Time to Saüc up the good life.

Saüc (the local word for Elder Berries) is a one Michelin starred restaurant in Barcelona and head chef Xavier Franco provides a menu which reflects Catalan cuisine using traditional, local flavours and ingredients in a fine dining setting. With several different options in tasting menus and a very reasonable fixed price lunch menu plus a la carte, you can have a great meal at a highly rated restaurant without breaking the bank.

I decided on the full five course tasting menu this also includes two appetisers, a cheese plate and two desserts.

Firstly, the service was excellent, the staff spoke English, were extremely helpful, described dishes clearly and answered any questions. Also one of the staff members was kind enough to provide me with a copy of the menu and mark the dishes I had during the meal. The fact that I accidentally forgot this in the taxi on the way back to my hotel is entirely my fault.

To start, along with the bread I was given a plate of the brightest green olives along with a cracker and a mysterious jelly cube.

These olives were very morish and the cracker was a cheese cookie which was rich and salty and the jelly was a black olive jelly. These make a great snack and would go well on a bar with a few glasses of wine.

The first appetiser was Mackerel with Dried and Marinated Tomato.

Unfortunately, this photo does not do this dish justice. The slight oiliness of the mackerel was balanced with the sweetness of the tomato.

The second appetiser was Roasted Catalan White Sausage with Parmentiere and Pea Cream.

The colour of this dish jumps out at you and while I went straight in and tried the sausage (and it was a couple of bites if meaty goodness) the parmentiere and pea cream was amazing. Parmentiere is a potato puree, but the potatos are usually cooked in butter instead of water.

So that was the appetisers out of the way, now for the first of the main courses. White Asparagus, Razor Clams, Almond Milk and Basil Mayonnaise.

It was great to see razor clams again and the texture of shellfish alongside perfectly cooked asparagus was a good combination and the asparagus certainly held it's own in the flavour stakes. The almond milk was thick and creamy and the vibrant, almost flourescent dash of basil mayonnaise brings the colour that this dish so obviously needs along with a sweetness that complements the other ingredients.

The second main course was Haricot Beans from Santa Pau, Prawn and Funghi Pil-Pil.

Here once again is the common Catalan flavour combination of seafood and beans. The earthy flavours are powerful, but not without finesse, definitely a combination I would love to work on when I get home. Pil-Pil is commonly a sauce made with garlic and hot peppers and this brightens up the dish quite well.

The next course is a "surf and turf" combination and is not on the main menu. Crispy Dewlap Pork, Baby Squid and Wild Mushroom.

More of those earthy Catalan flavours here, the baby squid which if you've been following the posts about Barcelona you will recognise as a common ingredient here combined with a meaty local mushroom and finger of delicious mystery pork. Dewlap is the fold of skin hanging under the lower jaw and from the neck of the pig and in this case is crispy, crackly goodness on the outside and soft melting pork on the inside. The mushroom is Amanita Caesarea or Ceasar's mushroom and has firm yellow flesh and an orange cap.

Next came the fish course, John Dory on Roasted Tender Wheat with Sea Urchin.


I'm probably a little biased here as John Dory is one of my favourite fish to eat and this was a wonderfully cooked example. The flesh was white and almost translucent and flaked very easily. The skin was crispy and slightly salty, but not overly so. The fish was sitting on a bed of roasted wheat topped with sea urchin roe. To me, the star of this dish was the wheat, I understand that it is roasted in fish stock until tender, but the wheat still retained plenty of chewiness and contrasted very well with the tender fish and ethereal sea urchin roe.

The meat course was the final main course and this one was certainly full of local flavour. Iberian Pork Secret, Jabugo Ham Curd and Beijing Green Beans.



I'm not sure what the secret is, but this is some of the best pork I have ever tasted in my life. Still slightly pink in the middle, this melted in the mouth and tasted like an amazingly tender bacon. This was intensely rich and to be honest was almost more than I could eat because of this, but with a little of the curd to cut through the richness, I managed to make it....:) The beans were nice too, but to be honest I used them more to space out the intensity of the pork than as a part of the dish (but maybe that's why they're there). I'm not entirely sure of the process of making the ham curd, but Jabugo ham is one of the best Iberian hams you can get. I believe the bones of the ham are cooked like a soup and then the soup is curdled somehow to produce a slightly sour, ham-flavoured curd. A memorable dish, but would have been just as memorable in a slightly smaller portion...but I'm not complaining!

The cheese plate was an assortment of Catalan Cheeses.


There are sheep, cow and goat's milk cheeses here served with a pumpkin marmalade, elder (Saüc) berry gelatin and some Strawberry, Raisin and Nut Bread. The first cheese on the left is a sheep's milk cheese with a blue-mold rind which was my favourite. Eaten without the rind it a mild flavoured cheese, but with the rind it gets all those blue mold tastes and becomes something very special. I can't recall exactly what the others were, but the marmalade and elder berry gelatine were a welcome alternative to the common accompaniment of muscatels or quince paste I often see in Melbourne.

Dessert time! The first one is a combination of dessert and palette cleanser. Melon and Ginger Soup with Watermelon Ice and Basil Gel.


Bright and refreshing, this was a great way to move from cheese into dessert. All the flavours were distinct and worked well together, a very summery dish.

Following after this came the Muskovado Cake, Tia Maria ith Mascarpone Cream.


Muskovado is a type of brown sugar and has a strong, syrupy flavour. The cake is a sponge soaked in tia maria and I believe the foam is a chocolate foam, but I'll hope for confirmation on that at some point. A refined, but gentle dessert, this is a great way to finish a good meal. Oh wait, I still need my coffee.

Along with coffee came another surprise:


Petit-Fours: Liquorice and Anise Scum, Almond Cake, Chocolate and Feuillet-Paulletine Rock and Cinnamon Biscuit. Scum is a bit of a strong word for a glass of lightly anise flavoured foam, but these are all wondeful little gems to send me packing back to my hotel for a siesta.

I had a great time at Saüc and seeing Catalan food in this way gives me a different perspective on the ingredients and flavour profiles of this unique region of Spain.

Two Tapas Taverns

Two places of the tapas bar style restaurants I went to were a little away from the centre of town and in more residential areas, but deserve a special mention. The first of these is Alta Taberna Paco Meralgo.

One of the signs of a restaurant with great food is how many locals eat there and this place is full of them. By full I mean there is a queue of people waiting for tables. I wanted to sit at the bar, so I passed on the first seat that became available, but soon enough there was a place at the bar.

Sitting in front of a small ice bar with fresh shellfish is always a good way to generate an appetite, but instead of shellfish I spotted the foie gras on the menu.


Served on toasted bread, the foie just starting to melt over it, this is a great way to start a meal of tapas. I also got some tomato bread.


This is a fairly common dish, but in this case has exceptional flavour and is certainly one of the better versions. Toasted bread with tomato rubbed into it and olive oil poured over. Crunchy, chewy and tomatoey, delicious.

Next I chose the plate of jamon bellota.

Sliced paper thin so you can almost see through it. You can clearly see the marbling in the meat. The taste is slightly salty and the meat almost disolves as I start to chew.

After this, I asked the waiter what he recommended and he suggested the steak which comes still sizzling in oil.

The meat is tender and the oil which is flavoured with garlic and chilli gives a lot of this flavour to the meat.

He also recommended some grilled porcini mushrooms.


These are very simply grilled in oil allowing the natural, mild flavour of the mushrooms to stand out.

The final dish for the night was another recommendation - cuttlefish with chickpeas.


Another of those savoury dishes which I am seeing on menus all over this city and is the hearty, earthy type dish that I am starting to crave. This was a great meal and I would eat here again if there weren't so many other places to try out.

Speaking of other places, the second restaurant I thought deserved a special mention was Inopia. Also in a residential area, this place has a bit more of a reputation due to it's owner - Albert Adria. Albert is the brother of Ferran Adria who is the name behind El Bulli, which is consistently rated as the best restaurant in the world. Although Albert works with Ferran to create some of the worlds most innovative and exciting ideas in food, you wont see that at Inopia.

What Inopia does is tapas with beautiful, fresh ingredients. Many dishes also have an asian influence, which is a nice change from most of the tapas bars.

Arriving at Inopia, I was greeted with the sight of about 20 people waiting outside to get a table.

After looking around for the end of the queue, I relaised that I had to get my name in the board and they would call out my name when they had a seat for me.

There is my name at the bottom of a very long list.....well almost my name anyway.

After getting a seat (which didn't take as long as I thought it might), I looked at the many, many options available and gave up on trying to choose anything. Doing the usual trick of asking the waiter to bring out what he recommended worked well and I started off with their Russian Salad.

This was really nice and even though it had plenty of mayonnaise it wasn't heavy or overpowering. Next was the tuna.

Grilled perfectly, this is served cold with a sauce that is made from soy and dashi and while not the amazing taste explosion that it might be, is still quite a nice dish.After the tuna, I was served the fried eggplant.

Lightly battered and deep fried, drizzled with a molasses sauce, this was my favourite dish of the night. The eggplant itself was perfectly cooked, the batter a very thin layer of crispness on the outside, but the inside is light and fluffy and exploding with flavour. Next came patatas bravas, one of the most common dishes on a tapas menu.

This looks a lot like simple potato chips covered with ketchup and sour cream, but after one mouthful those ideas were gone from my head. The potatoes are full of garlic flavour and the red sauce is a hot, spicy and rich and is cooled by the cream.

To finish off I was given the fried prawns.

Both deep fried, the prawns in a light tempura batter and the calamari (or maybe octopus) was in a thicker batter crusted with what looked like potato flakes and were served with a dijon mustard and mayonnaise combination. These were not the best dishes of the night and I only ate about half of each, although the sauce was very nice the rest was kind of plain and had too much on the plate for a single diner. Also quite pricey, but that's the risk you take letting the waiter choose your food.

Barcelona rewards people that are willing to explore a little futher than the main tourist areas and is well worth looking around for something a little different.

Tapas Dancing

If there was one country I was looking forward to visiting more than any other, it was Spain. I love eating tapas, being able to try many different things in one meal, especially when travelling is a great way to go. In the limited number of meals you have available to you on a holiday means you never get to try all of the amazing flavours and ingredients that represent a local cuisine, but this style of eating allows you to try much more. Not only that, but it is a great way of dining if you are travelling solo, just find a seat at the bar and chat with the people beside you or the bartender, asking what is good that day or what the dishes of other diners taste like is a great way to try the best food.

Let's start with a trip to the central market of Barcelona. As I walk down La Rambla, navigating my way through crowds of tourists mingled with locals and street performers, I find La Boqueria de St Josep. Right at the entrance, I walk past a shop selling many different versions of jamon - spanish ham. Although to call it ham is probably doing it an injustice. Jamon is one of the most sought after hams in the worlds and attracts prices in the hundreds of dollars per kilo. You can see one in this photo selling for 160 Euro per kilogram.

This amazing meat product is one of the best recognised hams in the world, along with prosciutto. One of the ways to tell a quality product is by looking for marbling of fat within the muscle. As you can se, they are displayed with the hoof still attached.

After that, I walk into the fruit and veg section of the market, stalls piled high with delectable fresh-looking produce.

And even a few that I had never seen before.

The fish section has amazingly fresh looking fish and many of the shellfish on display are sold live.

Apart from all the fabulous fresh produce available, there are several Tapas/Pintxos Bars scattered throughout the market. They serve the amazing fresh food of the market cooked right before your eyes. I had to come back to try two of them, but I'm very glad I did. The first visit was to Pinotxo Bar, right near the entrance of the market and as with all of these bars in the market it is always full and you have to wait around for someone to leave and snag their seat before someone else does.

I sat down and asked for a cerveca and whatever they felt like serving me. They started me off with the mussels.

Bursting with fresh, bright flavours, the salsa really enhanced the briney flavour of the plump mussels.

Next came more shellfish, this time clams. The ones on the left are razor clams which I had never tried before, but they were very nice and I'm sure freshness has a lot to do with how good this tastes. They do very little with it, just a slight dressing, allowing the taste of the ingredients to shine through.

The next dish they served me was baby squid and beans.

This is a very different presentation of squid to what I have normally seen. Usually it has been served with bright, fresh flavours. In this case, the flavour was earthy and savoury, the beans tender. To start with, taste buds were craving for something bright and powerful to give some high notes to this dish, but as I ate more and more, I started enjoy this dish more than I thought possible. I was starting to crave the deep savoury flavour and hated when my bowl was empty. As I was eating this dish, the couple next to me had a plate of stew that looked really nice and when I asked them about it they were very pleased.

Even though they couldn't really communicate in too many words of english, I could tell they wanted me to have some by the way the lady grabbed my fork and gave it back with a heap of the stew on it. I asked for a small portion of this.

The meat was tender and the sauce was delicious, more of those savoury flavours that I am coming to enjoy more and more while in Spain.

The other bar in the market that is well worth a mention is El Quim. I only had two things there, but they were both very nice. To start, I saw a dark sausage and asked for one of those.

This was their version of black pudding,this tasted really mild, with a delicate flavour that was a little nutty.

The second dish, which was the dish I had come here to try, was their fried eggs with baby squid. The eggs are served with a runny yolk and covered in baby squid. The waiter told me to cut up the egg and stir it all together.

The yolk creates a sauce that binds this rich, delicious dish together. Again there are lots of savoury flavours going on here with no bright touch to balance it out, but I'm starting to want that less and less as I eat more of the local cuisine.

There are still a few restaurants to talk about, but you'll have to tune in next time to see more amazing Spanish food.