we knew, when we walked in, they had a star and expected great service and food, but figured that if they had a 4 course menu we'd be lucky and we could have that, otherwise we needed to order at least 3 each but all different so we could split them and have our own tasting menu. our lunch reservation was for 1:30.
we were given our menus, brought bread, olive oils and water, and given time to ourselves. there was a festival and a grand festival tasting menu listed, along with a number of carte items. we chose, as it was lunch, to go with the festival menu. had we only known. our server asked if we had any food allergies or anything we couldn't eat - coconut for me, and informed us that for an additional $40 per we could add truffles to 4 courses. oh yes please!
i totally didn't catch what he said the breads and oils were, but there were 3 different breads all heavier, and 4 oils that varied from mild to strong.
matt decided he had to try a beer. we would've gone for the wine pairing, too, had it not been lunch, and we were hot and a little dehydrated. so we opted for a bottle something spanish instead.in the pic i took of the room you can see a pedestal with something on it. sadly i didn't get a better shot - it's a big square glass bowl on top 1/2 filled with ice.
comerc, 24 made up a really nice little 'take home' menu for me with what chef prepared. in fact a number of places have done that for me and i really want to thank them for that. it helps me a lot.
1st course:
oh these were so good! there was something similar to this we had at ceil bleu in amsterdam. i could eat them everyday. cheesy, light, crunchy, need i say more?
i was a little hesitant about this. i've tried monkfish in the past and just haven't warmed to it. and this was cold monkfish to boot. oh well, this was an adventure. i knew going to spain meant eating a lot of fish and there was a chance i might not like some of it.
matt's even fixed monkfish for us and while i'm sure it's a good recipe, and i know he's a good cook, but i just couldn't eat it. i think it was a bad fish. ever since he's urged me to keep trying it. i figured i'd have 1/2 of 1 of these guys and let matt finish it off. but it was fantastic. i'm not sure if it was the little bit of black sesame, olive oil, black garlic, and i think that was a little bit of finely sliced black basil that did the trick, or the fact that it was cold. cooked, but cold. i gobbled up my entire 1/2 and could've had more of it.
matt's had a little coconut in it they said, mine didn't. i think they did that just because they could.
this was good. didn't bowl me over but i'd eat it. it was thinner and didn't have much flavor for me. matt might think otherwise.
i gathered this was a house specialty kind of thing.
basil, mozzarella, arugula, fig and anchovies on a thin crisp wafer
nope, i couldn't finish mine. actually i did, once i removed the fig and anchovie from my 'slice'. it was just too fishy for me. other than that it was fine and matt enjoyed it.
course 2:
oyster with white truffle: the brown salt was warmed which i thought was way cool. i have to admit i would've never thought of putting truffle on oyster.
the thing was almost the size of my thumb, and i slid it off onto my plate. i've never been able to shoot oysters (or any other of these kinds of things) and i think part of it is due to a weird physical 'mal-fect' when i swallow, and partly size.
so i don't care who laughs, i grab the knife and fork and cut a little piece making sure i have the truffles. enh. it was ok. maybe someone who's an oyster affecianado might say differently, but all i could taste were the truffles (ok, i did that by design) so all i had to deal with was the texture of the bit of oyster. i ate enough to finish off my truffles and handed it over to matt.
course 3:
add to that some carcanali, a crushed pistachio almond cookie, and some greens. did i mention the sardines were pickled?
matt's over there grinning. before the trip i told him that in my reading we were going to be going through villages where sardine fishing was their main income. i was expecting lots of sardines. and to be eating a bit of bread. but ok. it's an adventure, right?
well surprise surprise, i like it! here's my assesment. the pickling takes the fishy out of the fish. that and these are real fish, not those scrawny things we're used to our dads (or granddads) eating out of an oil-filled tin, and there were no bones. add to that the fact that a chef knows how to prepare them. i admit i didn't clean my plate - i think i ate 1/3 of it. i had no idea how many more courses we had to go and when they brought out 'course #1' and it was 4 plates...
course 4:
with trout roe and a sprig of what might be basil. i forget what the sauce is, it's not printed or written down. either we weren't able to figure it out or it wasn't memorable.
i've had tuna and for the must part i haven't cared for it. and i've had tartar, but what i've liked has been beef-based, not fish. but this i liked. the trout roe reminded me of salmon and i wonder if there's a translation issue. i can't see a chef in a place like that mistaking 1 fish for the other. but it wasn't too salty for my palate and i ate most of it, or at least half.
course 5:
CONSOMME with egg, truffle and parmesan
this was way cool. i'd like to know what scientific gastronomical device they used to make these. it was a quail's egg yolk, a ball of parmesan cheese and a black truffle made into little balls. but once they were on the tongue. how can i describe this... ok, bear with me here. remember those listerine breath strips? ever have one? you put it on the tongue and it dissolves, only not entirely, and it kind of shrinks at the same time? totally weirded me out. anyway, that's what this reminded me of. they flattened out, then dissolved. so not what we were expecting! but they really packed a flavor punch when they 'fell'.
course 6:
i've never been a fan of chickpeas and my string of dishes changing my mind didn't change here. but i must say it's a pretty setting on the plate.
our server preparing the codfish
course 7:
brown rice, toasted cornmeal and foie gras mousse with green peppercorn ground and sprinkled on top
this was yummy. the rice was like a crispy arborio but not risotto. any 1 of the 3 tasted ok but not spectacular on its own, but put together and it works.
actually, the mousse on it's own was pretty good.
course 8:
with a basil leaf, balsamic, gelee of red mullet sauce, tomato (under the fish), served on a very hot plate.
the more i have this fish the more i like it. and yes, it's only the 3rd time, but still. each has been a different presentation.
it's light, flaky, and flavorful. i will admit i don't know if it's really the fish i'm tasting or the sauce/stuff it was prepared with.
course 9: (did anyone forget this is lunch?)
there's a lot going on with this slate plate. it was a beef sirloin with sweet potato chips - pretty good those. i wasn't expecting to like them. mushrooms - they were in season. white sesame seeds and sauce, a beef reduction sauce, pine nuts, and white truffle shavings.
i loved the flavor but the meat was a little underdone for my taste and a little overdone for matt's. oh well, what can you do.
course 10:
Honey & cheese with white truffles
this is a traditional dessert in catalunya. it's also the 1st dish i've ben served where i thought the truffle was an afterthought and not needed. in fact i took mine off
there's a honey chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, some toasted filberts, not sure what the cheese was, and of course the truffle.
course 11:
merengue, shortbread cookie, pineapple, and a bit of lime on the left
chocolate cookie, almonds, and a coffee-flavored wafer stick
i didn't care much for the chocolate cigar part. the chocolate we thought would be twix-like but it was heavier, and i don't really like coffee-flavored foods.
the other was pretty good if i remember right though!
a green tea and peach concoction we were supposed to shoot. i couldn't quite down mine (long gone are those college days of shooting drinks) at once, but if you didn't get the peach in with the green tea foamy bit it tasted quite different.
wow.
brown sugar crumble, raspberry sorbet, mint apple ice and yogurt
the mint apple ice and raspberry sorbet were quite potent on their own, but i loved the way it mixed with the yogurt (another big surprise) as long as there was some brown sugar crumble to go with! the sorbet was a bit dense.
dark chocolate pudding with a crostini in a light oil - but not an olive oil matt says.
a very dense chocolate and i have always had small tummy issues with 'just oil' so i didn't eat much of this one. the idea to dip the bread in the oil and have it with a bit of the chocolate. but i didn't get it, didn't like it. nope. next.
course 12:
a black sesame and vanilla panna cotta 'oreo' which was cold.
in the middle was a white chocolate green tea 'wafer'. i didn't eat mine. at least by now i could claim, in all honesty, that i was stuffed. but too much white chocolate mixed with too much green tea is just too much for libby.
on the right and i did eat all of this, was a chocolate with pine nuts covered in gold dust. - ok yum! and with the price of gold i made sure to lick every flake of gold off my fingers. lol
i had no more room but matt wanted coffee...
the sugar cubes to the left and cappucino on the rightthis was the festival menu.
they claim 12 courses.
the number of individual plates set down in front of us = 18.
we walked out of comerc, 24 at 4:45pm.
1 hour 45 minutes before the tapas crawl with the group was to begin.
i don't even want to think what the grand festival menu was like.
the service here was impeccable. very deserving of their 1 star. the food was fantastic. quite a few were listed in either the same or a similar preparation to the carte menu. the chef has a cookbook available, in english no less if you're interested. my only complaint, if there is one, is you have to know or be shown where the WC is. it's behind an unmarked door - if you even realize it's a door to begin with. if we had tried to stop in for lunch yesterday, while we were on the bike they would've laughed at us and refused service i think. and who would blame them? 2 stinky biker-tourists thinking they can eat here? but you never know. dress codes were pretty relaxed all over, as i'll go into a bit more in a later post.
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