More pintxos, wine tasting and another Michelin starred restaurant

I used to think pintxos were for the evening to go with some alcoholic drinks. In the Basque region, you can even have breakfast pintxos. And there is nothing wrong with having alcoholic drinks in the morning. But breakfast pintxos are more like "breakfasty."

We found a bar that is famous for their breakfast pintxos. It's called Cafeteria Iombi.

 

                                          This was tuna salad and anchovy - Least "breakfasty"

Spanish tortilla. I didn't know this was supposed to be a breakfast dish. But it can't be any more breakfasty than this, it's egg and potato....

                                  Scrambled egg on a jamon serano cup. It's really pretty and tasty.

                                           Tomato & cheese and toasted. A little like pizza?


San Sebastian is an interesting resort city. Everything is in the city center, called the old city. Not only the restaurants and bars but also grocery stores are in the old city. After the breakfast pintxos, we found a fish market in the old city. The fish looked amazingly fresh. Interestingly, all the staff inside are women.

 The photo was taken through the window glass. So, it's not very clear... But I promise. They all looked amazingly fresh.

Then, we headed to the wine tasting. So far we'd had wine tasting in Italy and France. Now it's Spain's turn. The wine expert was British. This seemed weird at first. But we found this as an advantage because he could give us a more objective opinion. Besides he is well traveled, including California, so he could describe the flavors by relating to wine with which we're familiar. By the way, we didn't see any California wine in this trip. It seems most Europeans don't even recognize California wines...The tasting included 8 wines: 2 white, 1 rose and 5 red (in that order). I particularly found the rose interesting. In the US, rose is something easy to drink, very light and refreshing. But their rose had more body and thus it was heavier. I remember all types of people were drinking rosato (rose) wine at bars, both young and mature people, both male and female.

The last three red wines were from Rioja region. Rioja is the most famous wine region of Spain and it's situated just south of Basque. Some of the older wines had a "cooked" taste, which I didn't care for. But it may be just my personal preference because the expert indicated that certain people prefer this. I thought this wine tasting was the most educational and fun among the three.


After the wine tasting we went to another pintxos bar. We'd tried to go there last night but it was way too packed, so we decided to try again during off hours - it was around 3:00pm. We wanted to try a specific pintxos that we found online. We thought we ordered the one we wanted. But I'm not sure if we picked the right one, since it looks different from the picture posted online..

                                                                    It was good, though.


After we had some rest at the hotel, we went to the restaurant where we'd made a reservation. The Basque region has many Michelin starred restaurants. I chose this restaurant, Kokotxa (pronounced kokocha), simply for the location. Our reservation time was 8:45. When we arrived, nobody was there. I was a bit scared. But soon enough (within 45 minutes), 80% of the tables were taken. Unlike another Michelin starred restaurant we went to in Lyon, Pierre Orsi, I didn't have to feel embarrassed about taking pictures. Also, people looked more casual. It seemed that jeans were ok.

We chose their tasting menu and it started from the amuse bouch.

Veggie chips with aioli dipping sauce. It was good. But there was too much dipping sauce for only 6 pieces of super thin veggie chips. I wish they'd provided more chips...

                               Two choices for bread. Other than France, it was the best bread.

First course - it was supposed to be cappuccino and an oreo cookie. But actually it's tomato soup with cheese foam on top and a black olive cookie with anchovy paste inside. I liked the tomato soup.

 

Tuna tartar with black garlic sauce. It was good but I didn't taste that much garlic.

Underneath the foam, there was a mixture of chopped shellfish. Some of the shellfish had a strong "sea" taste, which I like.

 

This was crabmeat with caviar sauce. This was by far the best dish of the meal. It was very well balanced and the rich caviar flavor was so satisfying.

                                                        Grilled fish. Very well executed.

Pigeon. When the waitress asked how I wanted it cooked, I said medium rare, forgetting it was pigeon. I don't like pigeon too rare.... But still it was good.

                                                            Palate cleanser. Citrus sorbet.

 

 

                             Dessert - Chocolate cake with banana ice cream. I loved the ice cream.

Complementary sweet. I guess panna cotta and oreo crumble on top. Very cute, isn't it?


Overall, I felt like I was at some nice restaurant in San Francisco. Everything was beautifully presented; good ingredients combined with the chef's creativity. But I didn't see that much difference. Also. the restaurant was very understaffed : for 10-12 tables, just 2 servers. (no sommelier or bus boys). In all honesty, I'm surprised that they have a Michelin star, since service is part of the Michelin criteria. I guess our experience at Pierre Orsi at Lyon was so exceptional that our expectations were probably too high. 

This is definitely a good restaurant to go to, though.