Week 34 - Fire

I wasn't sure what to do for the fire challenge. It sounded so similar to the camping and outdoorsman challenge, which had also been complicated since we couldn't cook over an open fire in our small indoor apartment kitchen. That situation hadn't changed in the past few months, so I figured I was going to have to go with the spicy interpretation of "fire" (but how would that be any different from last year's spicy food challenge?). After doing some more searching through the recipe folder on my computer, I found the perfect "compromise" recipe - this escalivada recipe from Serious Eats. The recipe gave instructions for how to make this over smoldering coals, but also alternatively in an oven. A recipe that would qualify for fire but with an oven alternative? Perfect.

The ingredients for the escalivada were:

- 1 medium eggplant ($1.79)
- 1 red pepper ($0.99)
- 1 yellow onion ($0.50)
- olive oil to coat the vegetables, about 1/4 cup ($0.75)
- salt and pepper to coat the vegetables ($0.05)
- about 1/4 cup olive oil ($1.50)
- a few tsp sherry vinegar ($0.30)
- 1/2 batch of parsley, chopped ($0.90)

The total for the escalivada was approximately $6.78. We paired it with a few panko chicken tenders and a microwavable rice packet, so the total for the entire dinner was probably somewhere around $12 or $13. This made a big bowl of escalivada, but since they were really just roasted vegetables, we ate it all in one night.

The steps for making the escalivada were:

1. Wash and dry the eggplant and red pepper. Rub the eggplant, red pepper, and onion with olive oil and top with salt and pepper.

2. Create a separate foil packet for each of the 3 vegetables.

3. Bake vegetables at 350 degrees for 2 hours.

4. Remove vegetables from oven and open packets to allow vegetables to cool.

5. Remove the vegetables from the packets. Remove skins from the vegetables (as much as possible - in our case, some of the skin stubbornly stuck to the eggplant). Remove seeds from bell pepper. (The recipe said to do this for the eggplant too but the seeds were all mixed in with the flesh, and I would be throwing away too much if we threw away the seeds, so I left most of them in.)

6. Rough chop vegetables and put in a large bowl.

7. Chop parsley and add to vegetable bowl.

8. Mix vegetables together. Add about 1/4 cup of olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and then add a couple tsp of sherry vinegar. Adjust flavors to taste.

The escalivada was really tasty, and it felt so good to eat something so healthy. It took a lot of time to put this together, mostly because of how long the vegetables had to roast, but it was pretty easy to do. No idea if the flavor would have been different roasting it over coals, but we were happy with how it turned out. We love eating healthy Mediterranean food and this was really good.

Week 49 - Dried Fruit

The theme for Week 49 of the challenge was dried fruit. I may have mentioned before how *thrilled* I am to combine fruit into savory dishes, so I wasn't really looking forward to spotlighting dried fruit for dinner. Technically, though, the challenge doesn't really say I have to spotlight dried fruit, just that I have to use it, which was a distinction that made my choice very simple. 

I haven't made Catalan-style cigrons (chickpeas) in over a year, and the dish includes raisins which count as dried fruit. Really, I just needed an excuse to buy some more morcilla and make the cigrons (which you might remember from the year-end favorites post from last year). The cigrons are my best approximation of the dish you can get at the amazing Bar Pinotxo in Barcelona (which we still haven't written about). When I first started researching the chickpeas dish last year, I stumbled upon this site which gave an adaptation of Pinotxo's chickpeas recipe. I used that as my starting point last year and made small modifications to it along the way to align it with our fading memories.

I'm going to do something a little different with this post. Instead of posting the recipe with the amounts I actually made, I'm going to write up what I would usually make on a normal day, and what I think is probably closer to the correct proportions I prefer for this dish. The proportion of meat to chickpeas and other ingredients was a little off this time since I had to use the entire package of morcilla up. Usually one package will last me two meals of this dish, but with Christmas coming up, we just didn't have time for that and I didn't want the morcilla to get wasted. So I put the entire package in this dish, but I think it threw things off a little bit. Not enough to not taste good, but I didn't like it as much as last time.

The ingredients for this recipe are:

- 1/4 cup seedless raisins ($0.50)

- extra virgin olive oil (arbequina best, but we don't have any more Catalan arbequina in the house) ($0.75)

- 1 yellow onion, chopped ($0.60)

- 1/4 cup pine nuts ($1**)

- 2 garlic cloves, minced ($0.08)

- 2 small links of morcilla* ($2.75)

- 2 15-oz cans of chickpeas ($1.33)

- 1/2 bunch of parsley, chopped ($0.50)

- balsamic vinegar ($0.30)

- smoked paprika ($0.20)

- salt ($0.05)

* The recipe really should be botifarra negra but I don't believe they can import that into the US, sadly. If anyone around here would have it, it would be Despaña, where I get the morcilla, but when I asked them about it last year, they said they didn't carry it (and they don't make it like they do the morcilla and other chorizo).

** Pine nuts are ridiculously expensive. I don't actually remember how much they cost, but this is about what I usually end up getting. We got these out in the Portland area a while ago since the price was cheaper. The pine nuts are probably over $1, but I just don't know how much more.

The recipe costs about $8, the way that I would make it if I had a more flexible schedule to cook this week. Of course, the actual dish cost more this time, since I threw in an extra can of chickpeas and the rest of the morcilla package, as well as a little more raisins and garlic.

The recipe is pretty straightforward and only really needs a single pan (other than prep stuff). The steps were:

1. Soak raisins in hot water for at least 10 minutes. (I'm a slow prepper, so I usually end up soaking for longer and they expand quite a bit.)

2. In a large skillet over medium heat, heat up olive oil (about 2 tbsp) and then add onions. Cook onions until softened and then add garlic, pine nuts and raisins. Crumble the morcilla and add that. (I prefer the meat to be smaller and the morcilla this time for some reason wouldn't crumble that small, so I think next time I would chop it smaller after crumbling. I was short on time this time.) Lower heat to medium low and stir periodically.

3. Rinse and drain chickpeas, and add to pan. Also add the chopped parsley and smoked paprika to taste. Keep stirring everything around.

4. When everything has cooked and mixed well together, remove from heat. Add olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt to taste. (For estimated proportions, I would guess 1:1.5 oil to balsamic vinegar, and a light sprinkling of salt. The key for us is really the balsamic vinegar. Too little and it's a little dull. You definitely need enough balsamic vinegar to make it brighten up.)

We love this recipe. It's never going to be as good as Pinotxo, but it's a lot easier and more affordable making this than jetting off to Spain (as much as we'd like to do the latter). Whenever we make it to Barcelona next, you can be sure that we'll be heading to Pinotxo to get this again, and see if we can tweak anything else to make this a little better and closer to the real thing.

But for now, it'll do. We paired this with some patatas bravas (which will be a future post) and Crianza for a mini Spanish tapas night (can it still be tapas if you only have 2 dishes?) which really raised our spirits. Nothing like a little bit of Mediterranean warmth in the middle of December.

El Glop

After a long visit at the Camp Nou (which was amazing for us Barcelona fans) and a relaxation break at our hotel, we went out looking for dinner. Since it was 10 pm, a peak dinner time in Barcelona, we encountered lots of crowds and long wait times, and went from place to place before we ended up at El Glop, a rustic Catalan taverna.

We settled in for a relaxing Catalan meal. To start, in addition to our usual bottle of water, we decided to get a pitcher of (red) sangria. Oddly enough, considering how long we were in Barcelona, this was our only pitcher of sangria.

The sangria was pretty good. It was sweet and refreshing, and the soaked fruit added a nice freshness to the drink.

We decided to focus as much as we could on Catalonian specialties when choosing dishes. The first dish to arrive was the botifarra catalana, a Catalonian pork sausage, with a half tomato and half roasted potato on the side. The sausage had a casing that provided a nice snap, and the spices gave it an amazing flavor. The tomato and potato were both lightly seasoned with some salt and herbs, but they weren't anything that special.

We also got the escalivada formatge (roasted vegetables with goat cheese). We weren't sure exactly what to expect from this dish, but it certainly wasn't what we got. When we read the description, we thought it would be something like cut up roasted vegetables with goat cheese crumbled on top. Instead it was a few large slices of roasted red pepper with a giant slab of melted goat cheese on top. There may have been other roasted vegetables inside, but it's been a year and we can't remember. The block of goat cheese was a little different from other cheese we've had before, a little bit firmer and filmy, so that was new. It was tasty, but it wasn't anything great or memorable. 

We were really trying to balance our meals by getting enough vegetables, so we also got the esparrecs de marge (grilled asparagus). The asparagus was very simply prepared. It was grilled with a light sprinkle of salt and came with a side of romesco sauce for dipping. It was a very fresh dish prepared in the same manner as the Catalan specialty calçots (which we hope to try someday).

One of the more interesting dishes from that dinner was the sipia calamarcets (cuttlefish and squid with black rice). It was a fun experience from the moment it arrived at the table, since neither of us had ever had cuttlefish that looked like this before (only small cuttlefish balls). Those giant heads of cuttlefish looked rather amusing stuffed onto the plate, like big balloons. 

The cuttlefish and squid were both extremely tender even after their simple grill preparation. As with La Cova Fumada, they came whole (with grilled heads and legs) and were prepared simply by grilling with olive oil, salt, pepper and maybe a little bit of parsley. The black rice was fascinating though. We had no idea what kind of flavors to expect, but what we got was definitely something we could have never predicted. It tasted almost like lasagna. We couldn't explain it, but the combination of the rice, shredded/baked cheese, and whatever red sauce they used made it taste like tomatoes and was very hearty. We kept remarking to ourselves that it tasted like pasta or lasagna, even though we knew it wasn't. It was a dish that was full of surprises, but it was also very solid.

Lastly, we got orada a la brasa, a grilled whole fish that came with another half tomato and a roasted potato cut in half. Orada is the Catalan name for what is better known as bream or dorade in the US. As with every other fish we'd ever had in the Mediterranean, it was grilled simply with olive oil, salt, and lemon. A put his fish de-boning skills to use and we enjoyed tearing into the tender white flesh. The fish was nice and flaky, and it definitely tasted fresh. Overall it was a good dish, but it was something that we could get back at home or elsewhere in the Mediterranean, so nothing really special. 

Our meal at El Glop was fine, but definitely not the best meal of our trip. It was like having a simple homecooked Catalan meal, and we liked that. If you're in the area, it's a fine place to go and you'll have a good meal, but it's probably not worth going out of your way to visit with all the other amazing food on offer in Barcelona.

El Glop (sometimes called by its full name, El Glop de La Rambla, as there is more than one El Glop in Barcelona) is located at Rambla de Catalunya, 65.

La Cova Fumada

It's been awhile but since we're in the middle of reliving our amazing experience in Barcelona, which was exactly one year ago, it seems like a good time to get back to recaps!

One of our most memorable lunches in Barcelona was at La Cova Fumada, a small spot in Barceloneta. La Cova Fumada is a tiny hole in the wall place, filled (packed, really) with mostly locals and without any signage whatsoever. It was a good thing we had the street address or else we never would have figured out that those plain brown doors were the entrance to an amazing find.

They don't really have a menu at La Cova Fumada, at least not one that they hand out. There is a menu board near the back of the room but no one really looks at it and we didn't even know it was there until we were on our way out. Usually they just make suggestions based on what you like and what's good that day. It was good practice for my rusty Spanish since they don't really speak English (nor should they need to since they're in Catalunya). 

We started out with the usual pan con tomate, which came with two large pieces of bread. The bread was fresh and crispy, the crusts were crunchy and flaky, and the tomato sauce on the bread was tasty. We didn't like it as much as the one at Paco Meralgo, but we still enjoyed it. A big difference in the way they made their pan con tomate was that they skewered and grilled the bread instead of toasting it. All in all, it was a good start.

One of the items that La Cova Fumada is known for is the bomba. The legend is that the bomba originated there, so we definitely wanted to try it.

The bomba is basically a mashed potato ball that is deep fried and topped with garlic aioli and hot sauce. Like a potato croquette but so much better. It was the best kind of mushy, creamy, delicious potato ball you could get. We immediately wanted more bombas but we knew more food was on its way.

Next up, alcachofas (artichokes). When the server suggested artichokes, we said yes. We saw plates/baskets of them all around the kitchen, but we had no idea what would be coming. The only types of artichokes either of us had really had prior to lunch were the pickled/preserved ones in the jars.

When the artichokes arrived, we were perplexed. How do you eat those? Luckily I had an international data plan so I googled it. After peeling away and eating all of the outer layers, we discovered the soft, meaty artichoke hearts that had been soaked in olive oil and it was a revelation. We had never had artichokes that tasted this good and we fell in love with artichokes right there. One thing we found fairly amusing is that after our order came out we kept seeing order after order of the artichokes going out to other tables. Clearly they were a popular item.

There's something really special about the artichokes in Spain. We can't find any artichokes here that look or taste like those, with so much soft flesh in the hearts. Would love to have a plate of those right now.

After a few vegetarian plates, it was time to dig in to the seafood. We ordered bacalao (cod), which came broiled and topped with plenty of tomato sauce. The fish was flaky and soft, and the dish tasted really fresh and light.

The calamar (squid) was next. I was expecting grilled rings of squid, but instead there was one large piece of perfectly grilled squid - head, legs and all. It was cooked with olive oil, parsley, salt and pepper. A made sure we each had a piece of each part of the squid as each held its own flavor and texture. The legs had a bit of crisp to them from the char of the grill, and the head was incredibly soft and tender. This was exactly the type of preparation and flavoring we had been looking for and expecting in Barcelona - fresh and simply grilled. 

The last dish of our lunch was the pulpo (octopus). Like the squid, it didn't come in pieces, but was one large single octopus. It was so tender, perfectly cooked unlike some other octopus we've had before. Between the two, we preferred the squid, but the octopus was also really delicious.

A also got a cafe con leche. It was smooth much like most of the coffees he ordered while in Spain, and had a nice earthiness to it.

We loved our meal at La Cova Fumada and were so happy that we had made the trip over to Barceloneta for lunch. It was exactly the type of authentic Catalan meal we had been hoping for, and everything we ate was so incredibly fresh and flavorful. We definitely want to return whenever we make it back to Barcelona.

La Cova Fumada is located in the Barceloneta neighborhood at Carrer Baluard, 56.  Closed Sundays and most evenings. In our opinion, lunch during the week is the best option.

A's Favorite Food Memories of 2012

2012 was a very interesting food year for M and me. This was an incredibly difficult choice to narrow my list down to 10 favorite memories, and there are so many great things that I had to leave off. With so many great food memories from this year, I can't wait to see what 2013 has in store for us. So in chronological order...

1) Alcachofas (Artichokes) from La Cova Fumada (Barcelona)

The thing about these artichokes was that they were so simply prepared. A drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper before being grilled/baked in the oven. This was the first time either M or I had ever had straight artichoke and not the preserved/pickled hearts you see most often here in the US. We never knew just how much we would love these wonderful little vegetables, and it spawned in me the drive to emulate this simple dish many times at home for us to enjoy.

2) Tickets Olives from Tickets (Barcelona)

I call these magic olives. This is the signature dish of the Adria brothers from back in their El Bulli days. Avant garde gastronomy at its finest. It's some sort of chemical reaction between olive juice, added chemicals, and an alginate bath. The end result is something that is the size and shape of an olive. You slurp the semi-solid oval into your mouth and let it burst. An intense olive burst is what you get, and it's an amazing and mind-blowing experience. Liquid olive that's actually solid too.

3) Fried Egg with Truffled Duck Fat and Potato Cream from Tickets (Barcelona)

This was not only a tasty dish, but it was another display of amazing melding of science and cooking. The dish claims to be a fried egg, but neither M or I remember a solid egg being present. It was more of a custard or pudding that was egg flavored. The duck fat didn't feel greasy or heavy, and the truffle added a nice decadence. The potato cream was much more of a foam than cream. Overall, it tasted like a really good Tortilla Española covered in black truffle.

4) Xipirons amb Mongetes (Baby squid with white beans) from Bar Pinotxo (Barcelona)

Xipirons are baby squid that are about an inch long or so. They are extremely tender, and most of the times we ordered them in Barcelona, they came fried. Juanito offers you these delectable squids sauteed with white beans and olive oil and then drizzled with a balsamic reduction. The result is one of my favorite dishes of all time. It's a dish I still think about today. If we ever make it back to Barcelona, I think M and I will need to make a beeline for La Boqueria to slide up to the counter.

5) Cigrons (Chickpeas) from Bar Pinotxo (Barcelona)

Oh hey, look, another dish from Bar Pinotxo. Along with the aforementioned xipirons, M and I also got a half order of his famous cigrons. They apparently come cooked with raisins, rock salt, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and parsley. Juanito also has a version that includes murcillo or butifarra, but we don't think we got that version. The chickpeas were perfectly cooked to be soft but still retain just a touch of bite. A wonderful, vegetarian option for a country full of meat.

6) A Whole King Prawn from El Celler de Can Roca (Girona)

One restaurant we knew we had to try and get a reservation for when we decided on Barcelona for our European excursion this year was El Celler de Can Roca. It is currently the #2 ranked restaurant in the world, and we were ecstatic when we got our reservation. The restaurant was started by the 3 Roca brothers who all learned cooking from their mother who has a restaurant just up the street from them called Can Roca. She certainly taught them well. This dish was a masterpiece of ingenuity, creativity, and full-on flavor. The menu describes the dish as "a charcoal-grilled king prawn, king prawn sand, ink rocks, fried legs, head juice, and king prawn essence". What they did with this one prawn was nothing short of magnificent. The "sand" tasted like concentrated prawn, the prawn itself was succulent and sweet, and the fried legs added a nice crunchy texture along with even more prawn flavor. They even chose a wavy plate to mimic the sea floor. A truly magnificent dish.

7) Flower Bomb from El Celler de Can Roca (Girona)

This was one of the most beautiful desserts I had ever eaten in my life. Oh, it tasted really good too. "Rose cream, loquats and orange blossom, chamomile sorbet, calendula gelatine, violet cloud, and jasmine oil" is the description given. In essence, it's edible flowers, rose cream, and sorbet wrapped in a sugar spun "bubble" that you have to crack to get into. The violet cloud is cotton candy touched with lavender for a wonderful additional flavor. As much as it pained me to have to break open this beautiful dish, I was extremely happy to eat it.

8) Drunken Noodle with Fried Sea Bass from Lotus of Siam (Las Vegas)

Lotus of Siam is one of the supposed holy trinity of Thai restaurants here in the US. The other two are Jitlada in LA and Sripraphai  in NYC. Oddly enough, the only one we haven't been to is the one here in our backyard. It's hard to describe the flavor of drunken noodle, but if you have ever had some before, imagine the best drunken noodle you've ever had. Multiply that greatness by 10, and then add on perfectly fried pieces of sea bass, and this is what you're getting. The sea bass is very lightly battered and ultra crisp. The fish is perfectly flaky as well. Lotus of Siam was the only place we knew we had to go to in Las Vegas, and we'll certainly go back next time as well.

9) Adobada Taco with Pineapple from Tacos El Gordo (Las Vegas)

Tacos El Gordo is a taco chain started out of Tijuana. After M heard about this amazing taco joint, I knew we would be going at some point during our trip. She is, after all, taco crazy. As much as I loved all of the tacos we tried, the standout was the adobada taco with a slice of pineapple. Adobada is pork that's layered on a spit similar to shawarma. It's marinated, cooked, and sliced to order. It's piled on to a couple of corn tortillas, layed with onions and cilantro, and slathered with some green sauce that's just out of this world. The pineapple is optional, and you have to actually ask for it if you want. We actually tried it both ways, and the pineapple, while not 100% necessary, really made this taco sing. The sweet and sour mix from the pineapple paired itself extremely well to the flavors of the spices in the meat and also the sauce. The end result is a taco that, for all of $2, is the best bang for the buck on The Strip.

10) Thanksgiving Dinner at My Brother's Home (Chicago)

Sure, this is a bit of a cheat since it's not really one specific dish, but if you're talking about food memories, this is a great one. Ever since M and I moved out to NYC, we've never had a chance to spend a holiday with my family. This year, after my nephew was born, we knew we had to be with them. Now, this wasn't anything special with what we made, but it was the first Thanksgiving meal that we cooked without any help from any parents. My brother and I combined to cook a fantastic turkey, M and I made the stuffing and mashed potatoes, my brother made the cranberry-orange relish, and he took over for the green bean casserole while M and I were stuck still working on the stuffing. The only things we didn't make were a Brussels sprout side from Whole Foods that my brother bought in case we botched the turkey and the turkey gravy. It felt so satisfying to successfully cook this major holiday meal. And no, we didn't eat the little begging dog under the table.

2012 was such a great food year even if it wasn't great for most other things. Hopefully 2013 is even better overall.

M's Favorite Food Memories of 2012

2012 may not have been the best year all-around but it was a fantastic year for food, which made choosing my top 10 food memories of the year really difficult.  When I "narrowed down" my options the first time, I ended up with 59 different dishes.  I could have made multiple top 10 lists just from our 10 days in Barcelona, so it's no surprise that it completely dominated this year's list.  Here's my top 10 (in no particular order, except to end with something sweet):

1.  Contessa de espárragos blancos con consomé de ibéricos (white asparagus contessa with Iberian consomme) from El Celler de Can Roca

We went to El Celler de Can Roca, currently the number 2 restaurant in the world, for a 5 hour lunch during our Barcelona trip in May.  One of the courses on our tasting menu was this amazing asparagus dish, with such vivid flavors that I can still taste it to this day.  It was a duo of hot and cold white asparagus bites - the hot consisted of tender white asparagus with black garlic that was so soft that it melted in your mouth, and the cold was an asparagus ice cream with black truffle that was buttery and salty and creamy all at once.  The hot asparagus alone probably would not have made it onto this list, but the asparagus ice cream was great, and together it was asparagus overload (in a good way). Good thing we love asparagus!

2.  Chicago Style Char Dog from Gold Coast Dogs

Despite living in Chicago for a few years, the only Chicago style hot dogs I had eaten prior to this fall were from Portillo's (and even then, had only had 1) and Shake Shack (here in NYC).  (This was in part due to the fact that I didn't eat red meat for much of the time I lived in Chicago and only started my "ballpark exception" for hot dogs near the end of my stay, but let's not talk about that now.)  In September, A and I decided to explore some of Chicago's best hot dogs, and made our own mini Chicago style hot dog crawl.  I love Chicago style hot dogs because they have so many vegetables, making them rather healthy! If you've never had one, it is a hot dog (in this case, charred) on a poppy seed bun topped with mustard, onions, tomatoes, pickles, (neon green) relish, sport peppers and celery salt. My favorite from our crawl was this classic char dog from Gold Coast Dogs.

3.  Alcachofas (artichokes) from La Cova Fumada

La Cova Fumada wasn't the first place I had ever eaten an artichoke in my life, but it is the place that made me realize I liked artichokes.  La Cova Fumada is a tiny hole in the wall place in the Barceloneta neighborhood of Barcelona, filled with mostly locals and without any signage whatsoever. They don't really have a menu, but just make suggestions based on what you like and what's good that day. When the server suggested alcachofas (artichokes), we said yes, despite not having any idea what kind of artichokes would be coming.  I think I was still picturing slices of artichokes like the ones in the jars, which I think were the only ones I had before.

When the artichokes arrived, we were perplexed. How do you eat those? Luckily I had an international data plan so I googled it.  After peeling away and eating all of the outer layers, we discovered the soft, meaty artichoke hearts that had been soaked in olive oil and it was a revelation.  I had never had an artichoke that tasted this good.  These artichokes would make this list on their own but they also get a place on this list because they completely changed my mind about artichokes.

We went on to order artichokes at many other places but they often came as alcachofas fritas (fried artichokes).  We loved those too, like these perfectly fried, delicious, hearty artichokes from Sant Joan, another place where we were the only non-locals having lunch and where they were really nice and served us really delicious food.  (These artichokes were on the short list but ultimately didn't make this top 10.)

4.  Nam kao tod from Lotus of Siam

When we went off on our Las Vegas mini-break in December, there was only one restaurant that we knew for sure we had to visit - Lotus of Siam, considered by many to be the best Thai restaurant in the United States.  One of the dishes they are famous for is nam kao tod - a salad of crispy rice mixed with minced sour sausage, green onion, fresh chili, ginger, peanuts, and lime juice.  When I hear rice salad, all I think about is khao yam from Jitlada. This isn't the same and khao yam is still my favorite, but this was quite good.  The combination of flavors, the sourness and spice, was so nuanced and different from the Thai food we eat on a regular basis.  I love Thai salads and this one was one of the best.

5.  Pan con Tomate from Paco Meralgo

Paco Meralgo, one of our favorite restaurants in Barcelona, is also one of the few Barcelona spots (and the only one on this list) that we've gotten around to blogging about (post here).  Pan con tomate, literally translated to bread with tomato, is a Catalonian specialty and our favorite was here at Paco Meralgo.  The perfect crispiness, fresh and intense tomato flavor, just the right amount of drizzled olive oil - I dream about this dish to this day and hope to someday eat this again.

6.  Cigrons from Pinotxo

Another place we loved in Barcelona was Pinotxo, a tiny corner bar right at the entrance to La Boqueria, the famous marketplace on Las Ramblas. Pinotxo is famous for having good food but also for Juanito, the charming guy behind the bar who knows exactly what you should order.  He suggested that we get these chickpeas (cigrons in Catalan) which were incredible (and somehow only a half-order, so inexpensive).  The cigrons dish varies based on season and what's available in the market, and on the day we went, we tasted raisins, rock salt, parsley, olive oil and balsamic vinegar mixed in with the chickpeas.  A simple recipe but an incredible dish.  I love chickpeas and could eat this on a regular basis (if only it were here!).

7.  Thanksgiving stuffing

This may seem like an odd entry in a list of favorite food memories since Thanksgiving comes every year, but there is a reason.  This year was the first time I spent Thanksgiving with A's family, and we, along with his brother, made the entire Thanksgiving dinner ourselves.  What I was happiest about was the stuffing (my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal!).  It's my mom's recipe - herb stuffing with sausage, mushroom, onion and cilantro - and I've made it before at home, but have never done the whole process (ingredient purchasing, all the prep and all the cooking) completely on my own.  It was bittersweet since it was the first Thanksgiving ever that I haven't seen my family, but there was also a sense of accomplishment and pride that I could carry on my family's stuffing tradition.

8.  Olives (and other things that burst) from Tickets

Other than El Celler de Can Roca, the only other reservation we made before leaving for Barcelona was for Tickets Bar, the tapas bar that was opened by the Adrias (formerly of the impossible to get into El Bulli).  Tickets was an entertaining and whimsical place and there were so many options that we picked the "let your server choose your food for you" option.  The only thing we knew we wanted to get were las Olivas del Tickets (the Tickets olives), which were a signature dish and the same ones they had at El Bulli.  These little green bubbles were relatively solid on the spoon (although you did have to be careful), but they liquified instantly when they hit your mouth, bursting open to reveal tons of olive flavor.  It was like eating an olive in liquid form.  The whole experience was so much fun that I think it left me giddy.

We also had some other dishes at Tickets with things that "burst" in your mouth.  The miniairbags rellenos de queso manchego (manchego cheese mini airbags) looked like puff pastries but were crispy shells topped with manchego cheese and caviar which, when you bit into them, exploded with cool liquid cheese.  The ravioli liquido de queso Payoyo (liquid Payoyo cheese ravioli) looked like big opaque white bubbles with crackers on top, but exploded with cheese once you ate them.

While none of these dishes alone probably would have made this list based solely on their flavors (not that they were bad, but there was some tough competition this year), the enjoyable experience of eating the olives (and the other bursting foods) let us know we were in for a really fun dining experience at Tickets, one we will never forget.

9.  Xipirons

To me, one of the greatest food experiences one can have is the discovery of a new food to love.  It was like that with the artichokes, and it was like that with xipirons (Catalan)/chipirones (Spanish), which are a tiny squid that I have never seen anywhere except for Spain.  They're small (only a few centimeters long), really tender, and so much fun to eat.

One of the greatest dishes we had with xipirons (and we searched for them on menus once we realized we loved them) was xipirons amb mongetes (baby squid with white beans) from Pinotxo.  Suggested by Juanito (of course), the dish that arrived was filled with tiny squid, lots of white beans, and lots of balsamic vinegar.  It was delicious.

One of more popular ways to make chipirones was to fry them.

These fried chipirones from La Paradeta (a casual chain of places where you point to the seafood you want, which is all fresh out of the harbor that day, and then they make it) were like popcorn. I could just imagine eating these as a snack while walking around the city. Also delicious.

10.  Flower bomb from El Celler de Can Roca

After trying the flower bomb dessert at El Celler de Can Roca, I knew immediately that this would be on this year's favorite food memories list.  Jordi Roca is a genius.  This dessert - full of edible flowers - just tasted like spring, if spring had a flavor.  According to the menu, there was rose cream, loquats and orange blossom, chamomile sorbet, calendula gelatin, violet cloud and jasmine oil.  It arrived with most of those ingredients, including the flowers, inside a delicate clear sugar shell, sitting on a bed of what looked like violet cotton candy.  It was sweet, it was floral, it was fruity, and most of all, it was perfect for May and springtime.  I've never had any dessert like it - which made me feel so present in the time and space in which we were living - so I knew this would definitely be one of the best things I would eat all year.

Hoping 2013 brings great food memories (and hopefully something in NYC will make the list)!

Paco Meralgo

One place that we starred on our scribbled list of Barcelona restaurant names was Paco Meralgo.  People had great things to say about Paco Meralgo, it was recommended often, and perhaps most importantly, it was one of the few places on our list open on Sundays for dinner.

Paco Meralgo has menus in English, Spanish and Catalan - they must know they are recommended to food lovers around the world!

Paco Meralgo (from the Spanish pa comer algo / para comer algo, meaning "to eat something") is a popular place for tapas and wine, especially the Catalunyan specialty of cava (more on that later).  When we got there, the place was packed.  Clearly everyone else knew that was the place to be for Sunday dinner.  After a bit of a wait, we got great seats at the bar, where we could see all of the food coming out and everyone working hard in the kitchen.  I sat right in front of a bowl of gambas rojas (giant bright red shelled shrimp) on ice, and we're still not sure how we made it through the entire dinner without actually ordering gambas.  It was a great seat.

The gambas looked so good but somehow we didn't order them...

We decided to start off our meal with cava.  Cava is a Spanish sparkling wine which is predominantly made in Catalunya (it even has protected origin status).  A found it dry and refreshing, while I thought it was not as bubbly as the champagne I've had before.  Since it was more subdued I thought it was better.  It had a nice, sweet flavor.  Paco Meralgo serves Raimat cava and it was quite good.

Starting the meal with our Raimat cava

We ordered a bunch of dishes to start with and then added to our order as the night went on, mostly in my out-of-practice Spanish (castellano).  The plates came out quickly but were still pretty well paced so that the bar wasn't covered in plates before we finished the ones we had.  Here's what we got:

Pan con tomate (bread with tomato).  This was the best pan con tomate we had in Barcelona by that time, and it turned out to be our favorite pan con tomate of the entire trip.  The bread was toasted and crisp. It tasted strongly of tomato and olive oil.  It soaked through the entire bread without making it soggy.  It was perfect pan con tomate and we still find ourselves craving it to this day.

Espárragos silvestres salteados con ajos tiernos (wild asparagus sauteed with garlic).  This was really good and exactly the type of vegetable dish we had been looking for our entire trip.  The asparagus here weren't those wide stalks that we sometimes get here, but the skinny type of asparagus.  Each piece was soft but not soggy, perfectly cooked, and so garlicky and tasty.

Buñuelos de bacalao (cod fritters).  These cod fritters aren't much to look at from the outside, but you can tell that they're deep fried!  We saw lots of these leaving the kitchen.

These cod fritters did not have much filler.  It was like deep fried fish paste with some herbs and spices added.  You could actually taste the fish instead of just filler and breading.  We were really happy with these.

Flor de calabacin y mozzarella (squash flower with mozzarella).  We ordered this for a few different reasons - we were looking for more vegetables, it sounded really good (veggies stuffed with cheese? of course we would do that), and it was different from tapas we've had before.  We probably would have preferred squash stuffed with cheese that was not fried, but decided to try it.

We liked the squash but we didn't really need the cheese in our hunt for good vegetables.  The squash would have been good by itself.  The cheese was very melted, a little liquidy.  This wasn't a bad dish, but it wasn't our favorite.  In the battle between the 2 fried things we had eaten so far, the cod fritters were definitely winning.

Ensalada de ventresca, tomate y cebolla (salad of tuna belly, tomato and onion).  When we ordered this, we were expecting a salad of greens, topped with tomato, onion and slices of tuna. Instead, it was a plate with three columns of food - tuna, onions and tomatoes.  The tuna was cooked like tuna you would get in a can, but it was much better quality and much fresher.  There was no fishiness at all but just the pure taste of tuna.  The dressing was light, mostly olive oil and mustard seed. This was a really tasty dish with nice clean flavors.  Healthy too!

Boquerones rebozados (fried anchovies).  A was really looking forward to trying boquerones in Barcelona (as he is a big fan) and this dish met his expectations.  The taste of the fish was evident but just like the ventresca, it was not fishy.  A little salty, but adding the lemon tempered the salt.  You could barely even tell that the anchovies had bones.  

Carpaccio de atún (tuna carpaccio).  This was what we expected - tissue thin slices of tuna in olive oil, soy sauce, pepper and tiny scallions.  It was light and clean and the fish was of excellent quality.  This was one of the few dishes we got at Paco Meralgo that we could probably easily get here at home but it was still worth a try and very well done.

Croqueta de pescado y marisco (fish and seafood croquette), croqueta de pollo y jamón (chicken and ham croquette).  The croquettes were interesting.  I couldn't tell them apart.  At one point, I thought I was eating the fish croquette but A said it was the chicken one (not from the consistency but from the presence of ham).  Like FEBO in Amsterdam, these were fried tasty mush, which doesn't sound good as a description, but which we definitely like.

Fried mush

They even look the same when you cut them in half - only the coloring is a slightly different shade.  We both found them tasty but the flavors weren't that strong that they were easy to distinguish.

Pulpo de roca con cebolla confitada (octopus with caramelized onions).  We had expected to get tender pieces of octopus with onions on top, but what arrived was even better.  This one of the dishes we added toward the end of the meal and we were very happy with our choice.  The dish had small, incredibly tender pieces of octopus, mixed with caramelized onions in a tomato-based sauce.  It was kind of like a stew.  It came with 3 pieces of toasted bread, which were fine but we didn't need them.

Navajas a la plancha (grilled razor clams).  Clean, simply grilled and delicious.  I had not been a fan of razor clams before going to Spain because I had previously eaten some that were so chewy and tough that they were hard to swallow.  In contrast, these were so soft.  They were a little gritty in some parts but not too much.  Clams, olive oil, a little bit of salt, and a little lemon.  So simple but so good.

For dessert, we decided to get crema catalana, a signature Catalan custard.  This was like a less sweet version of creme brulee and we enjoyed it.  The burnt sugar in some parts was a little too burnt and kind of bitter, but paired with the custard, it balanced out and was very good.  The cookie it was served with was crisp and like multiple wafers stacked on top of each other.

A also closed out the meal with an espresso.  A is not a huge espresso drinker, preferring lighter roasts. But the darker roast and the bitterness of the espresso paired well with the crema catalana, so he was happy.

We loved our meal at Paco Meralgo, so much that we would visit again a week later (the only restaurant we visited more than once on our trip).  The service was excellent, they were incredibly nice and put up with my out-of-shape Spanish, the food was amazing, and they're open on Sundays!  This is one of the places we would highly recommend to a Barcelona visitor, especially if you don't speak Spanish (unlike our next review).  Dreaming about their pan con tomate... and that octopus... and the asparagus...