Entries from The Amateur Gourmet tagged with 'Spain'
Dinner at El Bulli: The Greatest Restaurant in the World
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Barcelona, A Reflection
Before I left for Barcelona, two weeks ago, I created a three-ring binder of essential information. The first tab said "Hotels" and there I printed out the confirmations for the Hotel Banys Orientals, where we'd stay for most of the trip, and Hotel Coral Playa, where we'd stay when we went to Roses for dinner at El Bulli. (Note: both hotels were great choices, thank you all for your tips.) The second tab said "E-mails" and there I kept all the direct e-mails I received about where to go and eat in Barcelona. Tab three was "Comments" and I printed out all your comments from this post, highlighting the most commonly reoccurring restaurant suggestions, and then, in Tab Four "NYT," I printed out profiles of those highlighted restaurants from the New York Times Barcelona page. Suffice it to say, I arrived in Barcelona fully prepped and ready....
Pineapple with Molasses & Lime Zest
Mario Batali is my #1 favorite food-world hero: I love his books, I love his old Food Network show "Molto Mario," and I love his restaurants. When I found out, last year, he was doing a show about Spain, I was delighted. Especially since Craig and I are going to Spain this summer--we leave at the end of next month!--so I expected a lot from "Spain: On The Road Again," his show with Gwyenth Paltrow and Mark Bittman on PBS....
The Ultimate Reservation
For the past four years, every since I knew about it, really, I've been e-mailing El Bulli--frequently cited as the best restaurant in the world--for a reservation. And almost like clockwork, I get an e-mail back a few months later stating that because of intense demand (800,000 people applying for 8,000 possible reservations, according to Wikipedia) my request couldn't be honored. That is until yesterday......
