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Published: October 5th 2009
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Definitely a "highlight reel" day.
We toured the Guggenheim Museum at 10, but did not tarry long. I have trouble finding much interest for collections of airplane ashtrays linked by a loosely arranged keychain.
We then drove up into the mountains. We are by now well accustomed to using our GPS to find our way. But the GPS requires being able to locate your destination. Today, we were not only off the beaten path, but the beaten path could not even be seen from our vantage point in the mountains. Our goal was Asador Etxebarri, a restaurant known to "foodies" but otherwise obscure. It is listed several places as one of the top 50 restaurants in the world, and richly deserves that ranking. We arrived early, mostly because our tour of th Guggenheim Museum was shorter than expected and because of our decision to allow plenty of time to find it. Fortunately, following the instructions the restaurant gives, finding the location was not difficult, although it did require paying attention. The restaurant is located in the mountains, in a little village of 70 people. It has been the local watering hole since the 1800's, but in 1989 Victor Arguinzoniz
bought it and transformed it. He is entirely self taught, and is probably the greatest in the world at grilling. Everything is cooked on a specially constructed grill or in one of two wood-fired ovens. Charcoal is made on site, mostly from local oak, but also from multiple other woods, including grape, olive, citrus, apple, etc.
We chose the 12 course degustation menu. It included the following:
1. Homemade chorizo on a piece of bread (Spanish chorizo is nothing like Mexican chorizo)
2. Homemade smoked butter (must be tried to be understood)
3. Grilled Palomos prawn
4. Grilled sea cucumber
5. Grilled mussels
6. Grilled porcini
7. Grilled baby squid
8. Grilled salt cod
9. Grilled bell of tuna
10. Grilled beef on the bone
11. Wild fruit infusion, fresh goat cheese ice-cream
12. Grilled apple tart, smoked milk ice cream
Many times, I will eat in a fine restaurant and delude myself into thinking that with some care and a good recipe and proper ingredients, I could duplicate the dish I am eating, and in many cases that might be approximately true. Not true here. None of us could duplicate what he does. How do you smoke
milk? Or butter? Everything was perfectly cooked to just the correct degree of doneness. All the produce is local. We sat down to eat at 1:00, and left at 5 for a drive over winding country mountain roads to Elciego.
Elciego is in hte heart of La Rioja, one of the world's great wine-producing regions. Everywhere, there are vineyards. The picking started two weeks before or arrival, after being delayed by heavy rains. They were obviously making up for lost time. When we arrived at our hotel, within the vineyard and production facility, tractor-drawn trailers were standing in queue to dump their loads of red grapes into the initial crushing bins. Large Archimedes screws collect the falling grapes and force them into the crush. We will tour the winery tomorrow and see the rest of the process.
The hotel for the evening was the Marques de Riscal, a Frank Gehry-designed edifice we could see from 15 km away as we drove down from the mountains. It is directly in the winery, and after arrival we were able to walk just a few feet down to the crush taking place. Motorized curtains open the window out onto the vineyards
and winery. Needless to say, we felt no need for dinner, so we just sat out on the terrace and drank mineral water and rioja.
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alan velie
non-member comment
grilling
Seems like it may be time to dust off your old grill, see if you still have your touch. I'm sure you can outdo Extebarri.