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).

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.