Best Dinner Ever (For Foodies)

Another meal, another 3 star Michelin tasting menu -- this time it's dinner at the famed Restaurante Martin Berasategui (#33 in the San Pellegrino world's 50 Best Restaurants), just outside of San Sebastian in Gipuzkoa.  Having just finished lunch at Arzak (#8 on the list), we're still pretty full.

Chip and I totter into this elegant restaurant, pleased by the lit garden walkway, the high ceilings and the floor to ceiling glass vistas to the garden.  We're greeted by a lovely, English-speaking maitre d' and after intense debate, we place our orders and the first courses arrive.

See this fork?  It's normal size.  The asparagus is mini.  According to the chef, it took 10 people to make this mini salad of vegetables in gelatin!

That's only the start to a parade of teeny-tiny food courses, mystery foods and courses that come with instructions and warnings.  We're advised by a white gloved waiter not to bite down on our black squid ink ball until our mouths are fully closed.  One of us didn't follow directions at lunch and spewed orange liquid onto the tablecloth. I'm alarmed. Is this literally one of a squid's balls?  Is it literally filled with ink?  Will my teeth be black if I smile afterwards?  I imagine someone milking a little squid teat somehow, to get the ink out.  I resist the urge to hurl my mini salad, batten the hatches and swallow something I don't want to ponder further, and it's, actually, quite good!

C. and I discuss many controversial topics, like: was that a grape skin filled with chocolate or a chocolate jello ball we ate for lunch?  We debate whether or not we've eaten our weekly caloric intake in this one meal.  Is this a ball 'o some'um or some'um else?  Clam or mussel? Morel or truffle? What exactly is a sweetbread? Blissfully unaware that the top chefs in the world spend years studying the chemistry of coagulation and molecular gastronomy, we struggle with how to classify certain items -- animal vegetable or mineral.

Martin himself appears from the kitchen and greets us.  We take pictures, he signs the menu and we're invited into the kitchen.  What a place! Seeing the group of men and women in their flawless white aprons and toques prepare the last courses of the evening brings a tiny tear to my eye.  Here stand the very people have toiled over my mini meals, carved and poached my mini asparagus, and possibly, milked my squid.

Back at the table, the mini desserts keep coming and the cholesterol keeps building until we're like a couple of wax figures with mechanical elbows.  Conversation devolves. Will the children pass any of their classes?  Will they forgive us? Will we learn Spanish?  Soon, all I really want is to brush my teeth and go to bed.  Please! No more chocolate, I'm thinking.  Finally, the courses stop coming and I dart into the ladies room on the way out and there is the proverbial icing on the cake: mini toothbrushes and toothpaste!  Promising not to eat anything that isn't super healthy for the next 2 weeks, I grab a toothbrush and my husband, and we collapse into the back of a cab hoping that the cab driver will understand our pronunciation.

Best Lunch Ever! (For Foodies)

Really, if you're happy with Burger King, don't waste your time on this post.  Re-watch Tina's video; you'll have more fun.

I, on the other hand, come from a family that spent every breakfast deciding what we'd eat for lunch and dinner.  Food is in my blood; it's past of my family heritage.  My father is a fantastic cook of mostly quirky Asian food (sea urchin delicacies, etc.), but he can make anything.  My Grandparents were all gourmet cooks and bakers and my Paternal Grandfather was the Director of Nabisco Labs way back when.  After Dad and Mom split, he with his wok, and Mom remarried, we were a motley mix of half, step and full siblings with a mother who was much more successful in the business world than in the kitchen. (I emphasize MUCH.)  Consequently, we ate at restaurants most nights, where we talked about, yep, the food.

So here I am in San Sebastian, a city that, according to The Lonely Planet Guide,  has more restaurants with Michelin Stars than Paris! (Actually a quick fact check on the Michelin website seems to prove that that's not the case, but whatever.) We only have a couple of days here and one of them has already been, ahem, frittered away with Jacques-oh-lee, so that leaves us with one day.  We throw caution to the wind and decide to eat at 2 different 3-star Michelin restaurants in one day!  What the heck!  We get the tasting menu -- that's 20 or more (!) courses of food -- all within 10 hours!

Friends tell us we can't miss Arzak, a restaurant run by a father/daughter chef team.  We can´t get dinner reservations, but we manage to score for lunch.  A stucco flat-front building with an awning just three feet from the roadway, the place is nothing to look at from the outside, but inside is different.  Actually, it's not that much different, but it's kind of sleek with shaped-cement walls inlaid with impressions of forks and spoons.  Subdued, gray tones and fine linens give the impression that we could be in fancy cave in Manhattan or Paris.   Before we know it, small plates of delicacies are being brought to our table four at a time.  We sample fried lotus root chips held together like a teepee by a fish cream in the middle, tiny shish kabobs of seafood with, what looks like spun sugar around them, but isn´t.  Thin disks of fig are served crispy with a sliver of Foie gras and tiny pommegranite seeds -- heaven.

(No earthly idea what that is, pictured above, but it has a liquid middle.)

We discuss the proposed health care plan and other worldly matters most of the time, then spend inordinate amounts of time debating what we just swallowed.  We love food alot, but are squeem-ish about a few things.  Asking for clarification in Spanish doesn't help, so some of the questionable things get washed down our gullets with some other good things.  Sometimes we eat a bite of something, like this foamy chip below, and find out that it's our vegetable -- eggplant!

Hours later, having eaten some of the best food ever and having solved all the world's problems, except for how to make the dollar go a bit farther against the euro, we emerge from our sleek gray cave back into the sunlight, blinking like a couple of moles, wondering why Europeans think that all Americans are obese.

If you see this woman, run!

I haven't posted much lately because I've been a binge -- a glutinous foodie binge -- through San Sebastian on the Northern coastal border of Spain.

San Sebastian is one of the most beautiful small cities I've ever seen. Where else will you find a delightful grid of narrow cobblestone streets, filled with charming shops and fantastic restaurants, next to some of the finest beaches in Europe? As one guide book put it: It's impossible to lay eyes on San Sebastian and not fall madly in love!  One reason people feel the love is that the city is known to have the best pintxos, a variety of small appetizers, in the world.  Most pintxos are composed of a slice of bread with some delicious concoction on top.   Eating pintxos is accomplished by dropping into the bar that looks best to you, and choosing from a vast "buffet" of treats laid out on the bar.   Check this out:

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Just one thing to be aware of: a little drink called Txacoli (Jacques-oh-Lee).  This regional "wine" looks, to the untrained eye, like a cava or a champagne and tastes somewhat like Pinot Grigio.  Watching it be poured -- just one or two stingy inches -- into a rocks glass, is entertainment in itself.  The bartender takes the bottle up high and leaves the glass on the bar.  This is what she looks like:

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Sometimes she yells: Txacoli!

One can easily wonder what all the fuss is about for such a tiny glass of wine.  One can easily order two more tiny glasses while eating some of the best appetizers ever on the planet!  And, I've heard, one can even find herself face down on her bed with her shoes on in the late afternoon wondering what the heck happened...I'm just saying.