Sidetrip: Mexico City

I write this blog post suspiciously… something, somewhere that I ate last week in Mexico City decided to wreak havoc on my stomach. And I have no idea what it was since it only hit about three hours after I landed in the US, effectively ruining a weekend with my mom in town and plans to sidle up to the bar at Saffron and brunch at Spoonriver. Instead, I writhed in pain on the couch, gripping my belly to keep the waves of nausea at bay. Sorry, Mom. I owe you a fun weekend.

But, what can I say? I have no idea what made me sick so it isn’t like I would do anything differently next time. As a vegetarian it is basically insane to attempt to avoid uncooked fruits or vegetables or other such nonsense. And the food, in general, tasted great.

Arriving late, we stayed in the hotel the first night and I was overwhelmed by the behemoth portion of underwhleming pasta I was served at Alfredo di Roma. It was a tube pasta dish with red sauce and dry eggplant. No temptation to return there, despite how nice the servers were.

The following evening we had a delicious dinner at El Bajio Cocina Mexicana in Polanco. It was suspiciously close to the Hard Rock Café and a huge space so I initially questioned if we were in tourist hell but once I tasted the salsas on the table, I knew we would be in for a treat. Those salsas were all super spicy, making me the only one at the table who was even sampling them. My Mexican colleague turned to me with a twinkle in his eye and asked if I wanted to try something “authentic” and promised it was vegetarian. Um, yes, I could hardly wait. Out to my seat came a plate with two big rounds of food on it, all covered in a deep, almost black, sauce. Breaking into one of the “patties”, I found a slice of cheese wrapped in an interesting web of fine greens that seemed to have a bit of a berry on them that looked like couscous. The pattie was fried and then generously covered with the dark sauce. It was delicious and when I asked what it was I was eating I never even received the full name, just told that I was eating the “Breakfast of Champions” of Mexico. What was I eating??? And, I want some more, loving the protein and greens combo.

On our last night, we had another gargantuan meal at Solea, the modern Mexican restaurant in the W Hotel. Like any W in the world, the scene was modern and the music progressively became louder and louder the later it got. We started once again with their excellent guacamole (had had it in the bar before!) and a cheese plate of Mexican cheeses. They ranged from a soft shredded Oaxacan to some flavored varietals, spicy to sweet. Beyond simple white melting cheeses, I never thought much about Mexican cheese and now I am intrigued to investigate further. I moved on to the “enchilada bar”, the menu option that allowed you to pick your tortilla flavor, filling and sauce. This is my kind of heaven so I selected the house specialty chile corn tortillas with a cheese filling, topped with a black bean sauce. While this might sound odd, the dish was absolutely gorgeous in presentation, the sour cream served encapsulated with a touch of unexpected molecular gastronomy. My fellow diners with their huge steaks instead ooh-ed and aah-ed at the appearance of my relatively simple layered (versus rolled) enchiladas.

Another gastronomic (and, yes, of course, actual work) success of a trip to Mexico City although it did wish me quite a fond farewell with a gift to keep the memory of the trip alive for quite a long time. My stomach is still gurgling 8 days later.

Bar La Grassa

The hottest ticket in town these days is a reservation at Bar La Grassa in the Warehouse District. When I sat down last Saturday and looked around the room, I could barely hold back a laugh because of the number of people I knew who were in the room ... and when we left around midnight, the place was still crowded. Now that is what I call city living and love it.

The folks from 112 have done me good with Bar La Grassa, reversing their stubbornly held anti-vegetarian option menu philosophy to offer me so many choices at Bar La Grassa that I was a bit overwhelmed. To accompany a bottle of Moscato d'Asti (you need no excuse for a bottle of bubbly...) we started with two antipasti and two bruschetta. The Beet and Avocado with Citrus was delicious and I also adored the Tallegio Bigne with Braised Apple. The Bigne were bite-sized cheese beignets, their saltiness complimented with the sweetness from the braised apple "salsa" below the bignes. It was a little bite of heaven.

From the Bruschetta column of the menu we ordered the Ricotta and Roasted Tomato and the Artichoke Caponata (two caponatas in as many weeks! see D'Amico Kitchen - new trend?). While I liked them both, they were a pain to eat. In the effort to make the plates pretty, the two slices of bread were daintily stacked perpendicular on top of one another and then the toppings on top of that. Now picture us at the table having to pretty much decompose and remake our own bruschetta, gracefully not attempting to use our fingers to to touch the food that everyone would eat. Annoyingly unnecessary, especially since other plates that came to the for our pasta course weren't plated "pretty" at all and barely wiped down on the edges. Weirdly inconsistent.

Citrus obsessed. Yes, I am. A co-worker warned me in advance about the Gnocchi with Cauliflower and Orange. I was salivating all week in wait, thinking about the fluffy pillows from 112 Eatery in a buttery orange sauce. The dish was good but didn't fully live up to my expectations - it smelled of orange but the flavor didn't come through as strongly as I wanted to taste it. I suspect that whoever controls the microplace zester finishing the dish controls the customer experience. Would love to do it myself...

We finished off the meal with the desserts and the winner, by far, was the lavender lemon frozen mousse. It was the perfect combination whereby the lavender highlighted the citrus without turning the dessert into a bar of shower soap. It made me sigh in happiness. The other dessert was so much less memorable that I can't even remember what it was.

So the food was good with even greater potential as the opening hecticness wears down. Our service was a bit pitiful but I forgive them so soon after opening and luckily we were in no hurry at all and were happy to have a three hour dinner. The space is also amazingly refreshed - we spent a lot of conversation time discussing how different it felt than the salsa-obsessed Babalu that used to claim the space. I really can't wait to go back and just hang out there, watching the chefs from the pasta bar or the other patrons from the bar near the entrance. It is hopping and I hope it stays that way.

Thumbs Up: Vibrant and beautiful space, good food AND open late, lots of small plates to try
Thumbs Down: Our service that night was off, precarious bruschetta

Bar La Grassa 800 North Washington Ave Minneapolis www.barlagrassa.com

OM

I was so excited for OM. For the past 6 months, I sat rubbing my hands together in impatience waiting for our own high end Indian restaurant to open in the Twin Cities. Like sugar plums, thoughts of the wonderful Rasika in Washington DC were running through my head. And OM teased me with emails and postcards in the mail promising great things. And I loved the name OM, reminding me of my peaceful yoga practices.

Oh, how an experience can differ from your expectations...

I somehow missed the memo that OM was going to be a gargantuan club that parades as a restaurant during dinner hours. As we wrapped up our meal last Friday, all of the tables were getting pulled from the subterranean dining room floor until only our table sat there, alone, as we finished up our meal. In corresponding symphony to the impatient table movers hovering over our shoulders, the bass was kicked up and the 1st Ave crowd was appearing.

I admit it, I hated it and I am so disappointed. Raghavan Iyer is (or was) one of my local cooking heroes - I cook from his books and have gone to multiple demonstrations and classes that he has taught. I have even toyed with the idea of joining one of his tours to India. So how did this amazing chef who I pictured in a restaurant more like Saffron than Infinity the Nightclub, end up somewhere whose fate seems more like Bellanotte than La Belle Vie? I am so confused.

The dining room at OM was loud, loud, loud. Maybe it would have been easier to hear my fellow diners if we were in one of the cushy booths along the walls, but it was truly difficult in the middle of the floor. And it wasn't from the music, it was simply a loud room. The staff at OM also fed into one of my biggest pet peeves, which is clearing plates before everyone at the table is finished eating. Poor form. This all built from my first touchpoint with the restaurant: the valet refused to take my car (full at 7:45 on a Friday night?).

To counter the physically abhorrent experience itself, I will say that I truly enjoyed my food. The Patiala Cakes starter were crispy potato cakes stuffed with mint, chiles and red onion and served with a tamarind date sauce. They were delicious and different. I also liked the unique paneer preparation I had as my main: grilled saffron paneer served with red chile raisin sauce with basil, peanuts and raspberries. It was laid out on the plate in a more deconstructed way than the typical Indian main dish curry. I enjoyed this nuance, enabling me to put the flavors together myself. The one thing that did bother me about the food was that they had a Wine Week menu available and after perusing it and the regular menu, it was actually no deal at all for the vegetarian option; in fact it was more expensive to do the Wine Week menu than order straight from the regular menu. That's just kind of sneaky and, in my book, unacceptable.

There was a lot more on the OM menu that I would love to try but I am going to admit right here and now that I am not all that tempted to return to OM based on this experience. While the space is beautiful in its own right, I was really turned off by the club-like atmosphere that descended onto my meal and the fact that I outgrew the 1st Ave scene a few years ago.

Sad.

Thumbs Up: Good food, beautiful elements in the construction
Thumbs Down: Is this a restaurant or a club?, so loud, poor valet service, over-eager bussers

OM 401 1st Ave North Minneapolis www.omminneapolis.com

D'Amico Kitchen

It was a weekend of out with the old and in with the new as I moved from Cue's morph to Seachange and now Chamber's Kitchen into D'Amico Kitchen at Chambers. We purposefully waited until Sunday night to check out this newest D'Amico restaurant in town as we had studied the menu online and saw that on Sunday through Thursdays there is a three course menu option for $32 where you get the run of selection in the antipasti, pasta and dolci sections of the menu.

To my surprise, we walked in to a quite-full dining room for a Sunday night. The big change here versus Chamber's Kitchen was that the dining room was moved to the main level, leaving the basement to alternate uses (looked kind of lounge-y but never saw a soul there - late night? corporate events?). The energy level was definitely higher now; we were able to see hotel guests coming through the back entrance, folks walking on the streets of downtown Minneapolis staring in at the new restaurant and we could also peer at the loud bar-goers towards the front of the restaurant, wondering what led them out for a crazy evening on a Sunday night.

The options for the antipasti were massive - 23 to be exact - making it quite hard to pick just one and hinting at the idea that this could be a great place to come to for a drink and snack after work. As we waited a very long time to order, I finally settled in on the Sicilian eggplant caponata. I love all things eggplant and at home I make bowl after bowl of ratatouille but for some reason never the Italian sweet and sour version called caponata. I have simply had versions in the past that had been so oily that I didn't want to attempt it myself. But a higher end Italian restaurant is the type of place to take the risk and I have to say that the caponata was the best part of the entire meal for me. It was so intensely flavorful with tomatoes, eggplant and capers that my mouth exploded with flavors even though I had a slight cold coming on. I could easily have eaten two bowls of it with the crusty breads from the bread basket (note that the antipasti portions were really small). I will be back for this caponata.

For my pasta, I went off menu, instead selecting the daily special: large pasta pockets (like huge tortellis) filled with butternut squash resting in a balsalmic reduction liquid. If there is one word to describe this dish, I would have to say sweet, and almost cloyingly so. The waiter had sold it as being sweet (in a positive manner) but to me it was just way too sweet. Against my norms of dining, I couldn't even finish it. My tablemates seemed to enjoy their pastas from the menu - the ravioli and rabbit farfalle far more than I did.

As we rolled into dessert, I asked for an opinion from the server, who told me that the baked almond frangipane crepes was the most popular, to which I then asked, "but are they the best dessert?". He looked at me slightly aghast and said that they had come from the D'Amico Cucina menu, end of story. Duly shushed, I assumed that meant yes and my senses were then served with another round of cloying sweetness, with a side of heavy cream. It was way more than I could handle, this dessert (and the others I tried) clearly not living up to the ones the night before at Sea Change.

One last comment and that is that our service was really spotty. Despite the fact that our server appeared to be a veteran of D'Amico Cucina, he didn't seem to be able to fully manage the chatty customer on one side of us that kept diverting his attention, leaving us drink and foodless for a long stretches of time. My request for water without ice also went unfulfilled as water with ice was poured for the entire table.

So, I came out with a mixed bag of an experience. I loved the new atmosphere, bustling space, and caponata antipasti but didn't love the service and a couple of my dishes. While I won't be eagerly pushing for another visit soon, I won't be running away either, hopeful that the next trip will be better than the first.

Thumbs Up: Lots of antipasti choices, main floor dining, excellent caponata
Thumbs Down: Some dishes too sweet, poor service

D'Amico Kitchen 901 Hennepin Ave www.chambersminneapolis.com/chambers-hotel-kitchen/

HomeMade Pizza Company

When the folks of HomeMade Pizza Company opened their new location next to Lake Calhoun last month they reached out to get some PR, which means that they reached out and offered me some free pizza. Well, what's a girl to do in a situation like that? In this case, take the pizza and make sure I disclose so on my blog thanks to the FTC. But, I would have disclosed it anyways. And, I will also say that I went back to Homemade Pizza Company again and bought more pizza before writing it up, just to make sure that they hadn't given me amped up pizzas for the free ones (which they hadn't).

Homemade Pizza Company is a take and bake concept except it is more gourmet than the others in town, featuring ingredients like vidalia onions, chevre and wild mushrooms. Pretty much right up my alley. The best part of the Homemade Pizza Company pizza, however, ended up not being the toppings at all but instead the crust. This crust was a great medium thick and rose perfectly in the home oven. It had a nice chew too, not too dry nor too cooked on the outside and not in the center. Crust is extremely hard to perfect so bravo to them on this. The whole wheat crust was even pretty indistinguishable from the regular so go ahead and sneak it in for your kids.

The issue I did have with the pizzas was that they were dry. I tried both the Miesian (their maragarita) and the Spinach Pies and in both instances I had to go to my own kitchen shelf and pull out more tomato sauce. I don't necessarily think that the dryness came from a lack of sauce or oil as much as from the uber freshness of the toppings (which is, of course, one of their main selling points). I say uber because, for example, on the Spinach Pie, it is literally layered with fresh spinach. But, if I am only going to cook my pizza for 15 minutes, does this spinach really cook enough? Same goes for huge slices of tomatoes. I would love to have sauteed that spinach a bit before it went on the pizza and potentially salted and rested those tomatoes as well. It just felt like I was eating a baked pizza with slightly raw and unprepared vegetable toppings, none of the juices coming together to make the moist, cheesy pizza experience that I crave.

Moving over from the pizza, I have to tell you what I really liked and that was the salad. I tried a special seasonal salad called the Cabo Salad with avocados, red bell peppers, grape tomatoes, red onions and lime salted tortilla strips. This is where uber fresh ingredients make the perfect showing! Salads! I also got to try one of their take and bake cookies - um, sinful! Who doesn't love a huge chocolate chip cookie baked in their own oven?

So, where does this leave me for HomeMade Pizza Company? If I was a gourmet family attempting to avoid ordering four $10 Punch pizzas for a pizza night at home, this is a great option - just ask for some extra sauce to take home or get the cheese pizza and top it yourself with some par-cooked toppings. For just little old me, it was all way too much food - big pizzas, big salads and big cookies. It stressed me out when I had to throw some of it away after it was too many days post to eat the leftovers and feel safe.

HomeMade Pizza Company www.homemadepizza.com

Sea Change

Given its deep devotion to seafood, I would never have personally pushed my friends to visit Sea Change, particularly since, if you peek at their menu online, there are not any vegetarian entrees listed. Nor would I necessarily anticipate that there would be on the menu so that isn't a jibe at all. But when my friends suggested I join them at Sea Change last weekend, I just couldn't resist. I mean, how could I? A new restaurant from Tim McKee's team isn't something to be scoffed at and I do just love to try something new! And I have to tell you that I found the experience exhilarating.

Exhilarating? I know it sounds a little extreme but multiple times I was giggly thrilled by things at Sea Change. First, it was crowded!! I love seeing a full restaurant thriving with the energy of so many bodies and unlike the previous tenant in the space, Cue, these weren't people simply pre and post Guthrie dining. The restaurant was full the entire time. I have to imagine that for chefs that this is particularly motivating, especially in an open kitchen environment like the one at Sea Change.

Right from the start I enjoyed the little touches - huge chalkboards listing where the fresh seafood had come from that day, the water filtered on site and bottles left on the tables, the sesame seeds on the bread in the bread basket, and even the green hue in lighting used to make the space over into Sea Change versus Cue.

But, the absolutely most thrilling thing at Cue was my entree. Take a look at that picture above. A lovely piece of tuna, right? You guessed wrong... When I asked the server if they could do something vegetarian for me, I held my breath as he asked if I had any allergies and then said he would ask the chef for me. Usually at this point the server comes back to say yes or no and, if yes, tells me what I should be anticipating. This time, no hints were given so when my food arrived it was all the more shocking and fun. The plate above was put before me and I was initially confused by what looked like fish. But then it was described to me -chargrilled watermelon over a sweet pea foam and assorted vegetables. I could only smile and laugh out loud. I LOVED the way that the chef played with my mind and gave me a "seafood" dish at at a seafood restaurant. Amazing creativity. And do you know what the best part was? It tasted amazing, too! I have no idea how they got this caramelized char onto the watermelon but the flavor was rich and interesting and melded perfectly with the thick sweet pea foam. This was the dish on the table that everyone wanted to try! And that I am still thinking about... I have this vision in my head for a charred watermelon gazpacho next summer.

Prior to my amazing watermelon, I had started with the Romaine/brioche/egg/lemon/garlic salad. Yes, people, that is deconstructed Caesar, as was reinforced when I slid the unlisted anchovy over to my bread plate. But still, I loved the vertical presentation of the soft boiled egg and the selection of just three perfect smaller romaine leaves. This is classy dining and very clearly not Buca.

We rounded out the dinner with some wonderful desserts. As the dessert menu isn't online, I can't quote them back to you specifically but the two most memorable were a blueberry cheesecake and a chocolate ganache cake. The blueberry cheesecake was memorable because it wasn't your typical vanilla cheesecake simply covered with a blueberry sauce, instead the blueberries were finely blended into this intensely purple cheesecake, which was then topped with a crunchy meringue coating that was quite fun to crack with your spoon. The chocolate "cake" itself was reminiscent of the inside of a chocolate truffle but we were even more intrigued by the amazing red current sorbet/gelato (I couldn't tell!) that accompanied it - it was intensely red and just as delicious in flavor as it was in color. The peanut butter flavored garnishes on the side of the plate, when eaten in conjunction with the red current and the chocolate was a trip down memory lane, of discovering that chocolate makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich just that much better.

At this point I now knew why Sea Change was packed with diners not headed to the theater - it rightly deserved to be. Although I know, as a vegetarian, that I will not ever be able to fully take advantage of the restaurant's seafood prowess, I truly look forward to returning if only for cocktails and desserts. And maybe they will char me some more watermelon.

Thumbs Up: Beautiful dining room refresh, creativity in the kitchen, fabulous desserts
Thumbs Down: A couple of service snafus like giving us sparkling water in the middle of the meal and missing silverware

Sea Change 818 S. 2nd Street Minneapolis www.seachangempls.com

Sidetrip: Mexico City

I have been spending quite a bit of time recently down in Mexico City and the more time I spend there, the more I am coming to love this huge and crazy city to our South. I am heading back once again in a couple of weeks so if anyone has any recommendations, please send them along. Also, imminent trips to Dubai and Melbourne on the travel docket for November so foodie guidance for those would be great too!

We stayed again at the Intercontinental Presidente in Polanco and I am starting to be done with this hotel. Seriously every time you want to get the elevator to go up or down, it is often a 15 minute wait, while I stare out the window on the ladies-only 31st floor longingly at the Starbucks that is so close yet so far away in the wee hours of the morning. But, the price is right so there we stay. I arrived very late last Monday after a flight from Barcelona to Atlanta, a long layover in Atlanta and then from there into DF for the week.

One evening we chowed down on martinis and appetizers at the W Mexico City, which is located along the same strip of hotels in Polanco. We drank great lychee martinis and ate surprisingly delicious guacamole while hanging out in the chic atmosphere of global business suits. I am constantly surprised by how the global business traveler scene is so male-dominated and it is heightened even further in Mexico City. The glass ceiling still exists in this domain.

On another night we were back to an oldie at Los Girasoles in Polanco for a big team dinner. Lovely enchiladas with a spicy green sauce. I had to sit and not speak for several minutes while the burn of spice overtook me from my neck to my hairline, but all in a good way. Sometimes it is nice to "feel" your food and clear your sinuses.

I wasn't overly impressed with a dinner at Dominga in Polanco, where the menu seemed to have a lot of Argentinian influences. While I loved their outdoor patio and busy atmosphere, the empanadas I tried were simply so-so. I felt the menu descriptions oversold with flourishes the actual mushroom and onion varieties that I tried. The pizza some of my colleagues ordered also didn't look all that fabulous. When we left the table, there were definitely leftovers still sitting there.

The best meal out this trip was at Bondy's, where a colleague took me for breakfast. Having spent time on the East Coast of the US during his career, he described this restaurant as a type of Barney Greengrass icon-like restaurant in Polanco. We sat out on the patio and watched the neighborhood wake up as we dipped into coffee and some amazing (and huge) sweet breads called conchas. The dough was light but the top had cross-hatches and seemed more sugary than typical buns. They were delightful, but I only ate half knowing what was to come. Up next we split two breakfast entrees. One was a Mexican egg dish with black beans mixed into the scrambled eggs. I loved this protein zapped combination - very tummy-filling and great flavors of eggs and beans combined. I had never personally thought to simply combine these ingredients during the cooking and while it made for greyish looking eggs, the taste was great. On the more indulgent side, we also had crepes filled with squash blossoms and covered with a bechamel sauce. I love the citrusy flavor of squash blossoms and the crepes were perfect, although I would have preferred less of the heavy white sauce, especially at breakfast. I finished this breakfast and as we were only two blocks from the hotel I wondered to myself why I would ever even think to have the hotel breakfast again? The pages of options were simply so much better at Bondy's.

And with that, after two weeks of travel, it was time to head stateside once again and back to the North where the fast arrival of fall took me off guard (it had been 75 degrees and balmy when I left!).

RIP Gourmet Magazine

I feel like a small part of me has been ripped away in today's announcement of the shuttering of Gourmet Magazine. Every month, I eagerly await the gorgeous magazine full of excellent food writing and unique recipes. Every month, I love being a subscriber and receiving a cover devoid of headlines and instead focused on the cover image, whether a perfect pear or geometrically arranged holiday cookies (unlike the version you see on newsstands). Every month, I save my issue (unlike Bon Appetit, which I read then toss).

Gourmet provided more than the competitors did for someone like me. I loved that it was international in scope yet always focused small (like the food along the Santiago pilgrimage trail in Northern Spain), that every article was beautifully written and well thought out (I sigh at the amazing tribute to Edna Lewis) and that the recipes were challenging, yet completely doable. No one else in publishing is doing this right now. Food & Wine would be my closest second but even they are getting overly broad and in cahoots with too many celebrity chefs.

What about Ruth Reichl? I adore Ruth's writing and wit, having devoured all of her books and collections. I was even eagerly anticipating her appearance this coming weekend at the Twin Cities Book Festival, scheduling my Saturday around it. I hope she is still coming!

I am saddened by the choice that Conde Nast has made. And I wish that I had sent in in advance my resubscription envelope with payment that has been sitting on my "to do" pile. Maybe I could have prevented it.

Sidetrip: Barcelona, Spain

I heartily promise to return to the Twin Cities soon but my month of September was spent traveling so I suppose my month of blog posts simply follows along...

I get a tingle of excitement when the wheels touch down in a new city. Coming off the plane from Pamplona for a weekend in Barcelona before heading to Mexico City was thus exhilarating for me And it was even more fun that I was going to get to hang out with some of my colleagues and not be traveling alone. Despite the fact that I didn't even pick up the guide book until the one hour flight to Barcelona took off, we still managed to east some great food and see some amazing sights.


Having arrived on Friday night and checked into our hotel, the Melia, we took the recommendation from the hotel staff to have dinner at a place along the beach called CDLC. While it was certainly risky to take their advice, the only places I knew of in Barcelona were very expensive restaurants reminiscent of the fact that El Bulli is nearby and that Barcelona is one of the hotbeds of gourmet cuisine. I was going to have to save those types of restaurants until I was on my own or with my friends that would want to make the investment to pursue the reservations.

CDLC ended up being perfect, though, because it we happened upon Barcelona during one of the city's largest festivals, Merce. Thus, as we sat out on our lounge-bed at the clubby CDLC eating mezze/tapas. we were afforded quite a wonderful fireworks show to welcome us to town. Along with the cava sangria and small plates, it was a fun night. And I would say that "fun" was also the right phrase for the food and drinks, as they were just fine but no exquisite adventure in dining. Even the sangria seemed a bit Kool-Aid-y.

In every new city I visit, I love to visit the food markets and see what is fresh and what the locals are eating. Thus, we kicked off Saturday morning with a visit to the food market, La Boqueria. If was certainly an indication that Barcelona is known for its food given that the market is apparently one of the larger tourist attractions in town - there was no clear way to truly distinguish here what was for the sake of the tourists and what was for the locals. Regardless, the harvest of vegetables and fruits on hand, alongside animals and cheeses of all shapes and sizes still made for a beautiful, if thronged, market. It was here that the "ah-ha" moment happened: I realized that there were indeed cruise ships in port.

After enjoying the sights and sounds of the market, we wandered the Gothic Quarter, coming across two additional markets, focused on local foods such as cheeses, jams, and honeys. There was wonderful foodstuffs everywhere! We also kept running into different parts of the Merce festival featuring local dancing and singing (well, not all of the singing and dancing was local... seemed like dance school recitals at some stops).

Hunger encroaching we stopped at a restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet called Els Quatre Gats. While the historic space was interesting and it was more than just tourists eating there, it wasn't amazing food. I had my fourth goat cheese salad of the trip and the one nuance I enjoyed on this one was the honey dressing. For my main, it was a ravioli dish in white sauce, which was a bit too cloying for me but was the only other option on the menu. Time to walk it off so we kept wandering the city taking in such sites as La Sagrada Familia.

Enough was enough and no way was I going to leave Barcelona without some fabulous food, and thus I took the recommendation of a Spanish colleague and we headed to the neighborhood of Sarria for dinner at Tram-Tram. Our 9pm reservation led us into an almost empty restaurant made up of small dining rooms like an old home. We were definitely on the edge of eating inappropriately early in Spain because when we left, the tables were filled, some just starting their meals. A beautiful Kir Royale and an amuse of chilled tomato soup with green tomato foam to start us off. The soup was bright, fresh and perfectly salty, helping to get the appetite roaring.

And then another fun amuse with pumpkin three ways - I called it foamed, whipped and cubed/ It was sweet, in contrast to the saltier soup. We knew good things were in store.

My next course was a beautiful zucchini stack layered with smooth cheese and topped with microgreens. I was utterly impressed with the delicious simplicity of this dish, especially as someone who doesn't always love zucchini (it has the penchant to be overcooked and watery). Here it was done perfectly. My companion had a gorgeous crispy artichoke dish with foie gras and an egg on top. She was in fine food heaven.

As we moved on to mains this is where it went a bit downhill for me. The vegetarian thing became more of a challenge. The restaurant brought me a simple plate of mixed cooked vegetables. While they were well seasoned with salt and pepper, the mix of mushrooms, carrots, and thin haricots verts were just so disappointing after what had come before it. It was just vegetables. Oh well. Sometimes being a vegetarian in Spain is just too much to ask and I do understand that. My companion oohed and aahed her way through her scallops with fresh mushrooms so it wasn't a them problem, it was all me. And then we moved to dessert where my tarte tatin of apple and puff pastry was simply blah. Regardless of the main and dessert only being "okay", I will say that this was by far the best meal that I ate during my week in Spain.

Well-filled with tortilla espanol, manchego, yogurt that actually tastes like yogurt, goat cheese salads, pimientos, wild mushrooms, fresh orange juice and some fine food from Tram-Tram... six days in Spain flew by and it was time to hop back across the Atlantic.

Sidetrip: San Adrian and Calahorra, Spain

It is starting to feel like my little corner in the north of Spain, tippling on the edge of Navarra and Rioja about an hour south of Pamplona, where the fields are filled with vegetables, modern windmills dot the horizon and the wine is cheaper than bottled water. Rather than stay in the Parador in Calahorra, on this trip, we stayed at the Hotel San Adrian in San Adrian, overlooking the walls of our old plant and a short drive from our new one. While the hotel was fine, it by far had the worst hotel breakfast I have ever seen in Western Europe with dirty tables, dirty plates and warm dairy products. Despite the poor start to the days, I was excited to have a few minutes to walk around the small town, seeing the historic church, the grape harvest arriving to be crushed and a great view of the town rooftops and Navarran countryside.

I will assume that the breakfast at the hotel was likely in no way related to the restaurant next door, albeit attached, called Rios, which our colleagues living in the area “recommended” saying to not even try anything else in San Adrian proper. The two dinners there made everyone happy, including myself, with some delicious pimientos (roasted red peppers in olive oil and garlic) and a nice goat cheese salad. Of course, the menu didn’t mention the bacon on the salad, so the first night I pulled it off and the second night ordered it “sin carne”. I do believe I just laughed out loud when it arrived, though, as it wouldn’t be Spain if everything wasn’t touched with a bit of pork. It no longer surprises me. Another classic comment came from my lips when I looked at the wine menu and had to ask whether the prices were by glass or bottle… it was the bottle. We are lucky to find $20 bottles on wine menus in the US, here there were more than several bottles under $10.

Lunches at our plant allowed me to have my fill tortilla español (no, that is a lie, I am never tired of it!), an omelet thick with potatoes and onions and accompanied by goat cheese as we stood for casual tapas-like spreads.

On my final night in the countryside of Spain, we headed in for dinner at a restaurant called La Taberna in Calahorra and it was a treat to just walk the lanes through this tourist-free small city that is more quaint in the darkness than in the light. We arrived to a historic building covered in scaffolding and stepped down and inside (I would never have found it on my own!). The pimientos here were even better than in San Adrian, generously covered with a precious local olive oil and dotted generously with a ton of garlic. The server was so excited to see our love of this dish that he brought out the whole blackened, roasted pepper to show us how they then remove the char using as little water as possible before finely slicing them into the refined goodness we lifted onto slices of bread. It was also here (and then confirmed later in Barcelona!) that we were in Spain in what appeared to be the heart of mushroom season. We had the most amazingly intense roasted mushrooms. Even three days later, a colleague and I continued to talk about. To accompany this, we had a local red wine from San Adrian which was well-matched in its ease to drink with the fine simplicity of the cuisine. It was a good reminder of how much I enjoy the Spanish tempranillo grape!

I loved this last dinner in Calahorra, not because it was the most amazing food I have ever had but instead because of just how good the local pimientos and mushrooms were, clearly highlighting the reason why they are so renowned as dishes from this area. Also, the restaurant was filled with locals out enjoying their meals and when I peeked over, they were eating the same dishes that we were. It feels good to have “real” food experience while traveling, rather than always being slightly suspicious of being trapped by a tourist menu.