tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3068416237931899943.post-10145072855927320312008-01-15T01:19:00.000-08:002008-01-20T03:43:32.320-08:002008-01-20T03:43:32.320-08:00Here's a recent dining experience here in <a href="http://www.cellartours.com/spain/spanish-cities/barcelona.html">Barcelona </a>at Neichel...you might enjoy... <a href="http://www.relaischateaux.com/neichel">Jean-Louis Neichel</a>, of Barcelona's eponymous (Michelin starred) restaurant, has entrusted his 19-year old triplets to me for the summer. I met them, all three together, at Jean-Louis's restaurant the other night. They were like puppies...lightly mottled with a sprinkling of freckles and very short curly hair...and when they're all together you can't tell them apart at all...And what a dinner!!<br /><br />Nine courses, flawlessly produced.....first a little aperitif of vichyssoise...with a dollop of sobrasada, asparagus with salicornia (sea asparagus), two spiky sea snails, and an aubergine chip...served with a lovely white Abadal white wine from Pla de Bages...a Picapoll grape producing a fresh and full-bodied, floral, fruity, and earthy brew...all at once......then a carpaccio de pato (fine-sliced duck) with white summer truffle from Huesca in the central Pyrenees...and a few peas and avocado slices and celery root on a tiny bed of sauerkraut...(aha - the Alsatian touch!) . Breads...perfect....whole wheat, black olive, walnut...<br /><br />...then a lobster salad with a gamba de Palamós...fat-tailed bright red jumbo shrimp, more white truffle, and little morsels of salmon roe, green beans, baby fava beans, a lobster tartare -- raw lobster paste covered with salmon carpaccio...all in tiny portions, enough for a mouthful and a half...dill and chives spread around for aroma...and a little taste......and then...foie...duck liver, natch...with baby favas, peas, slender calçóts (long stemmed spring onions), more white truffle (he was clearly lavishing us with nuggets)...a crisp of something, potato, I think and a fine slice of bellota, acorn-fed Iberian ham...young garlic and a white asparagus..<br /><br />Next up was merluza (hake), accompanied by aromatic and dark meadow mushrooms called moixernons --thus a subtle mar i muntanya combination-- chunks of lobster, a scallop, and slice of salmon, with a few tiny stalks of salicornia, sea asparagus, nicely salty.....and then espardenyes, the delicious sea slug endemic to the Costa Brava, so-named for its resemblance to the rope soles of espadrilles, or possibly because it was originally either thrown back into the sea or trampled underfoot in the bilges of the lateen-rigged fishing boats until someone discovered how aromatic and maritime they tasted...with more salicornia on a bed of sun-dried tomato...<br /><br />The final adventure was the wood pigeon, red almost purple breast meat, with a side consisting of a single beet chip on chestnut purée and a tiny piece of broccoli and a chunk of apple......while the wine turned red in honor of the dark meat...continuing with the Abadal vineyard...a Tinto Reserva 1998...Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah...60%-30%-10% respectively...very Mediterranean, woodsy, fruity, earthy, spicey...<br /><br />...and the cheese trolley...some 50 kinds of French and <a href="/2008/01/spanish-cheese.html">Spanish cheeses</a>, of which we sampled an Alsatian Munster, a Pont l'Évêque from Normandie, a Saint Marcellin from just west of Grenoble, and a goat cheese from Aracena, in Spain's green and mountainous southwestern corner of Huelva.<br /><br />Did you say dessert? Well, as a matter of fact...a lichi nut sorbet, a lemon mousse, a rhubarb coulis, and a black chocolate wafer followed by expresso...and...we were done...What a tour de force...<br /><br />n all, over half a hundred different pristine ingredients served in discrete quantities, combined and balanced wisely with aromatic sauces, more natural juices than sauces...flavorful but exquisitely light...<br /><br />The triplets have found a home...<br /><br /><h3>By George Semler</h3>romannoreply@blogger.com