Spain: Barcelona and Gran Canaria

Took a recent trip to Barcelona and Gran Canaria, the largest of the Canary Islands.

I fell in love with Barcelona years ago. Somewhere between the architecture and the people and the art and the food and the weather I realized that this may be my favorite place on earth, but for the moment lets stick to the food. I already posted separately a thread about my visits to the world renown Boqueria food market (http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=39089) but here is a run down of the meals we ate.

Barcelona is overwhelming in that there are so many great restaurants. First you have the twenty or so high end Michelin-star type places (over 60 in all of Catalan), but a level below are hundreds to wonderful eateries spread throughout the city. Even the touristy joints hawking the ever-present paella can be quite good, but its so simple to do much better, so here is an overview of the best meals we had.

The Tapas style meal is pervasive across the city - small plates isn't just the latest trend here, but the way Spaniards have been eating for a hundreds of years, and each restaurant has their own take on the cuisine and there own style of cooking. No two menus look the same, outside of aforementioned touristy Paella joints. Its eye opening for anyone who is used to the standard set of dishes found at most Spanish restaurants in the US (goat cheese in marinara anyone?)

One of the first meals we had was at Bar Cañete in the Rafal neighborhood, just a few minutes walk from the apartment we were renting. There were a sprinkling of foreign tourists here, although the majority seemed to be locals. In any case, they had no English menu, so we put ourselves in the hands of our waiter:



We made the simple request of two veggie, two seafood, and two meat dishes, and let him choose our meal.

The restaurant is set up as a long bar and then a few communal tables in the back. All of the bar seats faced towards the open kitchen, so the result was really one long kitchen surrounded by diners. The view of the kitchen from our seats:



The local style is to serve bread toasted crisp and spread with a garlic tomato sauce. I'm really not a fan since the tomato sauce can be spread a little too heavily and lead to soggy bread, but at Bar Cañete they did it right:



Our first course was thinly sliced, deep fried eggplant, drizzled with a light honey based sauce. Light and crispy and served in a carefully constructed heap:



Next was the pea dish which we both agreed was the best of the evening. Fresh peas cooked in a white wine sauce with artichoke and a delicious rich savory blood sausage. The dish was outstanding mixing fresh garden flavors with the aromatic broth and rich meatiness of the sausage. My mouth waters looking at this photo.



Next came scallops, served in shell on a bed of sea salt. Each scallop covered with little strips of rendered pork.



The second of the seafood courses was steamed mussels. It is hard to see from the picture, but while the mussels themselves were very small, the inner meats quite large, sometimes almost filling the shells. The serving looked small, but it filled us up, with plenty of broth to be soaked up with the bread.



The first meat dish arrived, and honestly were were getting a little stuffed at this point. It was a butchers cut roasted medium rare and topped with herb butter, so who can resist that...



Finally, Oxtail stew which was served as a shepherd's pie, topped with a layer of buttery mashed potato crisped under a broiler, and below, which you can not see, oxtail meat in a rich and creamy stew. A decadent way to end an day full of sightseeing.



A few days later, in the fashionable Born neighborhood, we stopped by a small bar located behind the Picasso museum for four dishes at Tapas Tapeo.

Again we had deep fried eggplant, but in this case cut into chunks that were cooked to a soft and light consistency on the inside with a crispy costing on the outside. Once again drizzled with a light honey sauce that had only a mild sweetness. I'm not sure what else they mix in here - some type of broth to water it down. But a much different take than Bar Cañete.



A lovely serving of leeks followed, seemingly boiled to softness and lightly grilled and topped with a salty fish egg sauce.



These sausage patties are made from pigs feet. Meat carefully removed, made into a sausage, cooked, cooled, sliced, and sauteed. Delicately held together by the collagen from the pigs feet it was a preparation I had never seen before and a very light dish with a wonderful mix of textures and flavors.



Ending on the high note of the meal, sweetbreads served with mushrooms and bone marrow for a second meal to end on a decadent note. You can see the marrow in the picture as a small round whitish disc. Sweetbread rich in flavor and slightly crispy.



The final meal I'll show was two nights later at the Basque restaurant Euskal Etxea just a few doors down from Tapas Tapeo. We must have been drinking more this evening than others because for almost every course I forgot to take a photo until we were already half way through the dish. Euskal Etxea is in fact more popular for its pinchos style dining (Or Pinxos as the say in Catalan) - small canapes pile don plates at the front bar. Dozens of options, each on a toothpick and at the end of the meal you count up the toothpicks and pay. In our case we went to the back room for a more formal meal.

As a starter, they served olives, spicy peppers and anchovy in a small bite. Originally two olives on each stick, one gone by the time I remembered the camera. Best when consumed as one bite where the salty/fishy/spicy/sour flavors all combine into one mouthful of lively flavor.



A large plate full of baby lobster, not listed on the menu but just in fresh that day. In the photo you see a pile of shells, but you're lucky to see even that since we had ravenously consumed the remained before remembering why the camera was sitting on the table. Eating method was break in half, suck out the tail, tiny an sweet, suck out the head, earth and rich, and move on to the next. All coated in a garlic butter sauce.



A serving of six porcini mushroom croquettes then arrived, four of which were still standing when we I noticed the camera sitting on the table. Crispy on the outside, lucious on the inside, melting in your mouth with wonderful porcini flavor.



A whole fish, split down the middle. I'm not sure of the type of fish, but caught in the ocean that day. More commonly we were served Dorado for other meals, but this was some sort of sea bream. Sauteed in butter and garlic - you can see the sliced cloves on top. A fish dish could not have been more decadent than this.



For the first time on the trip we saved some room for dessert and were rewarded with perhaps the best chocolate cake I have ever had - a molten cake with chocolate flavor indescribably good, and I'm not a big chocolate fan. Not too sweet, yet not bitter. A delicate cake surrounding the liquid center, served with house made hazelnut ice cream.




At the end they served a few honey treats, tasting like baklava without the phyllo.



For the next stage of our trip we flew down to Las Palmas, the largest of the Canary Islands off the western coast of Africa. Not a usual stop for American tourists, but we were there along with the Chicago Symphony, of which my wife is a member, for the first stop on their recent European tour.

We spent most of our time in the touristy north east corner of the city, along the Las Canteras beach, which is not quite the foodie paradise of Barcelona, but we did have success at La Oliva, one of the many boardwalk restaurants along the beach where the daily catch is served with a salad and boiled potatoes. Two things made this meal - first the fish which varied by day but was always fresh from the ocean. The fish sown below was "Sama" which I tried to google, but it tranlates as "a local fish from the Canary Islands," so you'll have to trust me that it has a flavor somewhat like Japanese Hamachi, but a bit more firm. Second was the two sauces with which it was served - one a very garlic aioli with some green herb spark, and the second a spicy smokey sauce (paprika?) with cardamom accent. They both tasted good on everything, but I ended up favoring the spicy sauce as a salad dressing, and the garlic sauce on the potatoes. Nothing so good as sitting out on a warm night along the ocean dining on freshly caught fish.



We also had success in the Las Palmas old city, an hour walk to the south. On a little side street named Cano (with a C) we found restaurant Kano (with a K). Over the course of two meals we had the following:

Salmon wrapped around avocado



Baby Artichokes braised in white wine with shrimp.



Deep fried shrimp on skewers with saffron sauce.



Cheese croquettes. Not quite as good as those in barcelona, but still quite good. Still a little liquid on the inside form the melted soft cheese.



To top it all off, a wonderful Octopus stew with a mix of many types of mushroom and potatoes in a seafood and white wine broth.



Great meals and great trip. Can't wait to go back.

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Bar Cañete
Carrer de la Unió, 17, Barcelona

Tapeo
Montcada 29, Barcelona

Euskal Etxea
Placa Montcada 1-3, Barcelona

La Oliva
Prodencio Morales 17
(La Puntilla, Playa de la Cantera)
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Restuarante Kano 31
Calle Cano 31
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria