Skip to main content

On Arzak... a post in eleven dishes

Being a somewhat average human, with a somewhat average human's earning capacity, my experience of Michelin-starred restaurants is limited. So when I visited not only a Michelin-starred restaurant, but a 3-star Michelin-starred restaurant, you can bet I would be TELLING EVERYONE I KNEW ABOUT IT.

Ahem.

And so, I give you the degustation feast of restaurant Arzak, San Sebastian.

A blog post in eleven dishes.

Apparently not the start of the meal, just a teaser. Moringa and prawn (PINK) gyoza on the left. Banana and squid in the tree bamboo-thing on the right. Of course. (Forgive the crap photos - I took them in a blind panic not wanting to be 'that person' even though I was very clearly 'that person'.)

Still haven't started yet. Just a taster! Marinated sardine and strawberry.

Again, just a hint of things to come! 'Cecina' and kalamata on the right. Eel rod on the left with the log. I despair of people who never have a log on their dinner tables.

Right, now we're getting into it. Fitting considering was probably the prettiest dish of the entire meal bunch. Tuna with 'patxaran' and purple corn. Yep, purple corn because yellow corn is so last season.

Clearly winning the Ugly Sexy prize was this beauty here. Probably one of my favourite dishes.
Scarlet prawn with krill - aka marinated prawns on lemongrass and mint served with an unctuous (?!?) preparation of beetroot and crunchy krill.

No, wait. THIS dish was my favourite. Egg with corn - aka egg with tomato candy, 'pozole' corn and cordyceps (aka my new favourite word).

Okay, brace yourselves. Monkfish Cleopatra - aka grilled monkfish together with pecan nut paste and HIEROGLYPHICS forms of pumpkin and chickpea (which was legit the most amazing combination of flavours. So Egyptian-y.)

The meat sweats began even before this dish was brought out. We were thoroughly boozed at this point and could barely remember what it was like to be hungry. But still, I got through it because it was one of the best cuts of meat I've ever tasted.  Sailor's lamb - aka roasted lamb with anchovies, teff and broccoli stalks.

At last! We thought. Dessert! Near the end! We thought... Summer frost - aka summer frost with acai and fruits. 

And then the SECOND DESSERT appeared and we wanted to cry. Instead, we ate it because it was delicious and we're human. Square moon - aka lunar chocolate cube with a fluid core of mint, neroli and kiwi on the left and The Big Truffle - aka large cocoa and sugar truffle with a creamy chocolate and carob filling (which actually deflated spectacularly, and on purpose, when the syrup was poured over). Oh, and two servings of ice cream. One was pineapple and one was I can't remember because we were two bottles and a bit o' cava down by this point.

AND THEN CAME THE THIRD DESSERT AND WE LAUGHED TO KEEP THE TEARS AT BAY. I must be honest and say I didn't love the frogs. But I did eat them.


N.B: In case I haven't made it clear, every.single.part.of.every.single.dish.was.a.taste.adventure.I.want.to.go.on.again.except.for.the.frogs.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the existential crisis of the weekend

  Weekends used to be what life was for. Two days of freedom and relief from the weekday routine, from the grind of office life, from waking up with an alarm. The sweet, giddy euphoria of a Friday night was made all the more intoxicating if you had plans to socialise, go to a gig, watch a film, eat at your local Italian. Not only did you get your socialising/culture/food fix in, but you then had two more days of doing the very same thing. The weekend also offered endless pottering-around-the-house hours since usually it was a space you scarcely saw during the week. A Saturday started with a little light cleaning was one sure way to make you feel as if you were ahead in the productivity stakes, and made the Netflix binge that followed feel earned.   Friday night was balanced out by the cold sweats of Sunday evening but still, the weekend was always worth it, regardless of whether you didn’t move from the couch after Friday night work drinks, or beca...
Post a Comment
Read more

On my first trip abroad

  I took my first overseas trip when I was in year eleven. It was to Noum é a, New Caledonia and it almost didn’t happen. The trip’s purpose was to improve the French language skills of those of us insistent on studying French during our last two years of school, believing the subject a necessity for our futures when we would most certainly be in Paris living our best French lives being all Parisian and speaking fluent French and just being all chic in our Frenchness and you get the picture. The first step on this road to being so Frenchy so chic, was a week’s trip to this South Pacific island wherein we would live with the locals, have 3-hour French lessons each day and immerse ourselves in the otherworldness that comes with visiting a place far removed from that in which you live. But whether it was the 3-hour lessons or the 3-hour flight, not enough of my classmates put their hands up to make this trip a reality. Cue teenage woe-is-me angst, the shedding of many tears, thr...
Post a Comment
Read more

On learning a new skill

So how many new skills have you mastered during this Covid-19? Are you fluent in Latin? French? Turkish? Is your personal brand lighting up Twitter/Instagram/Facebook as you sell the wellness candles you cooked up in the kitchen after you created an online festival but before finishing a new dress made from scraps around the house you can wear when you next meet a friend for ‘exercise’ with a keep cup full of ‘coffee’? Spoiler, it has wine inside. Thought so. But guess what. It seems that if you haven’t managed to generally improve yourself, and a substantial number of people online, during this dire time of unprecedented crappness, then apparently you’re doing it wrong. (Bonus points if said improvement was expressed in a language other than that with which you were born). Having missed this chance at enlightenment earlier in the Covid-19 mayhem, this week I decided to give it a go. To change up lockdown life for the better. I vowed that no longer would I spend my ...
Post a Comment
Read more