Last day in the Basque region

Today, we went to one of the biggest indoor food markets in Europe. It's located by the Ribera metro station. Inside it's all about produce, meat and seafood. It's a two-story building and it looked like it used to be a part of train station mall.

                                                                 This sign was at the entrance.

                                                                 Nice building isn't it?

                                                           Amazingly fresh seafood.

Every time I go to markets like this, I really want to buy stuff and cook it myself. But there was no kitchen in the hotel. Plus, I'd rather try a bunch of different dishes at restaurants for such a short stay.



Anyway, we went to our first pintxos bar of the day, called Gure Toki. The very friendly server was helping us with broken Spanglish (Spanish 90% English 10%). And I tried to understand him with my Engnish (English 90% and Spanish 10%). I don't think we understood each other well but I decided to take some of his recommendations. These were all made to order hot pintxos.

First, fried soft shell crab with red pepper sauce (a bit spicy but not like Mexican spicy salsa). Very good.

This is a dish recommended by the server, called "kokotxa". In fact, we saw kokotxa at the market that we went to earlier. We realized that the name is the same as the restaurant that we went to in San Sebastian. Because we found this at the fish market, we knew this is some sort of seafood. It was small fish-like pieces but didn't look filleted. So, I thought it's some organ or roe. We still didn't know what kokotxa was at this point (later I Googled and found that it's hake (fish) cheeks. Usually cheek meat has some texture but this was really soft).

                               Breaded pulled beef cheek meat. Very pretty presentation.

Foie gras. Amazing presentation. Well executed. But the foie gras was more like "liver" with irony flavor. I guess a bit lower grads. It was only 3.50 Euro....

                                             Scallop. Unfortunately, it was a bit too salty...


After some sightseeing and rest at the hotel, we decided to do the same thing as yesterday; visit a few pintxos bars for appetizers then go to a restaurant.

                                        At the first bar of the evening, we had mushrooms and fried fish with peppers.


The second bar of the evening was Café Iruna

                      The one on the left is smoked salmon and the one on the right is sardine with (probably)red bell pepper paste.


It's around 8:00 on Friday. Some streets with a bunch of pintxos bars are very crowded like this.

The entrée for the evening was paella. Paella is not a traditional food in the Basque region but rather in the southeast, like Valencia. But we thought Bilbao may offer a nice seafood paella. We arrived at the restaurant around 8:30pm and nobody was there. But I knew it was just a bit too early.

This is again hake cheek. At this point, we didn't know it was kokotxa. So, we had kokotxa twice today. It was very good!

This is a seafood paella for two. Very nicely seasoned. But it didn't have the distinctive saffron flavors. Maybe that's the Basque style?

That's the end of the meals in the Basque region because we are flying to Marrakesh, Morocco tomorrow. One thing I noticed in the Basque region is the salt level. Compared to the dishes we've had in Italy and France, it seems almost all the dishes had a tiny bit more salt (acceptable saltiness, though).

Anyway, it's worth making a trip to the Basque region for the pintxos alone.

 

 

 

Moving to Bilbao

Bilbao is the capitol of the Basque region. It's not a touristy city but more industrial. There is nothing famous besides the Guggenheim Museum but I'd heard they have good pintxos bars.

We left San Sebastian in the morning by bus. Luckily the bus terminal was right by the hotel we were staying at. It took us a bit over one hour and we arrived at Bilbao. Compared to San Sebastian, there were lots of people (and of course less tourists). This was a good sign. Maybe we could find even more local foods here.

After checking into our hotel in Bilbao, we went to a bar called La Viña del Ensanche. Here we decided to go for hot pintxos (made to order).

                                                                 We just love octopus....

                                                     Beef cheek on creamy sauce, yummy!


After the first pintxos in Bilbao, we went to the tourist center to see whether they had any food related tours. As I mentioned above, this is not a touristy city so there wasn't anything I was interested in. So, we went back to the hotel and got some rest. Then, we went for pre-dinner pintxos. First, a bar that specialized in cheese pintxos. The front one is just a sardine. The left one in the back was some sort of Spanish soft cheese. The right one in the back said "parmesan". It tasted like parmesan but much drier. I think it was just parmesan-style.

Then, we went to El Grovo.

          Some onion and mayonnaise mixture, lightly marinated sardine and caviar. Very good.

             Brie-like cheese, olive oil marinated sun dried tomato, and anchovy. Kind of Italian-ish.


We had some nice appetizers. So, we were ready for the main dish. Tonight, it's a seafood restaurant. Since we arrived in the Basque region, we saw so many fish markets with tons of fresh seafood. We needed to try a seafood restaurant!

By the entrance, there was a bar. So, you could just have just a drink and pintxos there. But we kept going inside for the seafood meal. We were greeted by a gentleman who looked like the owner. He reminded us of an Italian restaurant owner of Sicily or something. Kind of grumpy looking but very friendly. In fact, he was speaking fluent Italian (at least we thought so) to Italian customers, so he may be Italian. But Italian and Spanish are such close languages...

                                                        This was a simple anchovy appetizer

This was something special to me. Three kinds of shell fish from the local sea : razor clam, cockle, and scallop. I had my first razor clam in Barcelona. I've had lots of different kinds of shellfish but hadn't had razor clam before. It was an eye-opening moment. This razor clam was as good was the one I had in Barcelona. Perfectly cooked with garlic and oil. Another special shellfish is the cockle. When I was at a culinary school, we had a school project and I made a menu based on the concept that the class decided. The concept was a gastropub in London. I did some research online and found there is a local clam called the cockle. Without knowing how it tastes, I made a menu with cockles. Now, I could actually taste it!! The result was... Well.. I'm used to shellfish with a strong ocean taste. But this was pretty strong. I don't know if this particular cockle had stronger flavors because the flavor of shellfish depends completely on the water where the shellfish is growing. It was a little too much for me. But now, I can say I've had cockles!!

This was another amazing dish. But I'm talking about the black thing on the left hand side. I know it's not clear but this was squid cooked in its own ink. SO GOOD!!!! This is definitely the best dish I've had since we arrived in Spain. The server (or owner) said this is traditional dish in the Basque region. I'm sure the sauce has lots of stuff inside but I couldn't tell because it was totally black. The fried fish on the right is hake, a local fish. It was good too. But it was under the shadow of the black thing..... 

                                     Itsasmendi Uresti. It's a typical Basque after-meal wine.

                                                               Tarte tatin with ice cream

Complementary drink. Some sort of spiced alcohol drink. The server told us the name but I don't remember....

The squid dish made the day so special!

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.

Pintxos, Pintxos and Pintxos

Pintxos is a type of tapas specifically in Basque region. It is also spelled "Pinchos" in Spanish. By the way, the Basque language uses "x" a lot...

One of the main reasons I came to the Basque region is the pintxos. Pintxos are served on a sliced baguette and usually made ahead of time and left on the counter. So, you can just pick up (or ask the bartenders) for as many as you want. Hot pintxos are either made to order or reheated. 

We were supposed to sign up for a pintxos tasting tour because we really didn't know how the pintxos experience works - for example how to order or how to pay. I knew there were quite a few tour companies that give pintxos tasting tours. But unfortunately, they were all booked this week. So, we decided to explore the pintxos scene by ourselves.

It was a good idea. People at pintxos bars were nice enough to endure my broken Spanish. Because we obviously looked like tourists, they normally speak to us as soon as we get in (if the bar is crowded with regulars, you might be ignored. So, it's best to go to pintxos bar during off hours, such as during the afternoon). By the time we finished a few bars (local people go to multiple bars at a time instead of staying at one bar) we felt comfortable regarding ordering and paying. All you have to know is the name of the drink you want and then you can point at the pintxos you want. And then just add how many you want. When you pay, just ask for "la cuenta."

This was our very first pintxos in the Basque region, a bar called Iturrioz. This was our lunch.

                                                  Something from on the counter

                                                               Made to order octopus

          Not really pintxos. We ordered not knowing what it was. It was fava beans, I guess.

                                                 Again, made to order. It's bacalao (cod).

We were planning to go to more bars. But because we ate them slowly, we got full. So, we decided to walk around the city. I found a supermarket. Whenever I travel, I check out the local supermarkets (both big chain and small individual). I like to see what the local people eat. I found this.

                                This is baby eels. I didn't expect to see it in this type of package....

For dinner, we went to a pintxos bar called Meson Martin.

 

                                                                     From the counter

 

                                                                 From the counter

This is grilled squid and shrimp made to order. It was EXCELLENT!! Just right amount of salt and cooked perfectly. The squid was very sweet.

                                                                         Non-spicy chili

The second pintxos bar was for a specific dish. So, we ordered just one kind. The bar is called Haizea.

It's called a brick of bacalao. I thought the inside was a cod fillet. Actually, it's a potato puree with with (most likely) cod flakes. So, it's more like a croquette (instead of breadcrumb, wrapped by some thin skin). It was very good but I didn't taste the cod.

We just wanted to go to one more. We didn't have any information about this particular bar but decided to give it a shot because it looked very crowded.

                                                                    From the counter

                                               Gorgonzola with candied ginger and walnut


Because we couldn't book any pintxos tasting tours or cooking classes (everything was booked), we signed up for a Spanish wine tasting. Also, we made a reservation for another Michelin starred restaurant. The Basque region has so many Michelin starred restaurants. So, why not? Let's see how it goes.