Cumpleaños a la catalana

[muckefuck]

It was always bunj's intention to return to Mercat a la Planxa to see if their ordinary dishes could stand proudly alongside their whole suckling pig. We probably would've come along as well even if it hadn't been his birthday (but maybe not on a week night). The good news is that for the most part, they can. Nothing pleased everyone, but everything had its partisans. For instance, monshu (he of the quasi-pathological asparagus fixation) accused me and my brother of being "pork fetishists" for our reasonable and healthy enjoyment of the tocino con cidra that e. wouldn't touch. On the other hand, he loved the side of green-apple salad that I found decent but uninteresting.

Standouts included the fideuá negra (think paella made with noodles instead of rice--and, in this case, squid ink) and the langosta y vainilla, which e. described as "the richest lobster bisque you've ever eaten". (The only thing that bothered me about either of these dishes was the inexplicable inclusion of a few green peas; they didn't add anything to the fideuá and actively detracted from the garlic flan supporting the lobster.) In general the preparations weren't too fussy (e.g. only one dish had foam) and there were some appealing novel combinations, such as dulce de leche with garlic (to accompany the garrotxa cheese and apples) and butifarra made with apples. (Hmm--enough apples around to make one suspect we're dealing with a stealth Galician, à la gorkabear, in the kitchen.)

Perhaps the greatest unanticipated success was the bottle of Arbanta from Bodegas Biurko Gorri, which we picked more because it was the only Spanish varietal at that price point than for any other reason. Nothing on the web has been able to clarify why a winery in the Rioja Baja run by a family with the über-Catalan name Llorens should have a Basque moniker (yes, it's technically in Navarra, but not the traditionally Basque-speaker part) nor what this name means (we all recognised gorri as "red", but "biurko"?), but we don't care as long as we can track down their products. It was so exceptionally smooth that I threw caution to the winds and had a second glass--damn my reflux and my sensitivity to tannins!

Speaking of names, you couldn't imagine a post of any length from me without at least a few linguistic quibbles, could you? The most glaring was my desert, a pleasant twist on the traditional Catalan mel i mató with a sort of grape purée standing in for the honey. But uvas y mato, without an accent over the final o, is not "grapes and curd" but "grapes and I kill". And this wasn't simply a printing error since both English- and Spanish-speaking staff clearly pronounced it /'mato/. Babaus! I also found some of the macaronic mash-ups--such as "truita con patatas" for what should properly be either truita de patates (Catalan) or tortilla española (Spanish) and however it was they blended pà amb tomàquet with pan con tomate--rather painful, but I think I'll live.

(Particularly if I can go back sometime for more pork products.)

Comments

Re: Some comment…

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

Once you get used to the good pork you can't go back to the old one, eh? :)