Pakta, Barcelona

This is the third, and probably the last, Adrià restaurant we went to on this trip.  Again, just in case you don't know, the Adrià brothers made the El Bulli restaurant so famous.

Pakta features Japanese and Peruvian cuisine.  They have 2 tasting menus - small (Fujiyama) and big (Machu Picchu).  For the most part, the small menu is missing some parts of the big menu that we thought were not very important to us, so we decided to go with the small.

Lingon ordered two drinks.  The first was a pisco sour and he liked it.  Then he got a cold unfiltered sake called Dreamy Clouds, which even I liked.

The appetizers all came on one platter, and I thought the presentation was exquisite.  I have attempted to copy the menu, with some comments in parenthesis.

Honzen Ryori
Tender pistachio
Avocado tofu with roe (this was our favourite of this platter, very smooth and creamy with a subtle taste)
Sunomono with snow crab
Smoked mackerel with mashed satoimo and miso
Corn Tuile
Daikon with “ají Amarillo”

Crispy yuca with huancaína sauce (I believe this is some yellow pepper, which was well-used throughout the entire meal)

The Nigiris
Sea bream nigiri with red miso and “ají panca”
Bonito nigiri with ponzu
Zuke nigiri

Tuna tartare with crispy nori and shichimi

Sea Bass ceviche with guanábana “leche de tigre” (very interesting leche de tigre flavour)

The Causas
Baby cuttlefish causa, oyster sauce and lime with mentaiko
Fried causa with with chicken and huacatay

Grilled octopus “sanguchito”
Chicken gyoza with spring onion (this was super meh.  I found this to be the saddest dish.  Trader Joe's frozen section could probably have provided one that tasted just like this.)

Rib eye steak tataki with “lomo saltado” ponzu sauce

To finish
Nikkei soba tsuyu (the soba had a very interesting texture, a bit like mung bean noodle, springy and chewy, and I liked it!)

Grilled chicken “Anticucho”

Gindara “añejo”

Persimmon fruit with umeshu gel

Desserts Honzen Ryoriori
Mandarin with pisco and green tea
Wild strawberries and cream mochi
Fermented fig
Soy sauce flam (I am sure this means flan, I actually quite liked this dish which had a very unique taste)

We enjoyed the meal but there was no reason to pay that price.  I did quite enjoy the presentation of the meal.  The flavours were at times unique, but they used certain things rather liberally, like Chinese onions and huancaína sauce really often, which made the novelty wear off pretty fast (and Chinese onions really are not that novel to Chinese people like me).

Churros and (Hot) Chocolate, Barcelona

This trip I decided to do a churro tasting tour.  Every morning I would follow Lingon in his taxi to his conference hotel and then do a run to get some churros and chocolate so I wouldn't feel quite so bad.  We went to two other churro places last year when we came to Barcelona, Granja 1872 (the churros came from Churrería Manuel San Román) and some place else that I actually don't remember, but I don't want to focus on those since I don't remember them that well, but I just want to say that the chocolate at Granja 1872 was extremely bitter.

So, let's go.

The first was a place called Churrería J. Argiles, which one article described as a street churro icon.  I'm a big fan of street food and food stands and the carts, so I must admit that is one big reason I came here.  The article recommended the churros and xuxos (soft crullers filled with cream), so I got one of each, plus a hot chocolate, for €3.50.  My churro was the lone churro left of the old batch (price determined by weight), which I was a bit sad about, but it surprisingly was still kind of warm and very crispy and rather good.  The xuxo was like a soft Asian doughnut with cream filling, and I chose the one with a chocolate exterior, and it was cold and just so-so.  The crunchy chocolate exterior was yummy but otherwise mediocre.  The hot chocolate was thick, as most of the Spanish chocolates are, but I found the taste rather lacking.  If anything there was a strange unidentifiable scent about it, and of the 3 places I tried this had the worst chocolate.  Maybe it had to do with the styrofoam cup?  The location left much to be desired, but since I was running it wasn't the worst thing to get there.

The second, Churrería Layetana, had the highest Tripadvisor rating at #248.  This was my favourite place of all.  I managed, with my bad Spanish, to order one regular churro, one chocolate churro and a hot chocolate.  As I dug into my churros, I realized EVERYONE was eating this other thing called porras, so I decided to get one too.  This was by far my favourite place.  The thick chocolate was a little sweeter, and since I preferred milk to dark chocolate, this suited me just fine.  Both the churros were amazing.  The naked churro (I coined this term) was fresh out of the oil, super crunchy, the batter was delicious.  The chocolate on the chocolate churro was also super crunch and the churro itself maintained its delicious taste.  The porra was interesting, it actually reminded me of you tiao, the Chinese donut.  I did not mind it so much but I think I preferred the crunchy churros.  This set me back €2.85.  Come here if you have the time!  It is in a great location on a main street in the heart of town.

The third place was Granja La Pallaresa, also in the old town area, #870 on TripAdvisor.  Charming little cafe.  I got an order of churros and a small hot chocolate for €3.80, so by far the most expensive, and sadly my least favourite.  The chocolate was thick, almost goopy, which I actually don't mind.  However, it lacked any kind of flavour, so that was kind of a bummer.  The churros were cold, slightly soggy, and did not have a good taste.  Needless to say, give this place a miss.

Here is a map I compiled from the 3 churro articles I read, together with the TripAdvisor ranking at this time, if it existed.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zGyB2mOnDDOA.kvIfsHeY37Mw

Here are the 3 articles I read in determining where to go (sort of).
http://www.culinarybackstreets.com/barcelona/2014/top-5-xurrerias/
http://barcelona-home.com/blog/top-5-churrerias-barcelona/
http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/events/christmas/barcelona-chocolate-restaurant.html

When I started out my journey, I thought I would find them all of the same quality.  However, I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to differentiate the tastes and make a judgment call on everything.  I think the key to churros is to get it freshly out of the oil, and for the chocolate it depends on whether you prefer it really bitter, or sweeter.  I am all churrod out, so toodles for now.

Tickets, Barcelona

Well, here we were, finally, after being shut out of the restaurant because we visited during the holiday period last year and the place was closed down for the season.  I think I had hyped this place up so much in my head.  Tickets.

So generally, one has to make reservations online 60 days before to ensure availability and to get the desired time slot.  I messed up with my dates, so I had a reservation for this coming Saturday, which wouldn't have been the worst thing except there was a FC Barcelona match at Camp Nou and I know Lingon really wanted to go to this.  I checked the website everyday for possibly a month, but nothing came available.  I emailed them too but never received a proper response.

What does one do when one is desperate?  We decided to pay the restaurant a visit, live, where they were unable to ignore us.  When we got there, there was a guy sitting at the ticket counter in front of the computer hanging out with his buddies drinking a beer.  Yes.  Unbelievable.  And he couldn't respond to my email, why?!  Anyhow, gripe as I may, we actually managed to get an early same-day reservation at 6.30pm.  So, for those who have lost hope, don't, go to the counter early in the day and hopefully someone can help you!  (Having said that, it was a Tuesday, so I don't encourage the same amount of aspiration for busy periods or weekends.)

The second Adrià restaurant on the same day.  El Bulli olives.  I was so excited.

The restaurant decor was interesting.  I guess it is some kind of circus or carnival theme with different bars/counters.  We were seated at one of the bars, not a table, which actually I prefer because I like to see the action.  Wonder if it was because we made our reservation so late, and that was considered a crappy seat, but anyway I was happy.  They had a gazillion of those Chinese cats with the waving hand, wonder why.

They present you with two options.  The first is the "surprise" menu, which is pretty much some kind of tasting devised by them.  I looked around and realized people got different things from us, and wondered what the proportion of people choosing the "surprise" menu was.  The other option was just plain ol' a la carte.  Anyhow, random thoughts.

Here is what we got, together with some thoughts:
-I could not find this on the menu, but it was some kind of deconstructed fish and rice reconstructed to make a cracker.  I found this quite tasty and liked it.
-"Fruit impregned as a refreshing solid cocktail" - I think it was apple and fairly unremarkable.
-"Tickets' olives" which is more like El Bulli olives.  These are liquid olives, and apparently there is a video that will show you how they are made, but my bandwidth at the hotel is too low so I will just include a link.
-"Anchovy in crostini with tomato seeds" - love anchovies, loved this.
-"Manchego cheese foam with its mini airbag" - people raved about this on Trip, I liked it but was not in love.
-"Rubia Gallega en un airbaguette" - I think this must mean some kind of ham, with a baguette that was hollow inside.  The meat was great, the baguette was dry but the ham definitely helped.
-"The egg and the truffle with its sell" - I think they meant shell here.  I liked it.  Egg and truffle somehow reconstructed into a nice creamy mixture and put into a perfectly cut out egg.
-"Tuna in tartare with a nori mille-feuille" - this was innovative, tasted very Asian, and I liked it.
-Again, I can't find the next one on the menu, but on the bill it was called "nordico zanahoria".  Now when I ate it, I thought of my meal in Iceland that I found inedible.  This was not as bad, but somehow had that same Nordic feel about it.  When I saw the item on the menu, everything made sense.  It was beautifully presented, which excited me, but otherwise was my least favourite dish of the evening.  It was some kind of cured beef (I think) on some kind of crostini and beyond that I think I'm trying to phase that taste out of my head.
-Oysters - they were good, but I've had better.
-"Snow crab in avocado cannelloni" - the mix of crab and avocado is pretty standard, the dish itself was delicious, but rather unspecial for such a place.
-"Crunchy octopus with pak choi" - the octopus was delicious, super fresh, and whatever created that crunch was fabulous.
-"Roasted chicken with its broth" - it was a thinly sliced escalope (I think that's how it was presented to us), and the bottom of it had what I believe was its skin fried to a crisp.  The chicken itself was unremarkable, though the skin was delicious and the broth was very flavourful.  I felt like it was tea time.  The tea cup had a tea bag with herbs and lemon of some kind in it, I thought that was clever.

I forgot to get a picture of the dessert menu, but here are my poor descriptions.  Mushroom was not impressed.
-Cupcake, and we could eat the wrapper
-Apple strudel ish with ice cream

Well, glad to get this off the bucket list.  We had 3 waters, and the meal total was about €150 for us both.  I don't think I would give it an outstanding endorsement, but it was an interesting place, and I believe one of the hottest restaurants in Barcelona at the moment, so I'm glad we went.  Could have done with less calories though.

Niño Viejo, Barcelona

Niño Viejo would not have been my choice of eats, since it is Mexican food and we are in Spain.  However, given that this is a taco place, and Lingon loves tapas, plus it is a product of the Adrià brothers (who were responsible for El Bulli), we decided to go.  The restaurant is about a 20 minute walk from our hotel on La Rambla, in a residential looking area, which was less crowded and crazy.  That was kind of nice.  It shared a shop front with Hoja Santa, another Adrià creation, which was more refined Mexican food (thanks for asking, Lingon!).  It seems like this trip seems to be an Adrià  culinary tour, since we have Tickets and Pakta lined up!

They gave us some olives and sunflower seeds to start.  We decided to let the server select some food for us.  He picked pretty much all the starters.  Mango, guacamole, queso fundido, fried chicken and ceviche.  I must say none of these were particularly outstanding.  Everything was very serviceable, but super normal.

Then, we got to the main part of the meal.  First, the tuna tostada (no idea why on the English menu it says octopus).  The tuna was like, wow, toro ish quality.  I'm salivating thinking about it.  Then we got the al pastor taco, which really I have no idea what al pastor is but it seemed like beef meat and they better not have served us rare-ish pork.  Loved the flavour and thought it was amazing.  On to the pluma ibérica (feathered lion in the English menu, lol) taco, which I personally thought was dry and not as tasty as the al pastor, but Lingon preferred this one.  Lastly we got a grilled chicken, which was not bad but I don't know, something about that Limon chicken in SF, or even Costco chicken (don't crucify me for saying that, but Costco really makes a sick rotisserie chicken!) that made this seem sad and of poor value.

Total cost was €80 with 2 red wines and one ginger beer.  One tip - you can order half portions of some of the food.  That is useful for greedy ones like me who like to eat everything.  I would recommend this place, but only for the tuna tostada and tacos.

A Comparison of Egg Tarts, Hong Kong and Macau

Seems to be that comparisons are a thing.

My favourite egg tart in Hong Kong, and probably in the world, is Tai Cheong Bakery and I go to the one on Lyndhurst Terrace.  It has a yummy short bread crust, and I really love short bread.  Mmmm all that butter (or is it lard?).

In Macau, one has to do as the Macanese do, which is eat Portuguese egg tarts!  Lingon did some research and found out the most famous egg tart shops are these 2, each owned by one half of a divorced couple.  The first one we went to was Margaret's Cafe e Nata, so probably the female side of the split.  The crust was made of puff pastry, and the custard was browned.  Pretty good.  The queue outside this place when we arrived was pretty insane.  We found out you have to line up first in the queue on the left to order and pay, and then line up on the right to pick up.  They have timed the baking process so perfectly that within 2 mins of our scheduled pick up time, we got our egg tarts!

Then we went to Lord Stow, which is a chain, in the Venetian.  I thought then pretty similar to the one from Margaret's.

So what makes an egg tart Portuguese?  There seems to be a lot online about it, which I am a bit lazy to read about, but here is what I know.  It seems to have originated from a monastery in Portugal.  A puff pastry is used.  The custard is made of either exclusively egg yolks or a higher egg yolk to white ratio compared to the dim sum kind (I think).

All of them were good.  I liked both Portuguese ones equally, but in general I think I preferred the sweet and slightly salty short bread crust better.  I'm getting hungry looking at all this food.

A Comparison of Won Ton Noodles, Hong Kong

What an exciting title for this blog!

A friend of mine told me of two won ton noodle places in Hong Kong - Mak's Noodles and Tsim Chai Kee, both on Wellington Road in Central, directly across from each other.  By no systematic method, I chose to go to Tsim Chai Kee the first time, adored it, and have been going there ever since.

This time round, I decided I wanted to try Mak's Noodles, but I did not want to give up Tsim Chai Kee too.  Luckily, Lingon was with me, so we decided to get one bowl of noodles at each place.

First we went to Mak's noodles.  The size of the bowl was that of a rice bowl, very small.  It had 4 small won tons in it for HKD$36, about US$5.  The won tons were very tasty and crunchy, and the noodles were nice and springy.  Vegetables were good too, at $27, about US$4.

Then the revered Tsim Chai Kee.  The size of the bowl was maybe 50% larger.  There were only 3 won tons, but they were maybe twice the size.  They were also very tasty and crunchy.  This set us back HKD$25, about US$3.50.  The vegetables were good too, a larger plate, at HKD$14, about US$2.

I have to say I'm glad I finally made it to Mak's.  Sometimes some questions just gnaw at you, like which won ton noodle shop is better, and should you try a new place or the tried and tasted very fabulous place.  It is nice to have an eating buddy to tackle such tough life questions.  We both agreed that both were great places to eat, but you get more bang for your buck, plus everyone likes bigger won tons, and what I did not mention above was that Tsim Chai Kee has an amazing chili, so Tsim Chai Kee wins!  Hooray for the winner!