Wednesday, 27/01/10, Bilbao: Although Francisco spent three years studying at an Escuela Hosteleria, where you learn all the in and outs of Restaurants/Bars/etc., Bilbao is really where he learned what good food and good drinks are all about. It's where he studied to become a sommelier and learn the food culture of Pais Vasco. For our first dinner on this trip, he took me to a restaurant called Mina. The owner/chef and his wife/server is a friend of a friend. They only serve a pre-fixed menu that includes a 7 course meal. Just looking at the menu made me full.
First course was oysters. I don't like oysters so they offered me some creamy cheese with tomato preserves and apple garnish. Next came the pork loin topped with milk custard. Third course consisted of cod in a potato puree. Fourth was hake with mushrooms. By the time the fifth course came, I was about ready to pop but I had to persevere. I was a little suspicious of the fifth plate. The menu said pinchon and they described it to me as a little bird. Francisco knows I hate birds but when I asked him if it's similar to chicken, he said "yeah kind of. Just try it. It's really really good." I thought maybe it was cornish hen. I did end up eating it, and it wasn't that bad, but it definitely didn't seem like cornish hen. It wasn't quite poultry-like nor was it like pig meat or beef. It was tender yet tough. It was something strange. When I got home, I looked up the translation and vomited a little in my mouth. I ate a young pigeon! Out of all the birds I could eat! So gross! Sick!! Disgusting! Ugh! Ok, I'm gonna try to keep going now. The sixth course was the first dessert: lemon sorbet on top of ice blended rum. The seventh and last dessert was milk custard with hazelnut and raspberry sauce. By the end of this dinner, I was ridiculously full and drunk from the bottle of champagne we shared.
Thursday, 28/01/10, Santander: On our way up to Asturias, we stopped in Santander, the beautiful coastal city in the region of Cantabria. There we ate in a restaurant owned by Francisco's classmate from the wine course. I think we were still semi full from the previous night that we ate a little less in this meal. For appetizers, we ordered squid with risotto in squid ink sauce. For the main course, I had mini cordon bleu's with potato puree and Francisco had a giant plate of fish. For dessert, we shared a coulant, a flourless cake with chocolate sauce in the middle. It's more typical of Catalunya, not Cantabria, but I was craving chocolate really bad.
Friday, 29/01/10, Canga De Onis: After a nice drive to Covadonga, we stopped for a lunch break. We were in this precious little town but we had no idea where a good place was to eat. We finally settled for one that looked pretty nice from the outside. They specialized in different kinds of rice so I was all about it. The main course, which was a creamy rice with cod, was good, but I wasn't that impressed. What I was impressed with was the appetizer, pulpo a la parilla, or grilled octopus. I've eaten octopus but usually chopped up in some kind of sauce. This was a big chunk of the tentacles and it was delicious! The meat was so tender and very flavorful. Just thinking about it now makes my mouth water.
Saturday, 30/01/10, Oviedo: For lunch, Francisco, his cousin, his girlfriend, and I went to eat in place called Tierra Astur. This place was the size of a warehouse. It was so popular that there was a line of people waiting when we arrived and we had to wait for 45 minutes to be seated...and this was at 4 in the afternoon already. Why do people come here? For the grilled meat, and lots of it. Every table had a tabla (a wooden platter) full of meat piled on top of each other. There are different combination tablas that consists of different types of meat. Mostly each combination is based on how many people are in your party. We ordered one that was good for four and I can't even remember all the meat that was in it: sausages and different parts of the chicken, pork and cow. Also on the tabla is a heaping amount of french fries. And because a mountain of meat was not enough, we had to order a salad with Asturian cheese (the area is like the Wisconsin of Spain) and tortos to start off. Tortos are corn based pancake like bread topped with whatever you want. We ordered one topped with scrambled egg and ground meat. It was amazingly delicious.
As expected, we couldn't finish the tabla. It was the first time I've ever seen people with leftover bags in a restaurant in Spain. And as always, we couldn't leave without ordering coffee and dessert. We all ordered tarta de abuela, grandma's cake. It was a layer of cookies, chocolate, and flan. It was to die for. I need to learn how to make abuela's cake.
Sunday, 31/01/10, Fuenmayor: I was very excited to go to Rioja, Spain's wine country. I was even more excited to see Francisco's friend, Rafa, who is a salesperson for a bodega, or winery, in Fuenmayor. I love Rafa! I met him the first time I visited Francisco in April. He's very friendly, nice, and always makes me laugh. Everytime Francisco visits Rafa or drives past this town, he always makes a point to eat at Chuchi's. It's a bar/restaurant/wine shop. It is considered one of the best restaurants in this tiny town and it has every wine made in Rioja. So for dinner, we went to this much talked about restaurant. Rafa and Francisco showed me the wine shop and it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. From floor to ceiling, this place was full of wine. The diners of the restaurant are free to grab whichever wine they prefer from the shop and bring it to drink at their table.
For starters, we ordered a salad and grilled mushrooms. But the restaurant also gave us free mini appetizers of sausage, shrimp, and salmon. For our drink, the boys ordered a bottle of 1999 red wine from some winery I don't know about. For the main course, I ordered the roasted suckling pig. It reminded me of the Filipino roasted pig. It was so good: the meat melted in your mouth and the skin was perfectly crispy. I was so full after eating only half of it that I decided to not get dessert. But then I started picking at Rafa's dessert so he ordered one for me so he didn't have to share his. It was a plate with flan, strawberries and cream, and chocolate truffles. Francisco was supposed to share with me but of course I ate most of it. After the meal, the guys had dessert wine and the chef came and sat with us to chat.
Monday, 01/02/10, Barcelona: Eating binge ends. Diet begins.
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