Spanish – Writing With My Mouth Full

Txikito

240 Ninth Avenue between 24th and 25th Streets
212/242.4730
$230 for four, with a bottle of wine, with tip
♥ ♥ ♥

I will always be impressed when someone can make something out of almost nothing. When that something is different than usual, I’m even more in awe of the skill that comes with that thought in the first place. At Txikito, there are some skillful people in the kitchen. Take my silverfish salad. Silverfish is easy to find in Chinatown; and cheap, too. At Txikito, they toss them in a light batter, fry to make them crunchy and serve them atop a bowl of wild arugula leaves. Then there are the leeks; poached and then drizzled in vinaigrette and sprinkled with chopped boiled egg. The dish is similar to one of Blue Ribbon’s signature dishes and it worked just fine on our table full of pork. My ultimate favorite “cheap” dish was the beef tongue, made crispy and served with mustard and cornichons. I relished the fact that the other two people at our table ate them–and liked them–because they had no idea what they were eating.

And then there are the dishes that take a lot of preparation and warrant the price on the menu. I’ve eaten octopus carpaccio a few times before, but the Txikito version is one of the best ones. Perhaps tenderized by slapping each piece against a chopping board (a la Jewel Bako) and then drizzled with oil, lemon juice, marjoram and some chili, it was tender and crunchy at the same time: a texture that might be weird to some, but really good to me. The suckling pig special was the most expensive on our bill at $30, but it was succulent and tasty; the meat melting off the bones and all the fat dripping down the crispy skin–pure heaven.

The blistered serrano peppers were hotter in the end than I would have liked; the Catalan version I savored in Barcelona was much sweeter. The crab meat gratin was tasty but unexciting. The blood sausage was wrapped in crispy egg-roll skin; it killed me to pay $8 for them. The small sandwiches of unsmoked bacon seemed out of place with the dinner items, but I liked the finger-food presentation.

Our waitress was very patient and brought out everything in perfect timing and order. One of us never experienced Spanish pintxos before, so I watched the waitress patiently explain the food choices to him. We selected a lot of meat, but she made sure the seafood and vegetables came in between. On a busy Saturday night, they let us stay until 11:30pm even though we were one of the last tables around. As we exited the restaurant, our inexperienced friend said, That has got to be one of the best dinners I’ve had in a long time. Txikito is good for that, but also excellent for someone like me.

Boqueria SoHo

171 Spring Street between West Broadway and Thompson
212/343.4255
$70 for three, with drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

I felt like I got the gist of Boqueria SoHo after I stopped by for “dessert” with my brother and sister-in-law during its second weekend. We walked in around 5:45pm to eat an early dinner but were turned away because the bar was full. The maitre d’ refused to seat us fifteen minutes before the official start of dinner service. It seemed like a ridiculous rule only a person with a clipboard would impose, so we went to Snack around the corner instead for a better dinner.

My companions really wanted to taste some Spanish wines, so we returned after dinner to try and score seats at one of the long tables in the middle of the restaurant. We were seated immediately by the beautiful pata negro and a few spots away from a swollen-looking Bobby Flay.

We started with beers on tap before we moved on to the full-bodied red wines. Because we were only there to pick and taste, we shared the Garrotxa goat cheese, the Valdeon blue and the Idiazabal, a smoked sheep’s milk cheese. A smattering of salchichon was thrown in the mix for a few extra dollars. The Brussels sprouts with sausage was a favorite, as well as the roasted green peppers I learned to love while I was in Barcelona.

Two years ago, I said the food at the first Boqueria needed to be more inspired. It’s more refined here in SoHo, but the attitude need not match the neighborhood.

Rayuela

165 Allen Street between Rivington and Stanton
212/253.8840
$103 each for a group of 8, with 3 bottles of wine and tip
â™¥

As soon as we walked up the steps to sit at our 8-person table, I thought Rayuela had promise. It was a bit too dark to read the menu without holding it up against the lamps, but the lighting made for a very intimate ambiance. We had a reservation and didn’t have to wait to be seated and except to remind the sommelier to bring out our third bottle of wine before our desserts came, service was pretty attentive.

But what about the food? Rayuela bills itself as a Freestyle Latino which “respects yet redefines contemporary Latin American and Spanish cuisines”. It stays loyal to that all throughout their extensive menu but what’s missing was the warmth of home-cooking I’ve always loved about those cuisines.

I probably ordered the best ceviche in the group: Siete Potencies or lobster, shrimp, scallop, crab, clams, mussels and octopus in a green tomatillo sauce. The crab and shrimp ceviche in lychee and guanabana citrus sauce was too sweet for me. Did I already mention that all the ceviches came in martini glasses? I could have done without that style.

I liked my steamed white asparagus with crabmeat, spinach, onions and roasted almonds just fine tossed in a lemon vinaigrette, as well as my octopus and chorizo served with paprika, tomato and olives, which lead me to think that sometimes you should just stay safe rather than sorry. I feel like the more traditional dishes just about made it and the more experimental lacked a coherent bind. Two of us split the duck breast marinated in sugar cane and it didn’t work with the pan-seared foie gras. The arepa was like a hurried addition to make it more Latin. Another person did good damage to her tenderloin, but left all the mushrooms untouched. The Ecuadorian seafood stew, I heard, wasn’t worth the $24 price.

At least the unlisted Malbec bottle the sommelier offered us for under $60 kept the group happy enough to fork over their hundred dollars. Nice try, Rayuela, but I think I’m okay with arroz con pollo that’s not $22.

El Quinto Pino

401 West 24th Street off Ninth Avenue
212/206.6900
$83 for two, with a lot of drinks, with tip
â™¥ â™¥

Bar Jamon was the last loud and crowded bar I fell in-love with here in New York City. That was more than five years ago. I’ve been to many good bars since then, but only El Quinto Pino has reminded me that all I need is good wine with some good company to make me completely content and happy. Add a small selection of good tapas in the mix and you’d have to push me out the door to get me home.

The anchovies in olive oil and the warm chickpeas with spinach reminded me of eating in the boqueria in Barcelona. Simple dishes like them don’t need big introductions. I liked the braised pork sandwich better than the breaded cod, but the pig’s ears salad, cold and crunchy, was the one that stood out. The deep-fried pork belly cracklings are dangerously addictive. The uni panini might just be the perfect tiny sandwich, spiked with a little horseradish to surprise your palate.

There are no tables at El Quinto Pino and you’d be lucky to get a spot at the bar before 11pm. People are in a very good mood, though, and the vibe is infectious. Matt, the bartender, always makes me feel special, calling me by name as soon as I situate myself at the bar. I’ve witnessed girls and boys alike giggle when he comes up to them. Once, I sat next to an annoying customer who complained about eating sardines when he expected anchovies, and the manager appeased him with a free dish and a glass of wine. My last three visits have been accompanied by several glasses of Cantabria 2003, and even when it’s most crowded, I’ve never had to wait for my glass to be refilled. At El Quinto Pino, I can have another, and then another.

Update: I know have a case of the Cantabria wine from El Quinto Pino’s wine store, Tinto Fino.

Pamplona

37 East 28th Street between Park and Madison Avenues
212/213.2328
$180 for five people, with drinks and a lot of comps, with tip
â™¥ â™¥

I can’t say that I remember much of our night in Pamplona, but when you dine with four other women, you’d bill forgetfulness as a good thing, too. I was half an hour early, so I sat at the bar for a glass of wine. Being Filipino and alone, I’ve gotten used to being approached by men with the “Are you Philippine?” line. The older man next to me was such a gentleman, I couldn’t refuse his offer to recommend and buy me a glass of Spanish white wine. Of course, it turned out that his daughter-in-law is Filipino. My friends arrived and more rounds of complimentary drinks followed.

When our new friend left to catch his Knicks game, we were finally seated. We’ve made enough ruckus in the front of the restaurant that Chef Alex UreÃ±a stepped out to introduce himself. We were famished and ordered the entire appetizers menu to share, and later, the chef sent out several other plates with glasses of sparkling wine to end our night properly.

Some of the memorable dishes included the asparagus salad with thinly-sliced chorizo, topped with frisÃ©e and baby greens and dressed with pimiento. A meatball dish with eggplants disappeared quite fast, too, with a semi-sweet sherry sauce. I’m not a big fan of shrimps, but the Manchego rice made them fuller and beefier. A suckling pig dish was described by one of my Dominican friends as something better than Christmas pork.

One of the things that makes Pamplona irresistible is the fact that the chef serves the dishes he is familiar with, albeit, minus the foam that he learned at El Bulli and experimented with at his first restaurant, UreÃ±a. Nothing is complicated on the menu, but most of the dishes were straight-up delicious. Tapas fans will also be glad that the prices won’t break the bank and critics will appreciate that the previous interior design has been stripped to make the space more intimate and inviting.