Opinione dettagliata di koshkha
koshkha
Northampton, Regno Unito98%
On a recent trip to Barcelona the local colleagues invited us for dinner. We were a party of seven; the local boss and his marketing manager, two Dutch guys both called Robert and two Portuguese colleagues (Cristina and Se).
Nobody eats early in Spain so our pick up at the hotel was booked for 8.30 and we rolled up outside the restaurant half an hour later. It was in an exclusive part of the city, near the base of Tibidabo mountain and it really didn’t look like the sort of place you’d find a restaurant tucked amongst the residential buildings. With a gravel garden and palm trees out front, I turned a blind eye to the dog turd at the base of one of the trees and we headed through a brick archway to an outdoor staircase which led us up to the upper floor of the building.
We were the first guests to arrive and we stepped into a large vaulted room with gingery wood ceilings, beams and joists. We’d just driven through a shockingly bad thunderstorm and were a bit concerned that our table had been booked outside and might not be a good choice with such bad weather but we need not have worried. The terrace that wrapped around the main dining room was shielded with sail-like canvas ‘wings’ that kept us dry throughout. It would probably only have been necessary for the temperature to drop a few degrees for it to have been unviable to sit outside but we all had jackets and the temperature was still comfortable. The sensation was one of being in a giant tent.
We had a large square table set for seven. The menus appeared as if by magic and throughout the evening the waiting staff were conspicuously inconspicuous. If you reach the end of the meal without any recollection of the staff at all, then it’s a pretty good bet they’ve been good.
The menus were not long or complex covering just two sides of paper. The first side covered starters and the very Spanish ‘pica pica’ or sharing plates. The remaining side had a selection of around eight fish and eight meat dishes. We were told not to worry about the starters as our hosts would choose and so had to focus only on choosing a main dish. I don’t recall that there was anything vegetarian, though no doubt they’d have had a go at making ‘something’ if I’d asked and I wasn’t initially very excited by the fish choices but was sure that everything would be really good. After some deliberation I chose a king prawn and monkfish brochette, a little wary because you can get a lot of very poor monkfish that’s tough, chewy and a bit ‘cheap tasting’ but I was confident that was not what they’d have in this place. A couple of people went for carpaccio and several steaks were ordered but I wasn’t really paying too much attention to other people’s orders.
We ordered a bottle or red and a bottle of white, with my colleague Sole remembering that we’d previously had an excellent bottle of Perro Verde (green dog) at a restaurant in the city and had particularly liked it. I was touched that she’d remembered that we’d had it before and more than happy to give it another go. We ordered some water and when the drinks arrived we were presented with a large basket of assorted breads that included long soft bread sticks, small ‘toasts’, and slices of several different types of loaf. We also received two plates of toasts with a mound of tuna and tomato ‘mush’ that was succulent and tasty. These pre-appetisers were a very welcome distraction since the starters took quite a long time to arrive. We’d probably been so early that we caught the kitchen on the hop.
We shared three starters. I kept away from the Jamon Iberica (the famous Spanish air cured ham) but as always happens, the waiter always dumps the plate of meat in front of the one person who doesn’t eat it. We shuffled the plates around and I was much happier to be confronted with a plate full of anchovies on toasted bread. The third of our starters was a codfish croquette which caused much hilarity because of our Dutch diners. The Dutch version of the croquette is one of the most disgusting snacks ever to find a clever way of using up all the unspeakable bits of an animal and is something I was never tempted to try even when I did still eat meat. This version with cod fish and shrimp in an ultra-smooth base was delicately fishy and served with a mound of the thinnest little potato sticks and a lobster sauce.
The trouble with dining so late in Spain is that I’m always at serious risk of overdoing the bread basket and the starters but with just two of the three starters tested I wasn’t unpleasantly full. Unlike the night before when both my starter and main course had been ridiculously full, I was relieved to see that my main course wasn’t actually very big at all. Considering it was around €20, I would even say it was a bit on the mean side. My mid-sized square plate held two skewers with alternating king prawns and pieces of monkfish. These were served with a smattering of teeny tiny green peppers, cooked whole and still bearing their stalks. A mound of the ultra-think fried potato sticks was piled to one side and I felt it was both a rather down market accompaniment and a stupidly difficult thing to try to eat with a knife and fork. The restaurant was a bit too classy for picking up glorified mini-chips with your fingers but trying to balance them on a fork would try the patience of a saint.
I loved the little green mini-peppers which packed a little bit of a punch and were tender and juicy. The chips were ridiculous but I persevered with a combination of fingers and good balance. The brochettes were of excellent quality, packed with flavour, but served a bit too cold for my liking. The plates had been heated but by the time they got to our table, even my first bite was a bit on the cold side. Nobody around me seemed to be struggling to get through their dishes, possibly because none of them were terribly large although the guy next to me who had something that looked like a lamb shank (I’m no expert but there was a bit bone in the middle of it and it looked a bit pink) didn’t manage to get through it all as his portion had been rather large.
Of course the good thing about a slightly mean main is there’s still space for pudding. And good company is always a good excuse to extend a pleasant evening by adding another course. The dessert trolley was a bit of a stunner with a mix of local and international options. The Roberts went for a local sticky looking pudding playing the ‘It’d be rude not to test a local delicacy’ card. Less bothered about sucking up to the locals I went to France and picked a tarte tatin that was so thick in apple (and so lacking in all the usual really naughty sticky bits) that I could almost persuade myself it might count towards my 5-a-day in some strange parallel universe. The chap next to me decided to substitute a cigar for a pudding and proceeded to go through a complex performance of snipping and lighting bits of wood, rolling it around the flame and generally behaving like a bit of a pratt. The tarte tatin was excellent but not as sticky or caramelised as the ‘real thing’ would be which was probably a good thing. The pastry was very think and I didn’t feel too naughty for eating it.
I had a very nice peppermint tea served in a terribly British little pink and white tea cup which raised a wry smile and soon after it was time to go. I didn’t get a glimpse of the bill but I believe it was around the €60-70 per head mark. The local colleagues assured us that that’s pretty much the going rate in any half-decent restaurant in Barcelona these days which is fairly crazy. Compared to the night before when we’d left a place in the Olympic Port feeling utterly ripped off at about the same price, the overall experience and quality of the food and the setting meant that we all judged this to be pretty good value for money (although I’m rather pleased it was someone else’s money!)
La Balsa9
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