San Sebastian Pintxos - A Fuego Negro, La Cuchara de San Telmo

There are enough Michelin stars in and about San Sebastian to make up a constellation, but some of the best eating in this food mecca can be found in its many bars and their seemingly infinite selection of pintxos. We first visited San Sebastian about a year and a half ago, and sampled several excellent pintxos bars. We had the good fortune to be back in San Sebastian recently, and made return visits to several of those same bars, and some new ones as well.

Last year's post conveys my genuine awe at the culinary wonderland that San Sebastian is, and so I won't repeat myself here. I also won't dare try to recount each of the many morsels we sampled, which would be well nigh impossible. Rather, this is just a list of some of the highlights. Before diving in, though, a couple observations that are hopefully not duplicative of my comments from last year:

First, one of the things I found so remarkable is that even with the plethora of pintxos bars in the town - surely well more than a hundred over just a few square miles - it seems that virtually all of them have their regulars. We couldn't sit down in the homiest little hole in the wall for more than fifteen minutes without somebody showing up who the bartender knew (and usually also knew their drink order). Another thing I found interesting is that there is no firm division between "traditional" and "contemporary," at least as far as the customer base is concerned. Even in the most modern bars, serving the most contemporary, unusual bites, you would find bushy-moustached Basque old-timers enjoying a bite next to tattooed, serially-pierced hipsters. If the food is good, that's all that matters to these people - and most of the food is very, very good.

As I did last year, I'll divide my notes between the Parte Vieja (the "Old Town") on the west side of the Urumea River, and the more commercial Barrio Gros on the east side, running into the Zurriola beach. Our exploration of the Parte Vieja was somewhat limited this time around on account of the Bandera de la Concha, a very popular boat regatta which is apparently celebrated by massive crowds of sloppy drunk teenagers afterwards by crowding into the Parte Vieja, strewing about thousands of broken plastic drink cups, and urinating in the streets. Ah, to be young again ...

A Fuego Negro is a slick looking place done up mostly in shades of black and red which offered some of the most creative and delicious dishes we experienced on this trip. They feature both contemporary takes on some Spanish classics, as well as some more esoteric choices in miniature pintxo form. The menu starts with "Txupitos and Apertifs," clever combinations of a bite and a drink in one little item.

Here, "Fino & Ajo Ibérico" took the form of half-frozen "cloves" of ajo blanco, the classic Spanish garlic soup, with cubes of fino sherry gelée and a fine dice of apple.

"Salmorejo Txerry Sobre Migas Ibéricas," meanwhile, was served as a orb of the gazpacho-like soup, infused with sherry, in sorbet form, nestled in a little bed of bread crumbs, and sprinkled with a bit of pimenton. Both of these were wonderful, invigorating bites.

(continued ...)

Four Chefs for Success for Kids

If you missed the last Cobaya dinner and want to get a preview of Chef Douglas Rodriguez's new restaurant, De Rodriguez Ocean, or if you just want to sample the cooking of four great local chefs, or if you want to support a worthy charity - actually, if you want to do all of those things - you may well be interested in the "Four Chefs for Success for Kids" event on September 15, 2010.

I know, that's a lot of "fours" and "fors" - almost four, actually. Stay with me. The event will feature Chef Rodriguez, Andrea Curto-Randazzo (of Water Club and the late and lamented Talula), Timon Balloo (of Sugarcane Raw Bar Grill), and Tim Andriola (of Timo). Those are, in all seriousness, four of my favorite chefs in town. Tickets are $75 per person, $120 per couple, and all proceeds go to Success for Kids, a non-profit organization that creates and implements programs to empower at-risk children.

To purchase tickets, email sfkrsvp@amgwagency.com or call 305.405.6380. I'd be there myself, but I've already got a dinner reservation that night, which would be tough to cancel. Which is also my way of saying that I'm off to Spain for about a week. Hasta luego.

Katsuya Does Cobaya

On Sunday evening, Chef Katsuya Fukushima was the "Visiting Dignitary" for the latest Cobaya dinner. Katsuya for the past fifteen years has worked closely with über-chef José Andrés, including as head chef at the minibar and Café Atlantico in Washington DC. Local über-chef Douglas Rodriguez (Ola, De Rodriguez Cuba) was the gracious host at his not-yet opened new restuarant, De Rodriguez Ocean in the Bentley Beach Hilton on South Beach, and also contributed a few dishes.^[1]

This dinner presented a lot of firsts: there were several first-timers in the group; it was Cobaya's first time working with an out-of-town chef; it was the first time doing a dinner with a group of this size (over 60). We always encourage chefs to do the kind of cooking they really want to do, and as a result we often get to see a side of their culinary repertoire that may not be apparent from the work they do in their restaurants. For Katsuya, who is perhaps best known for the cutting edge culinary hijinks of minibar (which you can see in this episode of Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie), this actually meant less high technique, and more of a focus on the cooking of his Hawaiian-Japanese heritage. The full flickr set of pictures from the dinner is here.

While the group gathered at the bar, several passed hors d'oeuvres circulated around the room. I did not catch them all, but did get to try a couple: a potato-encased fried fish skewer spinkled with salt and vinegar powder, a perfect one-bite fish-n-chips; and a textbook crispy/creamy croqueta, with a filling of serrano ham, apple and curry. I missed the "ginger beer" cocktail, a highbrow/lowbrow combination of ginger juice, Domaine de Canton liqueur and Miller High Life.

salmon and tuna ceviches

At the table, Chef Rodriguez started things off with a sampling of several ceviches, served family style. I've always loved the ceviches he's served at Ola, though I was less enamored of the ones I tried at his more recently opened De Rodriguez. These hit all the right notes for me, highlighting without overwhelming the fish. Ribbons of salmon were paired with citrus and micro-herbs, while cubes of tuna were matched with cubes of watermelon, acting as their visual doppelgängers. The exotic sounding "tambour rouge,"^[2] procured from a sustainable farming operation in Africa, had buttery, hamachi-like flesh that was nicely paired with pickled fennel and grapefruit segments. I thought each of these had great balance and flavor, though the poke-like tuna was my favorite.

tambour rouge ceviche

(continued ...)

Solo Bistro - Bath, Maine

The Squire Tarbox Farm's produce is perhaps put to even better use at Solo Bistro, in the town of Bath about fifteen minutes away. Bath is one of these pristine, postcard-perfect old towns that seems to have not changed at all in about 150 years, but Solo Bistro is a surprisingly contemporary-looking place. It looks like it was furnished straight out of a Design Within Reach catalog, with molded-plastic chairs in several hues, bare blond wood tables, Le Klint lights hanging from the ceiling, and exposed brick walls (the huge gray stones in a more lounge-y downstairs area are even more dramatic). The food is perhaps not quite as contemporary as the decor, but is equally well-constructed and precise.

It's a short menu with maybe a half dozen choices each for starters and mains. We began with a smoked tomato tart which I suspect was indeed using some of those same tomatoes we'd had at the Inn (the Squire Tarbox Farm was included among about a half dozen local suppliers listed on the menu, and the restaurant had been recommended to us at the Inn). Their sweet and tangy flavor was given another layer of complexity from light smoking, as well as a touch of richness from some melty local Hahn's End cheese and a short crust. A lentil and bacon soup was richly flavored without being plodding or heavy.

Lobster risotto was creamy and suffused with crustacean goodness, generously studded throughout with the picked meat of a whole lobster which happily was tender and not overcooked. A sprinkle of truffle salt was perhaps unnecessary, but also much more subtle than the typically overhwelming artificial notes of most truffle oils. Possibly even better was a vegetable risotto, flavored primarily with carrots (why are the Maine carrots so crazy good?) and tomatoes, giving the rice a ruddy orange hue. The "Bistro Burger" made with house-ground beef was juicy to the point of sloppiness, a good thing in a burger, topped with some nice cheddar and a brioche bun and served with some good herb-flecked fries. Only the flatbread, topped with grilled mushrooms and creamy mascarpone, failed to make much of an impression.

(continued ...)