Thursday, January 5, 2017

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! 

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