feature when you consider that he grills delicate stuff like eggs and oysters. I had never seen or experienced such subtle use of the fire, just lightly accenting some high quality product without too much else.





One of the tools he uses to grill the more delicate things:



The insides, having been recently renovated, are not quite as rustic as the outs, but a very cozy dining room nonetheless:



Things got kicked off innocently enough with some fantastic housemade txorizo, which had only been curing for a couple of months, so I experienced it in its half-cured state:

Txorizo:


Then came a cute little ball of butter, from the local cow’s milk that is first smoked and matured for 3 days before being churned by hand and rolled in freshly baked bread flakes and black volcanic sea-salt:

Butter:


The butter’s best friend, some excellent farmhouse kinda bread:



I wish scale was represented better in this photo, but this guy was from the tip of my index finger to the tip of my thumb (if you make an “L” with your hand). It was sweet, salty, meaty and so juicy I thought I was biting into the xiao long bao of the sea.

Gambas de Palamos:


For the oysters, Victor shucks them and then sandwiches them in a steel basket-type of tool before grilling. The liquor is reserved and the oysters are sprayed with the liquor during cooking as well as finished with it and a touch of olive oil.

Oysters (and fresh seaweed):




Pretty much everything comes from the garden or the surrounding land. Here we have fresh eggs from the farm that are grilled, over smoked violet potatoes, and St. George’s mushrooms, picked from the mountains in the backyard, shaved on top. This was, suprisingly to me, the most funky and aggressive tasting thing of the lunch. By the last bite, I actually was a bit overwhelmed by the strong flavours.

Huevos con zizas:




These here are grilled sea cucumbers atop some fava beans. The sea cucumbers had a nice char on them, and were pleasantly chewy with some slight “natural casing snap”.

Sea Cucumbers:


Hard to pick a favourite course, but this one just knocked my socks off.

Very carefully grilled bone marrow:


I was fortunate enough that the angula (baby eel) season was running late this year, and Lennox, the English-speaking sous chef told me this was the last batch of the year. Imitation angulas are used for pintxos all around Spain, but I’m glad I was able to taste the real thing, little eyeballs and all.

Angulas:


I’m a sucker for tuna belly, but this one here was unlike any other otoro or other belly preps I’ve had. While it was rich and fatty, it was also unusually juicy and light. “Juicy” is not a word I’d ever thought I’d use to describe tuna belly. Definitely another favourite of the meal for me.

Tuna belly:


My txorizo starter was certainly young, but not as young as this txorizo, which was really quite interesting. The spicing (which is quite subtle, especially compared to the Mexican chorizo I eat here in Texas) was similar, but the overall flavour was a bit different since it hadn’t been curing at all in that mountain air. Texturally, I thought I was actually eating some cut of beef that I was not familiar with, but then Lennox told me that what I was eating was their txorizo in the fresh state.

Fresh txorizo:




I thought for sure that the txorizo was my last course which, to me, meant that I wasn’t going to be able to try their Galician beef that I had heard so much about. I actually wasn’t too disappointed since the meal already had been spectacular, and I was already splitting at the seams. But then, lo and behold, along comes this guy:

Chuleta:


I would have eaten an appetizer, that size steak and maybe a dessert and called it a meal. But no, I had to have about 10 courses prior to this steak. I wept at the fact that I left half of it on the plate.

The Galician beef is at least 12 years of age (and up to 24) before it’s slaughtered, and then aged an additional 6-weeks in Victor’s barn, where he goes with a band-saw, to cut off a portion for each order as it is received. I felt like I was eating beef for the first time all over again. The flavour is very potent, but not gamey to me, just very beefy. You have to be able to enjoy a little chew, which I certainly do, since this is a totally different experience than an ultra-marbled wagyu/kobe. Incredible stuff.





I was dead by this point, but still enjoyed this ice cream finale, which also had a kiss of smoke to it, the perfect ending.

Ice cream:


I didn’t make it to Arzak, Akelarre, Mugaritz or any of the other famed places in the area, and that was fine by me. Etxebarri cooks the kind of food I dream about.

-Nab

Wow. I wouldn't have thought a new batch of photos would outdo the previous ones, but they really did. The butter in sea salt, the tuna belly, the ice cream... stunning. I know where I'm going next in Spain.

Mike G wrote:I know where I'm going next in Spain.

Yeah, me too. If only the damn dollar would make some headway against that damn Euro . . .

San Sebastian-Donostia



After my marathon meal at Etxebarri, I started making my way up to San Sebastian, for what was going to be the pinnacle of the trip, or so I thought. Unforunately, this was not the fantasy town I had dreamt up in my head, and definitely not as serene as the above photo might have you believe. I should note that by this point I’d already chalked up a handful of hard nights and was really looking forward to enjoying a seaside beach resort town for some R&R. I rolled into town with a fully distended bladder, and took it for a circular drive around town in wild traffic for over an hour trying to find what turned out to be a dump hotel. Damn you, San Sebastian, damn you. After unloading my luggage and my bladder, I thought there was no way I was going to be able to sleep in that rat-hole without a few drinks, so I went out on the town with a bad attitude and a ferocious thirst.

Thing is, it’s pretty damn hard not to love San Sebastian in the morning, even with a crushing hangover. I decided to go on a long hike of the city to walk it off, culminating with a hike to the top of the very cool Monte Urgull (from where the above photo was taken).

By this point it was definitely time to duck into a bar for a snack, so I stopped in for my first bite in the Old Quarter, famous for its pintxos.



This, however, was just some bar on the perimeter of the Old Quarter, and this was just an average tortilla. Which got me thinking – the tortillas were great in most places, but I didn’t see as many of those tortillas de patata, that are layered like mille-feuille, as I thought I would. Like this one (made by Trixie-Pea):


Photo courtesy of Mike G.

The other thing that struck me was that even places like this which clearly did not have an emphasis on the food, still turn out some pretty attractive pintxos, since you really can’t just sit there as a bar with all the other places stacked with some amazing-looking plates. On the other hand, I don’t believe there is a cut-throat competitiveness there either since most people end up hopping from one place to the next, so you’re inevitably going to get business. Not a bad business to run either, considering there’s no menu, no waitstaff or table-service, relatively little overhead (aside from rent/property), etc. Just need to clean a bazillion little plates and glassware. Anyways, this little average drinking bar had stuff like this sitting on their counter:



Having said that, there are places there that are clearly playing in a different ballpark. One place specialized in mushrooms and had a big ol’ pile of wild mushrooms on the bar, another that was almost exclusively seafood, another known for their foie, etc.





I enjoyed a fair amount of morcilla on the trip too:














The place known for their foie has become quite a popular place in recent years, and I worked my way through just about the entire menu, enjoying every bite. The place is run by two guys, one Basque, the other a guy from Barcelona who trained with Ferran Adria at El Bulli, though you won’t see much El Bulli influence. The food is relatively straightforward and simple, but still creative and delicious.

La Cuchara de San Telmo:


Their pintxos are all made-to-order in a kitchen the size of a bathtub in the back of the bar. Menu is easy enough to get through in two days, but I imagine it’s better for your health to have at least another person to help you out:



I wish I had grabbed more photos of the rest of the menu I ate because they were just as beautiful as the plate of foie:

Seared foie gras with apple compote:


Most of the famous Michelin-starred restaurants are in the viscinity of San Sebastian, but I was more interested in sampling as many pintxos and as much simple seafood as I could, so I never made it to them. The only somewhat fancy-pants restaurant I went to was Bodegon Alejandro, a family-run restaurant where famous Basque chef Martin Berasategui got his start.

Amuse of crackers and a shot of white asparagus soup:




The white asparagus from the Navarra region are a renowned food, and I ate them often on my trip, mostly served as spears with a hollandaise-y type sauce. I found them to be ultra-tender, almost disintegrating in your mouth, but very flavourful.

Spider-crab, txangurro, are a San Sebastian-Donostia specialty, and on San Sebastian Day members of gastronomic societies march through the street in a festival that lasts for 24 hours ending with a traditional meal of txangurro a la Donastiarra – San Sebastian style stuffed spider crab. I had Italian style spider crab-stuffed-pasta.

Housemade ravioli stuffed with spider-crab with mushrooms in a mushroom cream sauce:


And then some grilled veal sweetbreads with onion confit and sweet potato foam:


And some ice cream:


While nothing as tricked-out and over-the-top as probably Mugaritz, this was a very enjoyable meal, especially considering that the three courses were something like 30 euros.

After forgiving San Sebastian over the course of two nights, I still decided it was time to move onto the next town.

-Nab

After having enough of San Sebastian, I decided it was time to go unwind somewhere else, and make that place homebase for the next couple of nights where I could regroup.

Hondarribia



Hondarribia (aka Fuenterrabia) is a gorgeous little fishing village right at the border of France, with the beautiful Monte Jaizkibel as a backdrop, and the medieval walls and Castle Parador built up around the village. I absolutely fell in love with this town, and it’s the perfect place to make homebase, particularly if you’ve got family in tow. There’s excellent lodging, ranging from high-end (at the Castle itself), modern (I very much enjoyed my stay at the Hotel Jaizkibel), or the very cool agrotourist homes, all quite reasonable in price. Plenty of outdoor activities to do here, and if the beach is a little too low-key for you, you can take the short boat ride across the bay to Hendaye in France, which also has a very nice beach and better surf.

Every night, the streets of the fishing quarter fill up with at least three generations of family members making their way from one end of the street to the other.





I was surprised to find that the food here was just as phenomenal as Bilbao and San Sebastian, especially when you consider the size of the town. Michelin has left their mark in town with the restaurant Alameda, considered by many to be one of the best restaurants in Basque Country. But there are also several restaurants preparing simple fish and seafood, all of superb quality. And the pintxos -- there may not be as many, but per capita, the pintxos here are on par with SS, and are spectacular.

In particular, there is a place similar to the aforementioned La Cuchara de San Telmo, which consistently wins awards for their made-to-order pintxos.

Gran Sol is run by two relatively young guys who I believe also have prior training in places like El Bulli, but have returned to much smaller and simpler kitchens, to crank out beautiful plates. They have a cookbook too, which I forgot to pick up, but which you can order online here.

As I said earlier, my Spanish is atrocious, and Google’s translating abilities almost as bad, so if anybody can help translate the below menu items for me, that would greatly help me in resurrecting my notes. I’ve got a rough idea of these, but not exact …..

1) Foie y queso caramelizado con vinagreta de mosto reducido.

2) Foie gras a la sarten con cabello de angel y jugo de pina.

3) Huevo mollete al oro sobre migas de pastor al txipiron, patata lupin y jugo de ave.

4) Hondarribia: tosta de bacalao ahumado con foie, pimiento del piquillo y dulce de melocoton.


5) Jaizkibel: champinon relleno de Mouse de queso con jamon iberico y ali-oli.


6) Codito de cerdo iberico con crema de la pure de patata.

7) Pilartxo tosta de verdel con piperrada queso roto y membrillo de verza.

Costilla de cerdo iberico lacado a la miel, con salsa teriyaki y patata Rota al requeson y pimenton.

9) Rollito crujiente de verduritas y gambas ligadas con crema de puerro y salsa agridulce.

The other two places I frequented for more decorative pintxos were Enbate (in the Hotel Jauregui) and Yola Berri across the street.





As Santander notes above, merluza (hake) is the “ambassador of Cantabrian seafood”, and while bacalao probably is the ambassador of Basque seafood (maybe even the cuisine as a whole), merluza has a special place in the Basquelands as well. There’s fresh fish, and then there’s fresh fish, and I was continually flabbergasted at how different the same fish tasted over there than what I consume here in the US. I’m sure there’s much to do with freshness, freezing, handling, transport, and of course, the actual waters from where they’re pulled, but damn, I’ve never tasted hake so good in my life.

I believe this plate of merluza en salsa con kokotxas y almejas (clams) comes from the restaurant Yola Berri.



Kokotxas are the neck/throat of the fish, and as you can see from this below photo of bacalao kokotxas, they are fatty little morsels which have a great capacity to make a rich sauce, and are delicious eats in and of themselves.



I also enjoyed some terrific fish soup which didn’t last long enough for a photo, and then dessert of flan & ice cream:



I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but I ate dessert probably every second day on this trip – partly because I felt like skipping out on dessert was offensive. But I also found it interesting that no matter how completely stuffed I was, eating dessert was relatively easy to do, and even eased the discomfort of my overeating. I’m sure that’s probably how dessert & coffee came about, and I’m just learning that now.

--

A lesser-known delight of the Basquelands is the cider (sargadoa), and the great majority of these legendary cider houses (sidrerias) are located in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, the area including San Sebastian and Hondarribia.

I was lucky enough to be there during the cider season where, from January until March-April, folks go to these sidrerias every weekend to celebrate cider before it is bottled. The most famous town for sidrerias is Astigarraga, which has 17 of them.

The tradition is to sit down for dinner at long, wooden communal tables, for a typical meal of bacalao omelettes, Idiazabal cheese, monsterous T-bone steaks or lamb chops, cuajada for dessert. The cider is all-you-can-drink, and you drink it right from the gigantic oak barrels. Somebody from the cider house yells, “Txotx!” and everybody rushes over to the kegs, glass in hand, and fills up – holding the glass down by the ground to create a froth and release its bouquet.

I hope I can find cider like this around here, because I’ve now become a big fan of this stuff. It’s not very carbonated and they don’t add any additional sugar to it during fermentation, but it’s a little dry and has the tartness and slightly sweet note of pure apples. Great stuff, and if anybody knows where to get Basque cider over here, I’d love to know (note: I haven’t searched yet at all, so it may very well be accessible).

The bad & sad news is that I never made it to Astigarraga, or any of the other small villages where most of the sidrerias are. While they were only a short 20-30 kms away, some of them are tricky (for foreigners) to find, and without a designated driver, I wasn’t brave enough to try finding my way home in the dark on my own (with a head-full of cider). In retrospect, I should’ve plunked down the cab-fare because it’s an experience that should be had.

That’s not to say I didn’t get to experience a sidreria, because another nice feature of Hondarribia is that they have one right in town (which is really not common at all).



And right after this shot, my camera battery died. But I enjoyed some tortilla bacalao, a salad, some delicious milk-fed veal ribs, and cuajada.

If you visit this area during January - May, do NOT miss the cider houses.

--

Hondarribia is a great place to stay. You can enjoy Hondarribia itself, or take numerous day-trips into San Sebastian, France, or other small Basque towns like Tolosa, the town famous for its red beans – alubias de Tolosa. If I had one other regret, it might be that I never made it to Tolosa, though I did enjoy its red beans elsewhere. They say that alubias de Tolosa are best eaten in Tolosa due to the Tolosan water. Like the NYC bagel theory.

The beans are actually black, but when cooked they turn red and yield a thick, cocoa-colored sauce. They’re traditionally cooked in earthenware crocks and served with cabbage and “garnished” with sausages and pork ribs.

I did, however, take a day-trip into France, and visited Saint-Jean-de-Luz, which was everything that I had imagined it would be.





Except that I was a little surprised that all of a sudden nobody was speaking Spanish, and I mean nobody. I had just been hitting my stride with Castellano, which is to say that people had some remote clue as to what the hell I was trying to say, but now I had to shift gears and speak French. What resulted was some bastardized version of Mexican-Spanish, Candian-French, and whatever little Castellano-Spanish I had picked up, with god-knows-what accent spun around it. The locals seemed to get a kick out of it, though at that time and particular hour, I thought Antonius is probably sleeping, but most likely having a nightmare.

Since I was in France, I had a crepe.

Buckwheat crepe with chorizo, simple salad, egg and piperade:


Though I didn’t make it up to Biarritz or to try the Bayonne hams and chocolates, Saint-Jean-de-Luz is a great place to spend a day bumming around the beach.

I really didn’t want to leave Hondarribia, ever, but before hitting the road I promised myself I would buy a house there at some point in my life.

Pamplona



I didn’t stay long enough in Pamplona to do much of anything, other than pay a visit to the site of San Fermin and see some old Hemingway spots.

Outside Plaza de Toros


He’s everywhere:


I didn’t stay long enough to make a fair assessment, but I don’t think Pamplona is much of a pintxos town, at least relative to where I’d just come from. Nonetheless, I enjoyed a light lunch, consisting of a couple of versions of escabeche, a Gilda (olive, anchovy and guindilla peppers on a toothpick), and a chunk of bread.



This is pretty much everywhere, even in the worst of bars, but they are reliably great and I could eat ‘em all day long. I’ve been making escabeche since I’ve been back and still find it to be a favourite lunch at work. If there was a signature pintxo of Basque Country, it’s probably the Gilda. Apparently the name comes from the 1946 Rita Hayworth film of the same name due to the spiciness of both. Another theory is that gilda simply means lollipop. I’m surprised to find that I don’t have a single photo of a Gilda, and that can only be attributed to the fact that they’re so quickly snarfed down there was never any time for snaps.

After a run through the San Fermin sites, a quick lunch, and a couple of zuritos, I hit the road …

… and stuff started to look a bit different:




… and then I ended up here:

La Rioja

Nobody knows for sure, but the most oft-quoted figure as to the number of bodegas in La Rioja is “over 500”. As a result, you absolutely gotta come with a plan of attack if you’re going to pay a serious visit. As I mentioned earlier, I had no plans for my entire trip let alone Rioja, so I was a bit screwed at this point. I screwed myself though, since everybody had told me that you need to make all of your appointments in advance (a day or two), which then, of course, requires a bit of planning and logistics (if you can understand Spanish, it helps, as the English-tours are less frequent). Good thing is that driving around to them all is a breeze, so long as you can keep your eyes on the road and off the spectacular sights surrounding you.

This was the first time I had visited a bonafide wine region, and I can already tell this is going to become something of a habit. I had always enjoyed Riojan wine, but actually visiting the area and the local bodegas and learning the history and the methods really opens up a whole new world of enjoying the region’s wine. You suddenly become obsessed with it. Since I’ve been back, I’ve been tasting Rioja with a whole new outlook now.

Despite my poor planning, I was able to see the new, Gehry-fied, commercialized bodegas, as well as a couple of traditional old-fashioned ones. On my return visit, I think I will do some serious due diligence on the smaller, family-run wineries and probably focus an entire trip on them alone.

Laguardia is a small, medieval, walled (hence the name) town located on top of a hill overlooking the plains of Rioja Alavesa (the region including the southern chunk of Basque Country, which include Laguardia) and the Cantabrian mountains.



This is a great place to make your base as there are some great hotels, some to suit those requiring the comforts of the web, and others to suit those wanting to stay in a castle. There’s also some decent pintxo bars in the actual village where cars are not permitted because there’s a labyrinth of subterranean tunnels leading to the >300 wine cellars underground, beneath the homes.

There are a few cool little food shops in town too:


And I enjoyed some pintxos as well, though not many:


The easiest tour to line up was at the famous Herederos del Marques de Riscal, where the oldest bodega in Rioja was bought by an American corporation, given a major overhaul, in part by Frank Gehry, including a spiffy boutique hotel, and had their methods “updated” to suit the times. It was a little horrifying, though I guess the juxtaposition of old and new was mildly interesting.



They don’t make ‘em like they used to:





If you poke around, you will see some oak here and there:


Aside from what was offered at the tasting, I didn’t drink anything else from this winery on my trip, so I don’t have a good feel for what they actually produce. I can say that, though, what was offered at the tasting didn’t evoke much of the Rioja region for me. Very nice wine, no doubt, but just didn’t hit me with the old-school, earthy, oakiness I associate with wines of this region. It tasted brand spanking new.

Sorry there aren’t more food pics, but I can’t help myself with these sights:


As touristy as it is, I still strongly recommend going to the famous wine museum in Briones, Dinastia Vivanco – Museo de la Cultura del Vino. I had an absolute gas walking around this museum with my headphones on (audio-tour) learning about the history of wine making in this region. And it sure gets you thirsty to go slurping around.

Lady Lush:




Fun for the kids !


Unlike Marques de Riscal, I enjoyed many good wines from Muga in the town of Haro, and was excited to pay them a visit to see how these luscious wines were made.



This traditional bodega still makes terrific wine according to their age-old methods, and have their own cooperage to make their own vats and casks by hand (though they do outsource some of it).





A great season:


The other bodega in Haro which was a requisite visit was Lopez de Heredia, pretty much across the street from Muga.



These guys are even more traditional than Muga and everything is done strictly the way it was when it was first opened over 130 years ago.

Their hand-crafted wines were some of my favourites of the trip.

Barrels made by hand:


Down where the juice takes a rest:


A long rest:


Some of the bottles from which I did not drink:


The above shot is from the family’s special reserve collection where there are bottles from when the place opened. None of these are for sale, and many wealthy individuals have visited, offering wads of cash for a bottle, but the family always refuses.

Speaking of the family, this bodega is still very much family-run. The old man, the grandson of the founder, is essentially the boss, but has a couple of daughters, one an attorney who does PR stuff, another who is in charge of operations, and an engineer son who oversees the technical aspects. A pretty good, complimentary breed.

As I was leaving Muga earlier in the day, I spotted an old man walking down the street with a broom, sweeping the streets of Haro:



My tour-guide told me: “You see that man. That is the owner of Lopez de Heredia. He is a millionaire, yet he is like a little boy.”

Now it’s not quite like seeing Bill Gates sweep the streets of downtown Seattle, but this was still a pretty cool sight to see. He was a really nice guy, I think. I didn’t understand a word he said, but he grabbed my cheeks and patted me on the head like a son. I proposed the idea of adoption, but dammit, still haven’t gotten the hang of Castellano.



The old man is staunchly opposed to any kind of modernization of the winery, yet the kids were able to convince him to permit Pritzker prize-winning architect, Zaha Hadid, to design the new tasting pavilion. I was comforted by the fact that, prior to the re-design, the bodega was already unable to meet demand, and still are, but most importantly, while they have put a slick spin on their appearance, the wine-making method has not changed a bit.

Up until now, aside from the txorizo and morcilla and jamon, I had been pretty much eating fish and seafood exclusively. But Riojan food is very much about meat. Some classic Riojan food includes: chuletillas al sarmiento (lamb chops grilled over grapevines), patatas a la Riojana (stew of potatoes, txorizo, peppers, garlic and onions), cordero lechal (roast suckling milk-fed lamb), cabrito asado (roasted goat), pochas (white bean stew with txorizo), bacalao a la Riojana (bacalao cooked with red peppers and tomatoes), pencas (swiss chard in a cream sauce) among many others.

My first night in town in Laguardia, I actually ended up at my hotel restaurant (Villa de Laguardia), partly because I was pooped, and partly because I’d heard they had a great wine list. Ahhhh, just about every place around here has a great wine list, as I quickly found out. This was probably the only meal of the trip that I thought lacked any soul.

Bacalao croquette:


I don’t remember the last time I sent a dish back to the kitchen, but after eating so well all along this trip, I guess I was starting to get a bit cocky. And this plate of pochas just didn’t have any heart and soul in it (which is an unjustice to this dish in particular). And this was like Oscar Meyer txorizo which broke my heart.

Pochas:


This was some mish-mash hash of mushrooms, cheese, jamon, egg and straw potatoes:


And then a simple grilled skewer of monkfish and bacon-wrapped shrimp:




I had much better luck at an unsuspecting little place located beside a gas station, which came recommended to me by way of Rafa. Las Postas is run by a friendly, English-speaking guy, Ramon, who spent some years in the US playing professional jai alai. They have a very nice menu and Ramon is happy to recommend one of many local Laguardia wines (there are over 50 bodegas in Laguardia alone), all at very reasonable prices.

Amuse of red pepper “pudding”, more like a terrine, as there seemed to be some kind of animal fat holding it together:



An excellent salad with warmed goat cheese and a beet dressing:



I was again reminded of how seriously all the people take their food when Ramon quite gravely said to me after dropping off the salad: “Please can I ask you for a favour ? Can you please cut up the cheese and mix up the salad – it is much better eaten that way.” I had no plans to eat it otherwise, but had to smile, knowing that it would have sincerely pained Ramon to have watched me eat it improperly.

Next up was kokotxas de bacalao en salsa verde:



As I said earlier, kokotxas make a good, rich sauce, and this plate was swimming in it. This is a dish very similar to the classic Basque dish, bacalao al pil pil (which is featured a bit later), in that the thick & gelatinous sauce comes from little more than fish fat and olive oil. Most chefs add their own little spin to the sauce, and Ramon tells me that his ‘secret’ is the addition of a little bit of juice from a can of Navarra white asparragus.

One of my favourite desserts (and one that I would like to replicate here but don’t know how) was cuajada. Las Postas’ was above average.



Chuletillas al sarmiento (lamb chops grilled over grapevines) is a classic Riojan dish, however, recent regulations requiring that this method be conducted outdoors has led many restaurants to discontinue it in lieu of an indoor gas-grilled version. There are still a few places that cook it in the traditional manner, unfortunately I did not make to any of them.

I did sample a bit more classic Riojan fare though, again at Las Postas (my only repeat-visit of the trip, excluding bars, of course).

Swiss chard stocks stuffed with ham & cheese, and ‘souffle’ made with leeks and shrimp:


Can’t tell from the photo, but these lamb chops were very tender and flavourful.

Chuletillas de cordero a la brasa:


This is a place that deserves far more than just a couple of days.




-Nab

Tatter-

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. I am awe-struck.

-The GP