A Day At The Museum

One thing you may not know about me is that I'm not a big fan of museums and art galleries. They're fine in their own way, but I wont go out of my way to visit them and it is with some measure of satisfaction I am able to say that in my travels through Italy, France and Spain I have not spent a single Euro on entry fees/tours to any museum or art gallery. Sure, I did visit a few churches, but not any that had an up front charge.

Having said that, there is one museum which I not only visited, but to which I made repeat visits and happily handed over the ever diminishing notes from my wallet to be a part of what was going on inside.


Followers of this blog have probably very astutely translated the above sign to Museum of Ham, and if you haven't already guessed, I'm a big fan of pork products (I know, some of you may be shocked). So this was certainly not a place to just walk past and ignore. So I'm thinking maybe this is a museum which shows the history of Jamon and the production process that goes along with it. Not a bad idea, but taking a look through the front window reveals a more practical and exciting interpretation of the term "Museum".

Glimpses of hams of all types entice me to take a closer look, the aromas practically wafting me in like a cartoon mouse at the smell of a particularly delicious cheese. In this case, however, there was no large cartoon cat standing just behind the cheese ready to pounce.

Just hundreds and hundreds of legs of jamon. Everywhere I look, more porky goodness and I'm not the only one drawn to this hall of ham on the over 30C degree summer day, far from it. Space is at a premium, with a deli counter on the left selling all kinds of porcine produce and a bar on the left selling cold beer and food, it's easy to see why this place is always packed with people.


Fighting for my place at the bar, I order a cerveca (a glass of beer that costs 1 Euro). When you order a cerveca at Museo Del Jamon, if you don't order any food, you are given a plate with a snack from the selection sitting around the bar. This may include a couple of small empanadas (pasties), olives, small cuts of various hams, etc. I'm not sure if it was deliberate, but without my asking, the server gave me a different snack every time I ordered a beer.

It may not look like the most appetising plate of food in the world, but a few offcuts of ham and other meat products is a great accompaniment to a cold beer. So for lunch, I asked for more of the same.

Served with a generous hunk of bread, or the house tomato bread if you want to order it at an extra charge, this is a satisfying and delicious lunch filled with the smoky goodness of pork.

Other great value meals on offer are Bocadillo del Jamon (a bread roll with jamon as pictured above), paella or many other options you can see on the sign above the bar. There are several of these places scattered around Madrid and I would love to see them scattered around Melbourne some time soon.

Once again, my thanks to all of my readers who have stuck with this blog and for the fantastic feedback you have been giving, there are one or two posts left from this amazing journey (including what was possibly the best meal of my life) and after that, who knows what is next for VoraciousGrazer, stay tuned.

Mercado de San Miguel and Restaurant Botin

I'm sure I have said it before, but one of my favourite things to do is visit markets. Not only does it give you a great idea of what is fresh, local and in season, but seeing what locals are buying and cooking is a great way to understand the cuisine of a new place. So that's what I decided to do next in Madrid.

I had heard about an old market that had been closed down and renovated to be almost like a food court, but with a great selection of fresh produce to choose from. The Mercado de San Miguel is based on an idea I haven't seen before.


No row upon row of the same thing over and over again, but a spacious area designed for eating and selecting food from one of the specialty providers that surround it.

Mostly there is one of each type of stall, there is a seafood bar selling fresh and cooked seafood.


Another stand sells oysters, priced by size and shucked to order.


Not far away is a deli that sells small rolls with various jamons and other meats for 1 Euro each.


A cheese stall not far away sells samples on bread for 1 Euro each and there are a couple of wine shops selling wine by the glass. This is a great way to put together a lunch full of variety and try several different things.



You then take your plate and find a seat at a table or bench (or wherever you can) and enjoy your food.


For dessert you have a couple of options, there is a cake shop selling some great looking slices of cake and a selection which makes it very hard to make up your mind.


Also, for all my chocolate loving readers, there is a whole shop full of it.


This market is reasonably expensive as far as markets go, but this is more like a combination of a market and a food court which sells incredibly fresh and high quality food.

The next restaurant on my list is, according to Guinness World Records, the oldest operating restaurant in the world. Casa Botin in Madrid has been operating continuously since 1725, almost 300 years. Their specialty is cochinillo asado -Roast Suckling Pig, something I was very much looking forward to.


Walking into the restaurant is almost like walking back in time, they obviously focus very much on keeping the feel of history and tradition alive.


As delicious as that jamon looks, I wasn't here for that. Walking down the stairs into one of the various dining rooms, I had to watch my head on the low ceilings. Looking at the menu, the house menu of Gazpacho, Suckling Pig and Ice cream seemed like the way to go.

The bread and Sangria arrived first.


The gazpacho came out as a bowl of plain, cold soup and the waiter brought around a tray of garnishes to add to it, including cucumber, peppers, tomato and bread.


Bursting with bright, fresh, summer flavours, this was a great cold soup and a delicious was to start a summer dinner in Madrid.

Next came the star of the show, the suckling pig.


Tender, juicy and full of porky goodness, simply prepared in a way that has stood the test of time. No fancy embellishments or showy techniques, just a fantastic, fresh ingredient allowed to speak for itself....and yes, I did eat the tail.

There was also a live band which found their way down the narrow staircase to play and sing during the meal.


For dessert, the menu says dessert is simply "ice cream" and I wasn't expecting much, but whatever was in the chocolate topping they used on it, it was surprisingly good. Unfortunately the photo came out blurry, so I'm not posting it here. Needless to say, I very much enjoyed this meal and if I had more time in Madrid, I wouldn't mind a return visit to try the Roast Baby Lamb or the Baby Squids In Their Own Ink. Another dish on the menu which is worth a mention is the Baby Eels, a traditional Spanish dish of baby eels quickly fried in a small pot of olive oil with garlic and a small dried chili is one of the most expensive side dishes you will see at around 130 Euros per serve. This is apparently due to the rarity of these eels.

Another great day in Madrid and it's not over yet, look out for more updates coming soon.

MB Kursaal and The Spoon

Of all the places to find great food in San Sebastian, I thought I'd highlight two of my favourites.

There are several Michelin starred restaurants in San Sebastian, one of which is Restaurante Kursaal. The restaurant was unfortunately closed over the days that I was there, but there is a gastro-pub below the restaurant called MB Kursaal that serves great meals at more reasonable prices. As well as the a la carte menu, they offer a degustation menu which includes five courses, a cava cocktail, bread and wine.

As a snack, they serve some small olives which in contrast to their size have a very strong briney flavour.

The cava cocktail was served to start the meal.

Cava is a sparkling white wine and this was combined with fruit juice and was refreshing and perfect on a hot sunny day at the beach.

The appetiser was a Goat's Cheese and Prawn Salad.


The greens here are spinach leaves and the jelly cubes are a muscatel reduction. The green streak across the plate is chlorophyll. The goats cheese is creamy and salty, the spinach fresh and the muscatel jelly sweet and refreshing. The salty and sweet elements play against each other very well, but I think the salad itself may have been over-salted as the balance is not quite right and the overall taste seems to be too salty. Also, I don't think a single prawn is enough here.

The first main course is Creamy Seafood Rice with a Garlic Cream Foam.

Inside the rice are octopus slices and mussels. The Garlic Cream Foam is served in a separate dish as it disolves into the rice shortly after you pour it over due to the heat. The rice is indeed smooth, creamy and well cooked. The seafood is fresh and delicious, but once again a little lacking in quantity. The extra punch of garlic from the foam really gives this dish another dimension without overpowering the other flavours.

Fish of The Day is up next.

On the menu it says this is "served with a rich seafood jus, on a bed of crushed potatoes". Unfrotunately, this dish lacked a lot of flavour. The fish was cooked fine, but had a very mild taste and the "rich" jus was very bland and only served to water down the potatoes which already seemed quite mushy. A very disappointing dish.

The two desserts are served together and they are French Toast and a traditional Sheep's milk dessert.

The French Toast is made with egg yolks and fresh cream and served with a frozen cream and was delicate while being rich. The Sheep's Milk was topped with sugar and bruleed and served with a shot glass of ice-cold apple juice. These were both delicious desserts but the French Toast was my favourite.

This was a good meal, although a little hit and miss in some areas. For the price, it was good value and a very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours at the beach on a sunny day in San Sebastian.

The other place that is definitely worth a mention is La Cuchara de San Telmo (The Spoon of Saint Telmo). They are doing pintxos of a high standard and cooked to order.

The first thing that I ordered was the Foie Gras.

This came served grilled slightly, with a dark sauce and on an apple puree with streaks of another green sauce. This melts in the mouth and is delicious and decadent.

After this I was looking at the chalkboard and seeing if I could recognise any of the dishes there or at least individual words which would give me an idea what the dish was talking about. I chose the Moleja a Terniera Asada con "Tximi-Txurri". The words I understood there were "Asada" which means grilled and "Tximi-Txurri" (pronounced Chimmi-Churri" is a sauce I know from many South American dishes that is made of vinegar, garlic and parsley and goes great with grilled meats. This is what this dish looks like.

This was served on an apple puree, just like the Foie...a coincidence, surely that I would pick the only two dishes on the menu with the same accompaniment. This was grilled delisiousness, but I know it was something offaly good from the texture, which was smooth and didn't have the fibrous meat of a steak or other muscle. I asked the waiter to translate it for me and it turns out that this is veal sweetbread. I definitely liked this and will look for it on menus when I get back to Melbourne for sure.

I figured I had been adventurous enough and handed over control of the next couple of pintxos to the bartender (who was also serving me a refreshing beer called Keller 18 I think). His first suggestion was a bacon-wrapped scallop.

This, strangely enough was served on an apple puree with streaks of green sauce. I'm noticing a pattern here. The scallop was perfectly cooked and the bacon was excellent as it should be in a country that celebrates the pig as much as Spain does. Another great dish, but I'm starting to get a little bored of apple puree.

The next suggestion was the veal cheek.

Now this is something I know and love, cheeks are a wonderfully tender meat in any animal, always a favourite of mine. In this case, the meat was so tender it fell apart as soon as my fork touched it, there was no need for a knife at all. This time, as I'm sure you've noticed, there is no apple puree, instead it's a potato puree. Absolutely stunning dish and one I did come back for a couple of days later.

The last suggestion of the bartender's was a grilled cheese. Not a sandwich, just a piece of cheese on the grill.

This is a soft cheese and as it grills it leaves a puddle of darker, more grilled cheese on the bottom. That is what you can see on the top, a disc of dark, caramelised cheese which has an amazing, intense flavour. Unfortunately, as you have so astutely spotted, this also brought the reappearance of the apple puree and green sauce.

That was the end of my first dinner here, but not my last as I came back again, trying to find some more sensational freshly cooked delights from the Spoon.

As I headed back to La Cuchara a couple of days later, there were a couple of dishes I wanted to try which I didn't get a chance to eat on my previous visit. The first of these is a dish featuring an ingredient you will see all over San Sebastian and is quite popular all over Spain. That is Pulpo, or Octopus.

Cooked "a la plantxa" (on the plank) this is baked on wood until tender and pretty much falling apart, this dish has a dense texture without being chewy, a very good example of this ingredient.

The second dish I wanted to try was the Magret de Pato.

This is a perfectly cooked piece of duck breast, but specifically from a duck that has produced foie gras. This is served on a slice of dried apricot which has been rehydrated. These flavours go very well together and the rich, slightly fatty duck is balanced by the sweetness of the apricot.

Spotting a word on the board I don't understand, I dive right in and order the Orejo Iberico Asada y Prensada. The words that I like here are Iberico - the famous pork that produces the best jamon - and asado (grilled). Must be some delicious grilled pork....

Looking at this, I knew it wasn't a cut of pork that is normally served as it clearly has some cartilage that is quite obvious. Quite willing to give anything a go as usual, I cut into this and the taste was smooth and porky, with a crunch from the cartilage and the skin. The translation for the name of this dish is "Ear of Iberian Pork, Grilled and Pressed". I love pigs ears and when they are roasted on a suckling pig are crunchy and delicious, in this case, this is obviously from an older pig and has quite a bit of soft delicate meat on it.

My last dish from La Cuchara was something I had been watching people order constantly on both my visits and that was the Risotto Cremoso de Queso de Cabra.


This is not really a risotto, since it is made with risoni, a rice-shaped pasta. Queso de Cabra is Goat's Cheese and this is a creamy, rich dish which has the slight tang which I love from goat's cheese. Only a few spoonfuls, but absolutely packed with flavour and creamy deliciousness.

I had a wonderful time in San Sebastian, next stop Madrid.

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.