Week 33 - One Color

Challenge week: 33

Theme: One color

Theme note: I'm a big proponent of eating the rainbow, so the idea of eating just one color for a whole meal didn't really appeal to me. (A lot of the submissions I've seen on Reddit since I made this were so creative in making balanced meals, but I lacked culinary inspiration and creativity when I was choosing.) Instead I made a dish with multiple ingredients of one color with some sides that brought in some others.

What we made: Tortilla española (yellow onions, yellow potatoes, Just Egg)

How much it cost (with estimated breakdown): Very estimated, since not only did I not write this down after making it sans recipe, but I didn't even take an ingredient photo. Thinking $5.67 for the tortilla, with an additional $3.50 or so for the carrots and mushrooms on the side.

- 1 yellow onion ($0.50)

- 1 can of diced potatoes ($1.99)

- 1 container of Just Egg ($3.15)

- salt and pepper ($0.03)

Challenge quick review: We were really impressed with how well the tortilla española came out. Did it sink in the middle once moved to a plate instead of being solid like a cake like the ones we've had at restaurants? Yes. Was the texture a little different because ours was vegan? Yes. Did it need more potatoes? Maybe. But did it taste good? Yes. It was really easy to prepare, but I never could have made it without A's help because the flipping part was both difficult (such a heavy pan) and intimidating (what if it all fell apart?).

As a side note, I made this less than a month ago, and I was already having trouble remembering exactly what I used, what I did, etc without notes or photos. I have a lot of weeks to catch up on, so some of them I think are going to just be photos of completed challenges without much detail. Sorry. Apparently the stress of 2021 and all the sleep deprivation has meant these things just don't stick in my brain anymore if I don't take notes. Currently stuck at home sick, so time to push to get all the past challenge posts done, so I can write better current posts!

Tertulia

We've wanted to go to Tertulia, Chef Seamus Mullen's Spanish restaurant, ever since it opened in 2011. Back then, they didn't take reservations and we didn't want to deal with long waits, so we put it on our list of places to try someday. Recently A saw a deal on Blackboard Eats, and it seemed like the perfect time to finally go. We had some fantastic tapas when we were in Barcelona a few years back (some of which we've written about here) and still dream about the dishes we got there, hoping we can someday find someplace at home that would meet that standard. We tried as much as possible at Tertulia hoping to find some new favorites. Here's what we got (in the order they arrived at the table) and our thoughts.

Pan con tomate (toasted bread rubbed with tomato), $8: 

M: If I go to a tapas place and pan con tomate is on the menu, I like to order it, both because I like it and because it offers a standard by which to compare places. The bread here seemed like country bread that was lightly rubbed with garlic and then tomatoes, and toasted on a grill. The crust was very crunchy, but the insides were nice and soft. The parts with garlic tasted really good, but the garlic unfortunately wasn't uniform throughout. I liked it and it was probably my second favorite dish of the night, but not the best pan con tomate we've had.

A: I liked that the bread was grilled as it gave it a nice smokiness and crunch while still allowing the inside to be soft and pillowy. The tomato was fresh and sweet, but there seemed to be a distinct lack of garlic flavor. I didn't really get any in the pieces of bread that I got. This wasn't bad, but we've definitely had better pan con tomate in our lives.

Rillette de credo (with beet mostarda and housemade pickles), $15:

M: This was one of the specials of the day, and it sounded really good. It reminded me most of the chicken pot we got on our appetizer board at our Sunday roast in London, as it literally was a little pot of pork and pork fat. The flavor was good, mostly just the flavor of the meat even if a bit salty, and it went well with the beet mostarda. The grilled bread on the side was good, but not enough so we had to get seconds, and also my first piece was a bit over-toasted and blackened. I wasn't that into the pickles though.

A: This was my favorite dish of the night. It was rich and creamy, and the grilled bread added a smoky flavor and some crunch. The pork was soft and flavorful, and the pickles were really interesting. They weren't traditional cornichons; they pickled all sorts of vegetables and fruit. The most interesting thing in my mind was the pickled strawberry. The beet mostarda added an element of spiciness, and the dill made it nice and fresh.

Nuestras patatas (crispy potatoes, pimentón de la vera, garlic all i oli), $9:

M: Potatoes are another thing I try to order at tapas restaurants. These potatoes were on the crispy side, kind of crunchy on the outside but nice and soft in the middle (at least for the bigger pieces). That was good most of the time until we got to some of the smaller crumbs which just tasted burnt. The best part of this though was the garlic aioli, and the bites that didn't get some of the aioli definitely were not as good. I love smoked paprika and it was very dominant in the flavor here, which I liked. This was my favorite dish of the night.

A: I usually really like patatas bravas (the closest comparison for this dish). They were crisped up really well, but some of the smaller pieces were overly crispy. I didn't mind that, but the seasoning that they put on the potatoes made those small, crispy pieces really salty. The aioli tempered the saltiness, but I didn't find it very garlicky. Also, the smoked paprika they dusted it with was very overpowering along with the salt.

Croquetas de jamón (Ibérico ham croquettes, membrillo), $12:

M: I love croquettes but hadn't even noticed these on the menu until one of the tables next to us got an order of them. I was expecting solid fried balls filled with ham and potato mush, but these were more like a hard shell with some sort of creamy ham sauce inside. I think I was expecting something denser. The ham was there, but not that strong in flavor, and I wasn't that into the quince paste (membrillo) but that could be more personal preference about mixing fruit into the dish.

A: I was not expecting what we ended up getting with these croquettes. I was expecting a solid croquette with jamon, but it was basically a fried ball surrounding a stew. It was really odd, and the quince paste made it even odder. It added a sweetness that didn't really seem to pair that well with the salty croquette.

Coles de Bruselas (grilled Hudson Valley brussels sprouts, wild boar bacon, mojo verde), $14:

M: I had high hopes for this dish but didn't really like it at all. The Brussels sprouts were fine, a little crunchy, but the entire flavor of the dish was a little on the bitter side. Not sure if that was from the meat or the sauce (even though there was not much of either), but the taste was a little off-putting for me, and I didn't really want much of it sadly.

A: I usually really like Brussels sprouts cooked with bacon, but there didn't seem to be much of any bacon in here. I had one piece, and that was about all of the bacon we got in the dish. I felt bad since M didn't get a piece, but I didn't think we'd only get the one piece. Other than that, the sprouts tasted pretty good. I didn't taste the mojo verde at all, but the sprouts themselves tasted okay. This was fairly plain, and it ended up being my least favorite dish of the night.

Txipirones a la plancha (baby squid, grilled bitter greens, warm tomato vinaigrette), $16:

M: This dish was pretty good. The "baby squid" weren't quite as small as what I was expecting based on what we had eaten in Barcelona that was called txipirones, but they were fine. All together, there wasn't really anything wrong with the dish other than it was a little bit salty, and the combination of everything together tasted nice and fresh with all the vegetables. Unfortunately it reminded me that we still haven't found a txipirones dish in the States that remotely matches what we had in Spain.

A: This was the dish that M and I were most excited for. On our vacation to Barcelona we fell in love with txipirones whether they were grilled or fried. The tomato vinaigrette was sweet and fresh tasting, and the grilled bitter greens weren't bitter, but they offered a bit more freshness to the dish. My big complaint, though, was that the dish was pretty salty overall. It made things hard to eat and made the dish rather disappointing.

Arroz a la plancha (Calasparra rice, snails, wild mushrooms, celery, fennel, Ibérico ham), $23:

M: I liked this one more than A did. The rice was a little bit like a risotto, very creamy, and the flavor was familiar, even if I couldn't quite place it. It tasted a little charred, but not in a bad way. The toppings were really fresh and it was nice getting some light vegetables alongside the heavier rice. After we ate it, I was listening to some guy at the table next to us who kept raving about this dish to his meal partner, and while I did think it was pretty good, I'm not sure if I'm even close to as into it as he was. It came out with the txipirones, and between the two, I liked the squid better, but this was fine.

A: I didn't know what to expect from this dish, but it sounded really interesting. I love snails as a general matter so adding them to what amounted to Spanish fried rice seemed like a great thing. Overall this was just okay. The main flavor came from the ham, and there wasn't that much of it. The snails also had a bit of a sour taste to them. It wasn't completely off-putting, but it wasn't great.

Tarta de Santiago (traditional almond tart, stewed berries, creme fraiche gelato), $8:

M: The dessert we associate most with our time in Spain is almond cake, having had an excellent one at the end of lunch one day and being completely surprised by how wonderful it was. This one was not as soft as that almond cake, and also just kind of stiff. I wasn't a big fan of the gelato and gave most of it to A, but I did like the berry sauce. Overall, it was just okay. Still better than the Brussels sprouts.

A: Harkening back to our Barcelona trip again, we had a great Tarta de Santiago at lunch one day. I even tried to recreate it here at home with mixed success. This rendition was... different. Instead of being a smoother, finer ground almond meal cake, this was very coarse and a little stiffer. The creme fraiche gelato was odd as well. It tasted just like creme fraiche, but I don't know that those two flavors go together. The berries were really nice.

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We did like our meal at Tertulia overall, even if it was a bit salty and not as good as we were expecting it to be. We've had so many amazing tapas over the years, both in the States and in Barcelona, so it's a decently high bar but one that we thought this one would soar over based on the reviews we remembered. In the end, it wasn't bad for tapas and we were glad we went, but not something we need to race back for sometime soon.

Week 49 - Spanish Tapas

I was really excited when the Week 49 theme turned up as Spanish tapas. I love tapas and I love Mediterranean food, so even though it meant a lot of dishes in one night (and I'm slow in the kitchen), I couldn't wait. I knew I wanted to make patatas bravas, because I had made them once before but forgot how since I never blogged about it. I decided to add on one of my favorite vegetarian tapas - espinaca con garbanzos - which I've made a couple of times but also hadn't blogged about. For the last piece, I chose something new, a bean and chorizo salad that I found when looking through lists of tapas recipes and which I thought would go well with the others.

Patatas Bravas

A couple of years ago, I did a tapas night that included patatas bravas based on a recipe from BBC Good Food. I chose to use the same recipe again this time, hoping I could remember what modifications I made that time since, from what I remembered, it had come out pretty well.

The ingredients for our version of patatas bravas were:

- 5 small to medium potatoes, peeled and chopped ($1.04)
- olive oil ($0.30)
- 1 large yellow onion, chopped ($0.50)
- 3 garlic cloves, chopped ($0.10)
- 1 can of diced tomatoes ($0.80)
- 1 tbsp of tomato paste ($0.20)
- 1 tbsp of paprika ($0.10)
- 1 tbsp of chili powder (planned for a couple tsp but used more than expected) ($0.10)
- 1 spoonful of sugar ($0.05)
- salt and pepper to taste ($0.05)
- parsley to garnish ($0.45)

The steps for making the potatoes were:

- add peeled and chopped potato to greased baking pan and roast for about 50 minutes at 400 degrees until golden and a little more crisp
- add olive oil to large pot, heat, add onions and cook until soft and starting to brown
- add garlic to onions, cook for a minute or so, and then add diced tomatoes, tomato paste, paprika, chili powder, sugar, salt and pepper
- simmer sauce over low heat for at least 10-15 minutes
- when potatoes are done, add to the tomato sauce and mix together
- cook over low heat for a couple of minutes
- remove from heat and mix in parsley garnish

The potatoes came out pretty well, but they weren't really spicy like patatas bravas should be. The flavor seemed a little subdued despite all the paprika and chili powder that was added, so it was more like potatoes in a nice tasting tomato sauce. That said, it was still good, but just didn't have the kick that we wanted it to. Maybe next time I'll use smoked paprika instead.

Bean and Chorizo Salad

The new dish that was part of our tapas night was based on another recipe from BBC Good Food (didn't plan for this to be a BBC Good Food night, but just happened that way). I thought a bean salad would be a nice way to balance out two more hearty, rustic dishes.

The ingredients for the salad were:

- 4 large mushrooms, chopped ($1.05)
- olive oil ($0.50)
- 1 small red onion, sliced ($0.36)
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar ($0.25)
- 1 can white beans, drained and rinsed ($0.89)
- 1/2 batch of parsley, chopped ($0.90)
- 1 stick of chorizo ($3.34)
- salt and pepper to taste ($0.05)

The bulk of the cost here was the chorizo, which wasn't even regular chorizo but the chorizo seasoned salami from the salami trio gift pack at Trader Joe's. We just didn't have time to go out looking for actual Spanish chorizo and went with that instead. No idea how that would have impacted the cost if we did go looking for it.

The steps to make the salad were:

- heat olive oil in small pan and then add mushrooms, sauté until most of the water has released
- add red onions to pan with mushrooms for a minute
- remove mushrooms and onions to a small bowl and add red wine vinegar, chill for 10-20 minutes (I left it in there until everything else was done and it was time to mix the salad)
- in a large bowl, mix the white beans with the onion/mushroom mixture, parsley, some olive oil, salt and pepper, and the sliced chorizo, and season to taste

I had forgotten that the original recipe called for the onions to be mixed with the vinegar, and I had added them to the pan with the mushrooms to try and reduce the sharpness. I don't know how differently this would have come out if I did that instead but the onions would probably be stronger.

The salad came out pretty well and was A's favorite part of the meal, mostly because the chorizo had a lot of flavor. I thought that the salad tasted better the next day when I ate the leftovers for lunch, after the salad had a chance to chill in the fridge overnight. When eating it that way, the chorizo was actually my least favorite part of it, as I thought the salad was better on its own once the ingredients had sat together for hours.

Espinaca con Garbanzos

I have no idea what recipe or what place inspired me to make espinaca con garbanzos the first time, since I've been making this here and there ever since I first started cooking more a few years ago. Wherever it came from (and there are probably many similar ones to it online), it's one of my favorites.

The ingredients for this were:

- olive oil ($0.20)
- 1 onion, chopped ($0.50)
- 3 cloves of garlic, chopped ($0.10)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)
- smoked paprika (to taste, but a generous amount) (still using one we got for free, which will skew the totals but is truthful)
- 1 can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained ($0.75)
- 1 bag of baby spinach ($1.99)

The cost for the spinach and chickpeas portion of dinner was $3.59 (since the smoked paprika had no cost), which when combined with the patatas bravas ($3.69) and bean and chorizo salad ($7.34), leads to a grand total for dinner of $14.62. Not the cheapest dinner but there was a little bit of chickpeas, a small bowl of salad, and a large bowl of potatoes left over, so the price covered a couple of lunches too.

The steps were:

- heat olive oil over medium heat
- add onions and garlic and cook until softened
- add chickpeas, salt, pepper, and smoked paprika, combine well, and cook for a few minutes
- push the chickpea mixture to the edge of the pan and add the baby spinach until the spinach leaves are wilted, mixing wilted spinach in to the chickpea mixture (maybe it's because we were using a different pan but it took a lot longer to do this than I remembered and I had to do the spinach in batches)

I tried the chickpeas prior to mixing in the spinach and thought the dish had much more flavor than the finished product, which was odd. There definitely was enough smoked paprika pre-spinach and there wasn't that much spinach. Even if it wasn't as strong in flavor as I was expecting, I still really like this dish and it was my favorite part of dinner.

It was a fun and tasty tapas night, even if we didn't eat until very late because of how much work it was. I tend to rationalize our tapas nights saying that we're eating at a very Spanish time of 10 or 11 pm, but that's never really the plan. At least it was good!

Buenalba

When we first saw the October spotlight cheese at Trader Joe's, we were excited and couldn't wait to try it. Of course, we were in San Diego without a refrigerator, so we couldn't try it then, but we put it on our mental shopping list to pick one up once we got home.

The buenalba cheese with paprika is a blend of raw sheep's milk and raw goat's milk. The paprika is mixed into the cheese itself, and the cheese is a really bright orange color. We ate it plain with crackers, like we do most of the spotlight cheeses, instead of mixing it into a recipe. We thought this cheese was just okay. It was really mild in flavor, and we were expecting more from it given all the focus on paprika on the label and in the description. There was nothing wrong with it, and we did enjoy eating it, but it didn't make much of an impression on us.

Buy again? Probably not.

Seafood Paella

They were sampling this seafood paella on our last visit to Trader Joe's, which reminded me that I still hadn't posted our thoughts on it. We may have tried this a few months ago, but we actually remembered a fair amount about it, even before trying it again last weekend.

Product: Seafood paella

Price: $4.99

Quick (or this time, maybe not so quick) review: The seafood paella at Trader Joe's is in the frozen section, and we found it around the time when the spinach pie had first gone missing. We were looking for alternatives to the spinach pie (still haven't found a good one), and thought maybe this paella would work. The bag didn't seem all that big, but we thought maybe it would be enough for dinner. As you can see from the pictures, it shrunk a lot in size as it cooked, and we didn't end up with that much paella to eat, barely 2 small rice bowls. It was definitely not enough for dinner for two.

The main paella ingredients were yellow rice (colored with turmeric), shrimp, squid, mussels, peas, onions, peppers, and various spices and seasonings (including fish powders and saffron). To their credit, the seafood didn't come out rubbery or overdone when following the package instructions (heating covered in a pan for a few minutes until the shrimp were opaque and cooked), and the flavors of the paella were pretty good. Not as good as well-done restaurant paella, but still good. Unfortunately, our biggest issue with it was the size. It was pretty similar in price to our beloved spinach and kale pie, but nowhere near as filling. That was filling enough for dinner, and this was like an appetizer or a side dish for us. Not a replacement for the pie, sadly.

Buy again? Not for us. The taste was fine, but considering the price (which was likely high because of the inclusion of all that seafood), we needed it to be more filling than it was in order to make it into the rotation. Maybe it would be filling for one of us, but that's not good enough.

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.

100 Montaditos

When we were in Barcelona a couple of years ago, we saw a bunch of 100 Montaditos restaurants around. We never had time to try them when we were out there, but they looked popular and affordable. They opened a branch in NYC late last year, and A suggested we try that out for the Spanish stop on our World Cup eating challenge which was a great idea.

100 Montaditos offers literally 100 different varieties of montaditos, which is what they call a mini-sandwich throughout Spain. They range from the original montaditos with meatballs or shrimp, to "premium" montaditos which include tuna and serrano, as well as special gourmet combinations and sweet dessert montaditos. Since choice can be overwhelming, they also have preset selections with 5 montaditos each (meat lovers, veggie, Mediterranean, chocolate, and "black label"). The menu also has non-montadito options like variations of fries and potatoes, meat and cheese plates, and even paella.

We arrived for a late lunch in the middle of the first half of the Korea-Algeria game, and got a table in the brightly lit back room which was equipped with multiple TVs. We decided to go with two of the pre-designed combinations - the meat lovers ($7) and the Mediterranean ($9) - and an order of fries ($3).

For the fries, we chose the fries with cheese sauce and Serrano bites. These came out first and were a great snack during the game. The fries were really crispy on the outside, like they were double-fried, but the insides were still nice and soft. The cheese sauce was well-distributed and melted. The pieces of Serrano ham were also fried up and crumbled, and were a nice replacement for bacon. Although the montaditos ended up being way more filling than we expected by the end of our meal, so much so that we didn't really need the fries, these fries were our favorite part of the meal!

We both split all of the sandwiches so we could try them all. After we ate them all, we ranked them and then averaged our scores. Although our exact rankings weren't the same, the averages sorted them out into roughly four tiers. In order of least favorite to favorite, here's what we tried (with the montadito menu number listed since there are a lot of similar sounding ones).

10. Smoked salmon and blue cheese with crispy onion and honey mustard (#75, from the Mediterranean set).

This was the sandwich we both liked least. You could taste the salmon, the blue cheese, the onions and the honey mustard. But they didn't go well together at all in our opinion. The mustard and salmon weren't too bad together, but the blue cheese was just weird with it.

8 (tie). Garlic pork loin with fresh tomato, lettuce and mayo (#52, from the Meat Lovers set).

This was the first montadito that M tried and all she could think was that it tasted like a boring turkey sandwich with mayo. A found it bland and boring and perhaps put it best as, "what's the point?"

8 (tie). Smoked salmon and hardboiled egg with lettuce and mayo (#72, from the Mediterranean set).

M thought this was okay. She could taste the salmon, mayo, and egg but there was a bit too much mayo in her opinion. A thought the smoked salmon didn't come through at all, and it tasted just like mayo, egg, and lettuce.

6 (tie). Chicken with green pepper, fresh tomato and ali oli (#45, from the Meat Lovers set).

Ali oli is basically Spanish garlic mayonnaise (aioli). It's hard to go wrong with garlic mayo. A thought this was nothing special and that all the flavor came from the ali oli. M thought this was going to be green bell pepper when we ordered it but it seemed more like poblano peppers. She liked that the chicken wasn't dry and thought the garlic mayo was a good match for it.

6 (tie). Philly steak with cheddar cheese, piquillo pepper (roasted red pepper) and crispy onion (#29, from the Meat Lovers set).

The main thought we both had about this one was that it was incredibly salty. The beef didn't have much flavor on its own, but M liked that the texture was chipped meat like an actual cheesesteak and not larger pieces. The cheese was the same as the one in the fries - like a salty cheez whiz type of sauce - but it all just seemed too salty.

2 (tie). BBQ pulled pork with cream cheese, bacon and ali oli (#47, from the Meat Lovers set).

This sandwich had a good BBQ sauce flavor. A found the ali oli here to be an odd addition and kind of weird with the sweet pulled pork, but M really liked it here mixed with the BBQ sauce. Probably why M ranked it 3rd on her list but A had it a few spots lower on his. The bacon was also a strange addition and not really necessary. We didn't notice any cream cheese.

2 (tie). Anchovies with fresh tomato, mayo and pepinillo (pickles from Spain) (#77, from the Mediterranean set).

We both agreed that the anchovies were a bit fishy, but in the end they're anchovies. The mayo added a bit of cool richness, and the pickles were great. They weren't overly tart, but they offered a really mild, balanced flavor. In the end, it reminded A of a slightly salty herring sandwich from Amsterdam. M didn't quite get the same flavor connection when she ate it, but also thought it was good.

2 (tie). Tuna and hardboiled egg with piparra (mild Spanish pepper) and mayo (#22, from the Mediterranean set).

We both really enjoyed this sandwich. The tuna wasn't fishy at all since it was cooked, and we both thought the mayo paired really nicely. M thought the egg added some creaminess, and A thought that the piparra acted like relish even if M didn't remember it being there. A described it fairly aptly as something of a deconstructed tuna salad sandwich.

2 (tie). Tuna and piquillo pepper with crispy onion and ali oli (#23, from the Mediterranean set).

The piquillo peppers were both sweet and sour and were really good with the crispy onions and tuna. A didn't think the onions added any flavor, but they added a lot of crunch. M liked it more than A, but he still thought it was good.

1. Meatballs with bacon (#11, from the Meat Lovers set).

Three meatballs in tomato sauce with a piece of bacon underneath them. The meatballs had a lot of flavor to them, which made this our favorite sandwich. The tomato sauce gave it a bit of an Italian taste as well as Spanish. The bacon was probably unnecessary. It didn't really add much to the sandwich. A thought maybe if the bacon were like Serrano ham, it was just added to make the sandwich taste more Spanish. There are some other meatball montaditos with manchego cheese and other stuff that we think sound really interesting for next time. At least we know the meatballs themselves are tasty!

The food at 100 Montaditos doesn't scream Spanish since some of these sandwiches could be found in other cuisines, but we know it's definitely Spanish since we saw the chain while we were there. It's a solid and relatively inexpensive option that we were glad we took advantage of for the challenge. We both agreed that the fries topped with cheese and crispy Serrano ham were our favorite thing to eat, but we'd certainly go back to try other sandwiches and their other food.

100 Montaditos is at 176 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village.

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.