Writing With My Mouth Full

Where to eat in Barcelona, Spain: Boqueria

More tapas places are opening up in New York City, but Barcelona just has the culture down. Where else but in Spain can you eat a decent bowl of stewed tripe for breakfast? Where else will you be spared a quizzical look when you order razor clams for a snack? And toasted bread rubbed with a grilled tomato and garlic? Thank goodness for those Galicians. Red wine with every meal whether it’s 9am or 4pm? Bless their hearts.

At the buzzing boqueria, or the central market, produce sellers co-exist with hungry shoppers and camera-happy tourists. Walk around and you can buy the freshest fruits and vegetables. Fish, clams and lobsters are around the corner. The store across the way has all kinds of meat and dried sausages. Stand behind those eating to make sure you get the next empty seat because we ate some of our best meals there.

When we first arrived in Barcelona, we had a few hours to kill before we had to catch the 6-hour bus ride to Vielha, the nearest town to where we were supposed to begin our hike up the Pyrenees. Our first meal of the day was at El Quim.

Everything they have to offer was written on the chalkboards. Specials are updated daily and we learned to ask for the price before ordering because a plate of mushrooms drizzled with balsamic vinegar cost us â‚¬16. We later saw the fresh mushrooms being sold in one of the vegetable stalls and they were really going for at least â‚¬8 for half a pound. The sausage was fried and when I took a bite, its crunchy skin snapped and I was rewarded with that kind of heavenly taste only sausages and bacon can give a human being.

We returned to the boqueria two more times. While still in New York City, we ended up talking to a bartender who is also an expat. He recommended Pinotxo, or Pinocchio, so we couldn’t fly back without trying. It’s always packed because it’s the first eatery you will see when you walk in the market and for several other reasons: white anchovies in good olive oil sprinkled with paprika, stewed garbanzos in fatty goodness, beef with white beans and flan for dessert. The service is brisk but they’re so used to tourists that they’re very accommodating towards those who have no qualms about eating whatever they have to offer and to those who make a face when they suggest something.

At Kiosk Universal, we were finally able to get our fill of razor clams. I’ve never been a big fan because no matter how much you clean the diggers, they will always be sandy. They were still good, though, and any excuse to have more good olive oil and bread is acceptable to me.

Casa Mono

52 Irving Place corner of 17th Street
212/253.2773
$120 for two, with two drinks, with tip
♥ ♥

Mario Batali took a lit bit of convincing to let Chef Andy Nusser open up a Spanish tapas bar under his name, but as told in Heat, a tasting knocked their socks off. Two years after they first opened, the place is still packed and the wait to sit at the bar is still long. We went out one cold night after I wrote about Barcelona with plans on eating at Bar Jamon but I’ve been there so many times that I just wanted to see how its sister restaurant compared. Without reservations, the wait for the bar was an hour. We put our names down anyway and waited in the pub down the street. One Guiness later, the maitre d’ called to seat us. We put our coats back on and ran back to the restaurant where he gave us two choices: a table that we will need to give up after an hour and a half for another couple who actually had reservations, or at the bar where we can watch the chefs cook. Which do you think we chose?

We split four plates and a dessert with our small carafes of red wine. We saw that the Cal Pep of Barcelona had its influence here with their deep-fried green peppers and chipirones, or baby squid, with garbanzos, or chick peas. The giant duck egg is also a mainstay but we skipped those dishes because we wanted to try something with Casa Mono’s own signature on it.

The cockles, or small clams, were cooked with sloppy scrambled eggs topped with scallions. It was a good combination but we could barely taste the clams. The sweetbreads were toasty on the outside and soft in the inside and the roasted fennel was a nice touch. I would like to think I’m difficult to impress and only good chefs would think of bringing two things like them together.
Speaking of another great combination, the pig trotters were made into breaded square patties sandwiched with white anchovies. The vinegary taste of the small fish provided a great balance to the overwhelmingly gelatinous and sticky quality of the pig’s feet. It’s definitely not for everybody but I loved it. (And if your dining companion ends up liking it, too, I suggest that you keep him.)

I had to admit that I only ordered the cock’s combs because I was tickled to say it. (What, the cockles weren’t enough?) Because they were cooked in a porcini reduction, they tasted like mushrooms even though they had the consistency of soft tofu. They looked like black slugs on our plates but the earthy taste was very addicting. Two scoops of plum ice cream with candied orange rinds and crunchy orange-flavored nuts were the perfect ending to these flavorful, sometimes oversalted, dishes.

Go to Bar Jamon if you want to have simpler tapas like cured meats, but Casa Mono is worth a try if you want to experience the Batali influence in Catalan cooking.

La Esquina

106 Kenmare Street between Lafayette and Cleveland Place
646/613.7100
about $18 for one, with one drink, without tip
♥

I celebrated my 2005 birthday in the basement of La Esquina. My guests and I had to walk through the door marked with an Employees Only sticker, down the stairs and past the kitchen to get to the dungeon-like setting of the restaurant. I had to reserve a table for thirteen pretty quickly with my credit card because the word had just gotten out about this “secret place.” I ended up throwing my party a day after Vogue Magazine did theirs.

Nowadays, I usually end up in their corner spot, called The Corner, for a quick taco or grilled corn on the cob. Whether it’s hot out or not, The Corner always has pretty people standing outside. But the cafe around the block is a much better place for a sit-down meal. The nopales, or cactus, salad is refreshing with tomato salsa and parmesan shavings. I also like their fish tacos. A chunk of grilled fish comes in a skewer on a bed of lettuce, tomato, onions and radishes with green salsa wrapped in warm tortilla.

My only gripe is that their tacos cost $8 for two. I’d eat more often here if I didn’t have to contribute to their rent, but alas, feeling like you’re a part of the cool crowd of New York City comes at a high price. For a more down-to-earth Mexican experience, check out my Searching for a Good Taco food project, but if you want to be seen and heard, La Esquina is still one of those places.

Chinese Tea Eggs

Right outside our Chinatown office, a line forms late in the afternoon in front of a Chinese man’s supermarket cart loaded with a huge pail of black liquid. I took a peek once and realized that hard-boiled eggs were floating in it. I’ve heard of tea eggs before but I’ve never had them, so the last time I walked by the cart, I bought six tea eggs for a dollar.

My Chinese friend Shao told me she grew up eating them whenever her parents would make them at home. I’ve read that they are traditionally a Chinese New Year snack, but nowadays people line up for them whenever they feel like eating eggs.

Back at home, I took the eggs out of the plastic bag, put them in a bowl and disposed the liquid. I noticed that the shells were a little bit cracked. When I took the shells off, the cracked shell made a pretty pattern on the egg. I did some research and found out that the marinade has soy sauce, star anise and cinnamon sticks together with the brewed black tea. The hard-boiled eggs are tapped gently in order for the shells to crack a little bit and then simmered in the marinade for an hour or two so that the black color stains the shell and the cooked egg inside, leaving that ornate pattern.

Eating hard-boiled eggs past noon might be weird to some people, but I had one while I was making dinner and I thought it was a lovely treat to keep the hunger pangs from gnawing.

New Malaysia

46-48 in the Chinatown Arcade between Canal and Bayard
212/964.0284
about $25 for two, without drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

Don’t let the hard-to-pronounce items on the menu stop you from ordering food from New Malaysia. For my first visit, I ordered the more traditional nasi lemak and the roti canai just to be on the safe side. After those two dishes, I knew I had to come back with a bigger stomach. When Anna’s Malaysian friend told me that New York has the best Malaysian food, I raised an eyebrow. I don’t know many Malaysian restaurants in the city except for the so-so Jaya on Baxter and the Indo-Malay Nyonya and Penang franchises, so I was willing to try New Malaysia as soon as I could.

I was more adventurous during my second visit and I ordered the asam laksa, a spicy and sour soup with lemongrass broth and crushed sardines. If it weren’t so salty, it would be my new anti-cold soup of choice. Too bad it doesn’t come in a smaller bowl. The kang kung belacan is stewed in shrimp and anchovy paste, much like how Filipinos cook the swamp vegetable (spelled kang kong). It seems a little steep for $8 a plate but we cleaned it off even with four other dishes.