Überrascht: Walon & Rosetti

Ich war eigentlich bereit enttäuscht zu werden. Frankfurter Szeneladen, eher Spesenrittertempel mit überteuerten Preisen für mäßige Gerichte. Stimmt zum Teil, Preise für Wein und Gerichte sind recht hoch, reflektieren aber doch einigermaßen die Qualität und die Portionsgröße der Gerichte sowie den ausgesprochen freundlichen Service. Bestellt werden Tagliata mit Salsa Verde und hausgemachten Fritten (€ 36,50) sowie der Schweinebauch Cancun mit Barbecuesauce und einem Zitrusfrüchtesalat (€ 22,50).

 

Das Rindfleisch ist in ausreichender Menge vorhanden und ist von guter Qualität. Kaum Fleischsaft tritt aus und ist kompetent angebraten. Die hausgemachten Fritten sind ebenfalls lecker. Der Preis ließe sich durch eine raffiniertere Beilage jedoch deutlich besser rechtfertigen. Hier schneidet der Schweinbauch deutlich besser ab. Wunderbar kross gebraten und innen schön zart. Die Barbecuesauce ist etwas einfallslos und könnte mehr Schärfe vertragen. Der hervorragende Salat aus Fenchel sowie Orange schreit nämlich eigentlich nach Chili als Gegenpol.

Positiv überrascht bin ich. Die Preise habe ich erwartet und sind ja auch online einusehen aber die Küche - soweit ein einziger Besuch für diese Aussage ausreicht - scheint zu liefern.

Luigi & Lugana - Restaurant Nummer 16

Meine sechs Besuche in diesem noch jungen Jahr sind wie alle seit 2004 - exzellent. Die wuselige Atmosphäre, die mit viel gutem Olivenöl, Knoblauch und Pecorino angereicherte Pasta mit Bauchspeck oder Reh oder Hirsch oder, oder, oder... Und die hausgemachten Würstchen, die Flugentenbrust, das Lammfilet und das Tiramisu. Riesenportionen und von jeder Zutat eher etwas "zuviel" und damit genau richtig. Man traut sich das fast gar nicht zu sagen, aber das ist für mich der beste Italiener und definitiv der allerbeste Sarde Deutschlands! Liegt wohl daran, dass ich es mit Blick auf Pasta eher herzhaft und würzig mag. Gekoppelt mit der immer herzlichen Laura und dem humorvollen Vincenzo sind dies hier immer bewegende Abende. 

 

Aufgrund einer exorbitanten Mieterhöhung musste das Restaurant von der Wiesenstraße weg und fand in der Löwengasse mindestens eine doppelt so große Räumlichkeit. Trotzdem: spontan einen Platz zu ergattern ist ab Donnerstag unmöglich, hier sollten mind. 30min Wartezeit eingeplant werden. Doch es lohnt sich wenn man weiß was einen erwartet. Hingehen und am besten mindestens zu viert wegen der Portionen...ach egal einfach hingehen.

 

 

Auf die Schnelle/ A quick bite

Beim notgedrungenen Gang in die Stadtmitte bereitet man sich gedanklich bereits vor wo man schnell und gut den Hunger in der mit wenig annehmbarer Gastronomie gesegneten Gegend befriedigen kann. Es ist kalt und das Verlangen nach etwas heißem und gehaltvollen soll gestillt werden. Im Kaufhof unten gibt es das Mauruyasu, dessen Ableger im Sandweg durch abstrus hohe Bewertungen auf den gängigen Portalen auffällt und mit gebotener Nüchternheit doch mehr als passablen und variantenreichen Sushi Variationen, auch wenn mit bereits vorgefertigten und daher durch die Lagerung etwas zu kühlen Produkten, zu überzeugen weiß. Für 8 - 10 € (halbe Portion entsprechend billiger) gibt es in der City Ramen und dazu frittierte Garnelen. Die Ramen mit gegrillter Hähnchenbrust überraschen durch Würze und guten Zutaten. Auch wenn der Sud und vor allem die Nudeln den Vergleich zur japanischen Spitzenklasse (die Nudeln sind das Geheimnis und müssen den Sud wirklich aufnehmen) nicht standhalten, so ist dieses Gericht mit Blick auf Preis-Leistung sowie sensorischer Befriedigung doch eines der besseren "Fast-Foods" in der Gegend. Die frittierten Garnelen sind saftig und kross und frei von tranigem Fett - und man geizt hier vornherein nicht mit Salz. 

Review (GER/EN): Mika, Frankfurt

Wo/Where: Berger Straße 61, Frankfurt

Letzter Besuch/last visit: 6. Jan.

English version below!

Es gibt Läden in denen man sich einfach wohl fühlt. Das Mika ist so einer von diesen. Der Besitzer ist nett, die Atmosphäre ist nett. Das Essen ist manchmal gut und manchmal nicht. Nicht gut bedeutet hier in keinem Fall ein Mangel an Qualität welcher zur Ungenießbarkeit führt, sondern einfach ein Mangel an Finesse.

So auch heute Abend. Wir bestellen gegrillten Pulpo mit Schmorgemüse und ein Steinpilzrisotto. 

 

 

Der Pulpo ist von guter Qualität, sehr gut zubereitet und somit schön zart. Während man dem Pulpo noch selbst mit Salz nachhelfen kann, funktioniert das beim Risotto gar nicht. Es schmeckt nach nichts. Weder die Brühe oder die sonstigen Zutaten mit denen der Risotto angesetzt worden ist, scheinen irgendein Aroma gehabt zu haben. Die Steinpilze sind gut und werden so rausgepickt und verspeist.

Ich werde trotzdem irgendwann wieder einkehren. Manchmal will man es einfach planbar gemütlich und unkompliziert. Das Frühstück hier ist übrigens durchgehend gut.

English:

There are venues that are just cozy and although the taste of the food is sometimes volatile, you just go there because the people, in this case especially the Greek owner, are nice. To be clear: the food here is never bad but sometimes lacks that certain something preventing it to be more than decent. 

That is the case today: we order grilled pulpo with vegetables and a risotto with porcini.

 

The pulpo is of good quality and is well prepared which makes it really tender. As often in Germany, restaurants believe salt is something to put on a table but not in a dish. Unfortunately salt cannot do anything to the risotto. It just has no taste. I guess the broth and other ingredients used to cook it had no flavor or intensity. The porcini are good so we pick them out separately.

I know that I will still come back once in a while because it is cozy. By the way, breakfast here is always good.

Starstruck: Review Restaurant Martin Berasategui - San Sebastian, Spain

I recently - ex post - found out that I have been to a one starred Michelin restaurant before (Yauatcha, London in 2009), but all I remember is that it was delicious but I probably was not in the mindset and certainly less aware to thoroughly focus on each dish and its compositon.

Fast forward to the beginning of October 2016:

I always wanted to feast myself through San Sebastian since it is often described as one of the culinary hotspots in the world. It shouldn't come as a surprise considering the heavy influence of Spanish and French cuisine.

Thanks to the well known Julien Walther, whose blog (in German) is a must read if you want to combine your travel with great gustatory perceptions (or just to have a great read), I luckily managed to skip my first as well as the most obvious and popular choices in that region (Arzak and Azurmendi to name a few). Reading his reviews of those restaurants seemed to fulfill most of the prejudices people with limited (that includes me) experiences have towards such venues: stiff, over the top, theatrical, pretentious and often bereft of any resemblance to the original product (dry ice, lyophilisation anyone?).

So I, with a wallet that cannot be as frequently opened for such ventures, was the grateful beneficiary of his endeavor.  

So six weeks before our departure I managed to have areservation at the Restaurant Martin Berasategui for lunch on Friday, October 7th. The restaurant, that received its third star in 2001, is located in Lasarte-oria, 10km southwest of San Sebastian.

The menu is straightforward with starters coming for 44 €, the main dishes for 71 € and the desserts for 32 €. So you are not forced to opt for a 15+ courses degustation menu although you can (€ 220/20 courses). Something even I noticed: Bottles of wine are, as common in Spain, reasonably priced compared to the UK or France. We had a great white wine (bottle 55 €) but I have to make my initial excitement culpable for not having taken a photo of the bottle or having remembered its name.

We are served some fresh homemade sour dough bread with different sorts of butter (beetroot, salted, spinach, stone mushroom). Delicious!

The first pleasant surprise: As we intended to order more food than we could probably eat since we wanted to taste as much as possible, the staff recommended to serve us half – portions of the dishes we would like to taste as their portions are quite large. Why would we dissent?

The first amuse-bouche is Mille-feuille of smoked eel, foie-gras, spring onions and green apple.

The Mille-feuille, typically a sweet, multi-layered pastry, is served here with a slightly crunchy, caramelized layer on the top and with a subtle and smooth foie-gras layer at the bottom with the smoked eel in between. This is accompanied by a light spring-onion cream. Well, this was about the point where my company and I nearly stopped talking to each other for the next 3,5 hours.

The Mille-feuille is followed by Red Shrimp Royale and dill with Venta del Barón oil.

It is an excellent composition, very light but still intense and if you really slurp it you can taste excellent olive oil. Venta del Baron (from Cordoba) is supposed to be the best olive oil in the world and although I am not too knowledgeable about olive oils - you can taste it. Or is it just because the menu says so? We’ll never find out but that’s what happens if you are really involved.

For the next three courses we simply followed the aforementioned blog with one additional meal I really wanted to taste. This strategy proved to be fatal – in a positive way but more on that later!

So as a starter it has to the Iberian Ham “Capa Negra”. At least regarding ham I can say that I have tasted a lot with varying experiences. This one though (we learn from the subtle, yet attentive and very funny staff is Berasategui’s self-produced ham) is of another class altogether. Served with roasted, olive oil and tomato marinated white bread it just melts in your mouth and leaves a great nutty flavor as a reminder. We agree that it is highly improbable that we will be eating ham again anytime soon.

Then, as per script, the Grilled sirloin «Luismi» over a bed of Swiss chard chlorophyll and cheese bonbon reaches our table. Luismi, based in Galicia, is Senor Berasategui’s preferred high quality butcher and both of us agree that this piece of meat puts everything we had in the past to utter shame. Smokey, buttery and nutty and excellently flanked by Swiss chard and cheese bonbons that softly explode in your mouth revealing warm, liquid cheese.

 

Out of curiosity we had ordered “Young pigeon, charcoal roasted at a low temperature with potato and truffle bites and forgotten vegetables” as well.

I never had pigeon and therefore lack a reference for comparison but this dish was a revelation as on how to combine basic ingredients in such a way to culminate into fantastic and homogenous dish. The pigeon is heated in the oven for six minutes and then roasted on charcoal for a few moments. The meat was very tender and according me, also due the lack of ample words, tasted a bit sourer (or fleshier?) than other sorts of meat I had. Add to that one of those truffle bites and one of those cereal-wheat crackers in your mouth and you have slightly sweet and crunchy bite.

 

We ask for a coffee break as we are quiet full. We bring forward that we would very much fancy a walk outside in the garden. “Don’t ask please, this is your home. Feel at home!” And we do feel at home.

Thirty minutes later we are ready for our dessert which is… an apple pie! Ok, an apple pie filled with a Granny Smith sorbet and an Armagnac cream but still: an apple pie!

This is another example on how to prepare a simple dish with excellent products (apple, the butter used for the dough..) The dough, so it seems like at least, has infinite layers and has the right crack-crisp-to-vanish – in – your – mouth – ratio.

The meal is rounded off with a selction of sweets. I can imagine they were all excellent but I am not the greatest fan of plain chocolate and since my organism and brain literally went into digestion mode, I was probably incapable of reflecting any further.

I mentioned earlier that our choice proved to be fatal. Of course this is quiet exaggerated but here is what I mean: We basically, as you can see on the pictures, ordered dishes that do not seem hard to replicate at home. You can buy ham, sirloin, vegetables and ingredients for an apple pie. But neither - first and foremost - do we have the skills Senor Berasategui and his staff possess nor do we have easy access to such premium quality products. Had we opted for a restaurant that served dishes (again extensive use of dry ice, lyophilisation of "you name it") creating an immense visual (and perhaps gustatory) gap between product, presentation and composition we might have not felt that way. Of course it is hard now to select ham, meat or any other ingredient but at least in my case it lead to a further decrease of meat consumption and we remain thankful to have enjoyed dishes which seemed (looked) familiar but tasted excellent due to skills of preparation and the use of products with extaordinary quality. 

Starstruck part II: Elkano - as close as it gets!

Getaria, a small town between San Sebastian and Bilbao, is home to the popular one star restaurant Elkano. Apart from serving a huge variety of seafood, their signature dish remains the turbot. Caught in the morning and served for lunch or dinner.

To start our lunch we order a small portion of lobster and kokotxas (a Basque speciality; the fleshy underpart of a hake fish’s jaw) since that will be followed by a 1.3 kg turbot (73€ per kilo).  The amuse bouche is a slightly fried piece of excellent tuna. The garlic-lemon marinated lobster is of excellent quality. This is, by the very nature of the restaurant, the closest you can get to the origin of the product by adding few good ingredients to enhance the experience.

 Now the kokotxas: We never had kokotxas and now are being served three types of them with the style of preparation being the sole difference. The first one is slightly fried with egg yolk; the second is slightly cooked as is the third one which comes marinated in pil-pil sauce (olive oil, garlic and parsley). I loved the taste. It tastes very fishy with a blend of mussles.

And then it comes, the turbot. Presented to us in its full beauty and then each part is carefully prepared for us to eat. We are explained to pay attention to the difference in taste between the bottom of side of the fish which is not exposed to sunlight (fattier and softer) and the top which is continuously exposed to it (more rawboned). The side parts can be eaten like spare ribs and, if that is the correct term, tastes more like meat (chicken) than fish. 

What can we say? High on proteins (and white wine) we are pondering about an unique experience. Products of a quality that is improbable to exceed and which are not suffocated by any distracting side dishes. I once had turbot in Germany...now I get the joke!