August 29, 2023 Brunch - Lobster Omelet Tapas - Ham, cheese, and white anchovies. Dinner - Lobster, Octopus, and Chorizo Paella

August 29, 2023 Brunch - Lobster Omelet Tapas - Ham, cheese, and white anchovies. Dinner - Lobster, Octopus, and Chorizo Paella

Today was our first full day in Cambados and we returned to home cooking, Since we had accumulated a lot of ingredients and some awesome PPI’s the dishes we cooked were exceptional.

This morning we walked to tourist information around 10:00 and gathered a lot of information on the area including a list and map of wineries and which had won awards.

I was still not recovered from my hike of the wall and only ate a pan au chocolate before walking, but made it to tourist information, the supermarket, and back to the apartment with benefit of three sugar pills.

At the supermarket we bought coffee, Earl Grey tea, an orange, a baguette, a black tomato, lettuce, rice, a head of garlic, a cucumber, a dozen brown eggs, and a roll of fresh goat cheese.

When we returned to the apartment I ate goat cheese on slices of baguette spread with bitter orange marmalade and chopped some onion and then Suzette cooked scrambled eggs with onion and lobster.

I sliced more baguette and we both ate bread smeared with orange marmalade with the scrambled eggs.

I was done for the day and rested while Suzette worked until 1:30 and then  she walked to the palace and church and bought a bottle of the prize winning Albariño at a wine shop.

At 5:00 we decided to make tapas. I sliced more baguette and spread mayonnaise on one sliced and garnished it with a slice of serrano ham and slices of the new aged goat cheese we bought several days ago. I made a plain cheese Tapa for Suzette while she opened the container of white unsmoked anchovies we bought in Ovieto.

I drizzled the anchovies with olive oil and Suzette opened the wine and poured us glasses of it and set the table and bar stools out on the balcony and cranked the awning out so it blocked the afternoon sun.

We sat and ate tapas and sipped wine and enjoyed what we knew must be one of the best views in Cambados with an unobstructed view of the city and the surrounding countryside including the huge bay.

We were finally relaxing but Suzette wanted to make paella so I picked the remaining lobster meat out of the lobster shell and threw the shells into a pot to which Suzette added onion, three of the PPI grilled padron peppers and I added a sliced clove of garlic and filled the pot with water and she cooked the shells into a broth.

At 7:30 we cooked dinner. Suzette first cooked a cup of rice using two cups of the lobster broth.

Then she added some of the freshly cooked rice to the PPI rice and lobster prepared at the Penaalta restaurant that we ate for Suzette’s birthday on the 25th plus most of the octopus left from lunch two days ago and sliced 1/2 of the chorizo sausage and sautéed those ingredients into an instant paella and served it with the leftover brown bread from Suzette’s birthday dinner.

We poured glasses of Albariño and enjoyed a wonderful lobster, chorizo, and octopus paella with brown bread that we dipped in the flavored olive oil left from the dish.

We then poured out glasses of the wine and watched a cute movie called Monte Carlo on Netflix with a piece of chocolate.

At 10:00 Suzette went to bed and I blogged this entry.

Tomorrow we go back on the road.

I enjoyed resting today and our cooking all the PPI’s we accumulated from the wonderful meals we ate while we stayed in Figueres.

Bon Appetit

August 28, 2023 Lunch - Cafe Espana, Lugo

August 28, 2023 Lunch - Cafe Espana, Lugo

Today we traveled from Figueres to Campados by way of Lugo.

We ate another lovely breakfast, but today I skipped the pastries and instead ordered eggs and too some salamis and Suzette toasted us each a slice of brown bread plus the yogurt with fruit.

At 10:00 we drove to Lugo and by coincidence found our way to a parking lot one block from the Roman wall that surrounds the old center with open spaces. Lugo is one of a few cities that has an entire Roman wall still entitled and I wanted to walk the wall.

The second wonderful coincidence was that in the block between the parking lot and the wall was Cafe Espana, the Michelin recommended restaurant where we wanted to eat lunch.

It was 12:30, so on our way to the wall we stopped and made a reservation for 2:00 to give us enough time to walk the wall.

We took a liter bottle of water and I had two sugar pills and my collagen and Tylenol to be taken at 1:30 and started walking. The length of the entire is 6000 ft in circumference and it took me a bit longer than 1 1/2 hours but I made it without my muscles tightening.

Lunch at Cafe Espana was the reward for walking the wall and it turned out to be the third coincidence of the day, the best meal we have had on our trip.

Our ordering was quixotic and created several wonderful coincidents. I had my heart set on a salad of lettuce, tomato, and fresh tuna.

The waiter said those are two different dishes, so I said okay and Suzette selected a third dish of beef ravioli with truffles and potato foam that sounded so fantastic that we had to try it.

We ordered a bottle of Albariño named “the Escape” in Spanish that was a little drier than yesterday’s rebiera.

We asked to split the dishes, but were served a double portion of a the tomato salad, which turned out to be a wonderful coincident because it was the best tomatoes we had ever tasted. It had three kinds of tomatoes all of which were peeled and garnished with slices of shaved Parmesan cheese on top with a dressing that included slices of pickled jalapeño pepper.  The Roma tomatoes were especially dense with a burst of flavor that verged on sweetness   The other two were equally interesting in a different way. One was firm and dense similar to the Roma and the other was lighter and fresh tasting. I asked the waiter if the Romas were confited and he said, “No, they are just natural tomatoes.”

The tomatoes were not natural in any world we had ever eaten tomatoes in, but we happy to be in that world for a few minutes.

The second course was a thick 1/2 entrecôte of grilled Bonita served on a pile of chunky mashed potatoes with a tomato coulis and a beautifully grilled padron pepper that was sweated all around, so very tender. It was the best fish I have tasted in a while. The waiter informed us that this is the time of the year that this special kind of bonito is available off the coast north of Lugo and this bonito is different that the Bonito del Norte that is an albacore tuna. So the second dish also included special ingredients.

The third dish was the most unusual and creative we tasted. In a bowl  super creamy potato foam was on bottom, then some pulled beef on top of that, covered with a soft rice paper wonton square on top of the beef, sauced with a thickened au jus sauce dotted with small balls of black truffle. Again, I have never tasted any black truffle ball like these and have no idea the techniques used to make them, but the effect was terrific, small firm balls of black truffle essence that you could break open with your teeth and chew; a truly fantastic dish. Our waiter told us that the beef that was cooked until it fell apart was actually oxen that the restaurant raised on its farm. Our translator app had mis-translated oxen as beef.

We were impressed that each of the first three courses contained amazing flavors generated with fresh local ingredients.

We had to drive another hour to two so we ordered coffees. I could not resist the opportunity to sample a dessert, so I ordered a chocolate soufflé with mandarin orange ice cream.  We had to wait about twenty minutes so I guess it was cooked in the kitchen. It had soft runny center and firm sides, like a molten cake, and the mandarin ice cream was lovely and it was accompanied with a pastry extruded pile of whipped cream garnished with fresh red currants, a blueberry and a strawberry.

All in all, an amazing meal for 111€.

We then drove to Cambados and with the help of our hostess got settled in in time to have a drink of the Monasteria de Coris cider vermouth and watch the sunset from our balcony.

Another day when a late lunch from 2:30 to 5:00 was the last meal of the day.

Bon Appetit

August 27, 2023 Lunch - Pulperia Mario, Viviero

August 27, 2023 Lunch - Pulperia Mario, Viviero 

We took breakfast at the hotel. I ate fruit, eggs, salami, yogurt with granola, and a very delicious almond cake made at the hotel with a lovely course almond flour.

                                     Suzette’s breakfast with Quiche Lorraine

We then drove west to Viviero, that is about 40 Km. west into Galicia to see to see Europe’s largest Eucalyptus forest. As we passed Foz we began seeing lots of eucalyptus and by Viviero the lower hills were covered with them.

Viviero is an old walled city, but only three of the gates remain, although some of the walls have been excavated. We went to tourist information and got a map of the city and surrounding area including a map of a forest road to see the eucalyptus forest.  

The old town was just a few blocks from tourist information so we started walking along the bay and then turned and walked up a street toward the center of old town past one of the churches with mummerer sculptures.

                                    The mummers

We turned just past the church at a lateral that appeared to traverse the middle of old town. We were correct it appeared that the street went to the west gate but just before we reached the street that connected the east and west gates was a pastelleria and since I did not take a sugar pill and it was after noon I felt a pastry would help me maintain my energy level to walk through old town.  I picked a Neapolitan with cream and a horn filled with cream for €2.20? We then walked to the east west transit street and walked down toward the main Carlos V gate until we came a small plaza that had two cervezarias. We sat down at one of the tables in the plaza and I ordered a large cappuccino and Suzette ordered a small beer. We were served three churros with our drinks and I ate the pastries with coffee and Suzette helped me eat the churros that seemed to be dipped in syrup or wet sugar.

After our snack I felt refreshed and we walked down the street and out the gate and along the river back to our car. 

                  

                                 The main gate we walked out of 

 Along the quay Suzette noticed how many had interesting windows.

                                  

We then decided to drive up into the eucalyptus forest along a loop road.

Near the top of the green ascent we approached a restaurant named Pulperia Mario when a car pulled back out of a perfect parking spot, which I took as an omen that this was the place for lunch and pulled into the parking spot.

We had not eaten octopus yet and octopus was something we wanted to try. So what better place than a Pulperia to try pulpo.

We took a table outside and asked for a waiter or waitress who  spoke English.  Soon a lady came out and we asked about the menu. We asked if served grilled octopus with garlic sauce. She replied, “We do not grill octopus here, we serve it Galician style with paprika cooked in olive oil with fried potatoes and padron peppers.

We said, “Okay, we do not want the potatoes and do not want the pulpo salted, but we will take bread and what about wine?

She replied we have a good local wine we serve by the carafe and half carafe.”

We said, “Okay, we will have a 1/2 carafe of wine if we can taste it first.

She brought us a glass with about an ounce of delicious wine. It was complex and balanced between sweet and dry, probably Ribiera, so we ordered a 1/2 carafe.

She said, “Okay, that will be an order of pulpo Galiciana, 1/2 carafe of wine, and an order of peppers.”

We gave in to the reality that we were no longer in control of this food trip and said,”Great.”

Soon a plate filled with grilled padron peppers arrived.  We soon learned that they had a large seed pod in the center and the best way to eat them was to strip off the skin with your teeth. They were a little piquant but not overly hot. Then in a few more minutes a small plate filled with the most delicious tender octopus slices arrived dusted with paprika. We ate and ate octopus and peppers and dabbed pieces of bread into the olive oil in which the octopus was served.

We only ate 1/2 of the food that we were served so the lady was kind enough to bring us a to-go plastic box and we packed up the remaining Octopus, peppers and bread.

I

We then continued up the road to the lookout high above the city of Viviero that again is a river that has a long bay where the river meets the ocean that creates a very secure and deep protected harbor.

We then drove to the eucalyptus forest area where the lady at tourist information had directed us. It was a very narrow Jeep trail that went deep into the forest without any interpretive center.  We finally decided to turn around because it got very scary. We made it back to the main road and as we drove back to Figueres we saw mile after mile of eucalyptus trees.  We decided we did not need to go off the road to see the forest. It was all around us. We enjoyed the drive and the smell of eucalyptus was pronounced all along the road, although this was a different eucalyptus than the one in Australia. This has a long thin leaf, not a small squarish leaf.

We were still feeling the warmth of the padron peppers after the 40 km. Drive back to Figueres, so we drove down to the port in Figueres and ordered two 1/2 liters of Cerveza Alhambra Rojas, a darker beer very similar to Negra Modelo but not as bitter.

  

We watched people sail and boat out to the sand bar in front of Figueres that became exposed at low tide around 6:00.

This is a magical area of Spain with its three or four villages surrounding the large bay that forms the boundary between Asturias and Galicia.  We loved visiting it and staying in a grand old hotel.

Tomorrow we will drive to Cambados on Galicia’s western coast by way of Lugo that is another walled city and Willy’s favorite.

It is 8:00 and we are back in the room and have no desire to eat after our first encounter with Padron peppers and pulpo. 

At 4:30 we woke up and I nibbled some bread and cheese with a glass of wine and enjoyed the view of Castropol from our sitting porch.

Bon Appetit