August 21, 2023 Picnic at Muniellos National Park nature Center Dinner - Parador
I awakened around 8:00 and showered and we’d then went back to bed to rest and exercise until Suzette awakened around 9:30, when we got dressed and walked to the breakfast dining room.
We were brought two metal pitchers, one with hot coffee and the other filled with hot milk. I also took a small chocolate filled pastry sort of a pain au chocolate and a round raisin pastry, both made with puff pastry from the buffet tables.
After breakfast we walked to the Monasteries of Coria Winery enotienda that adjoins the Parador and appears to have bought the Clos and cave that originally was part of the Monastery that is now the Parador.
We tasted a dozen wines, liqueurs, and vermouths and bought a wild cherry liqueur and an apple cider liqueur and two red wines, a blend of three local grapes and a bottle of one of the three grapes, abarin negro.
We then walked down the ramp from the winery’s enotienda to street level where an information office is located. The lady and man showed the best route to Ribiera and told us about a road through the Muniellos national park with beautiful views located ten miles from the Parador.
So we returned to the room and put our groceries into our cooler and drove to the park. After a drive of about 15 miles we arrived at an education center high on a hillside overlooking several valleys. There were a series of trails that started at the education center and a number of tables in the shaded area under the education building. We ate our lunch at one of the tables in the shade. The temperature under the building lwas comfortable while the temperature in the sun in the parking lot was 84 degrees.
We drank the last of our bottle of Tempranillo Reserva and soaked pieces of baguette in the delicious cucumber, tomato, and onion salad garnished with slices of the new aged goat cheese and slices of serrano ham and chorizo for a wonderful picnic.
We then returned to the Parador stopping to take a few pictures.p (see above).
I rested and Suzette zoomed with staff for 2 hours. It was 5:00 p.m. in Spain and 9:00 a.m. in New Mexico.
At 7:45 we dressed and went down to the bar for a before dinner drink.
The most exciting things occurring in the afternoon were that Suzette swam in the indoor pool and I discovered that my goose down pillow was missing. I went to the reception desk and reported the loss of my pillow and was promised someone would look for the pillow after 5:00 in the day’s mountain of dirty laundry.
Around 8:30 we were approached by Nieve, one of the reception attendants who grew up in a Spanish speaking home in Australia and speaks perfect Australian English as well as Spanish. She told me the pillow was found and was back on my bed with a new Parador pillow case also. I admitted that I loved sleeping with the pillow and was very grateful to have it back. Nieve said, “I know exactly what you mean. I have a16 year old who still has a blankly.”
We sat on the outside patio of the bar that surrounded an area planted with an assortment of trees including a California sequoia. Sequoias were planted in the north of Spain beginning around 1940. The bar attendant told us this one was 60 years old. It was beautiful with a trunk diameter in excess of six feet at the ground and appeared to be 50 to 60 feet tall.
We ordered two glasses of cava and walked around a second patio next to the tree patio that was filled with a formal privet design.
We also visited a typical monk’s room at the end of the parador.
We wandered back to the bar and ordered a red vermouth and were served a Martini vermouth and potato chips, which we finished at 8:30 and then walked to the hotel dining room for dinner.
Suzette liked the simple but elegant prayer wheel and lace decorations in the dining room.
The restaurant’s menu was not extensive but contained several interesting offerings.
We put together a splendid four course meal.
We started by ordering a bottle of one of the wines we tried at the Monasterio de Coris winery this morning, a red blend of Carrasquin and Albariñ negro grapes grown and produced in this valley and a bottle of cold still mineral water named Mondariz that stole the show. I have never drunk a better bottle of water.
Then an amous bouche of a tomato mousse and fish mousse on a Melba toast was served.
Then our fist course of seven sautéed scallops sauced with a balsamic and olive oil on a bed of baby arugula was served. We soaked up the sauce with pieces of the dark bread served with the scallops. We never tire of the sautéed scallops in this region that are usually served with their milt and in a light olive oil garlic sauce.
The next dish was steamed and sautéed leeks laid on a bed of Romesco sauce with dots of Hollandaise sauce. Suzette said she could replicate this dish better using our steam oven and smaller more tender leeks and would include it in her next Spanish journey meal at the Bistro.
So we collected a new recipe tonight.
Next was the entree. A dish we would never attempt. Slices of venison on a bed of mushroom ragout and a Demi-glacé with pine nuts and several dots of sweetened apple and quince sauce. The mushroom seemed to be shiitake. The dish combined a wonderful combination of dark forest mushroom flavor, mixed with strong meat flavor of the Demi-glacé, mixed with the bright fruit flavor of sweetened quince and apple sauces. We q could not have been happier.
Soon after the waiter cleared the last dishes he brought us a dessert menu. We were not keen on dessert but took a look anyway. Suzette soon saw a dessert that piqued her interest. It was Beetroot cream with fruits and walnuts, so we ordered one. It turned out to be a cider glass filled with yogurt mixed with custard and beetroot juice with a liberal quantity of glacéd fruits and walnuts mixed in. So one would take a spoonful of the pink flavored yogurt and get several pieces of fruit and nuts; a very light, healthy, and delicious dessert. And the second best thing of the night.
The whole meal came to 101€. So about what we paid for our meal at Gloria, the Michelin restaurant in Oviedo, and our last meal at Frenchish in Albuquerque.
We finished dinner at 10:30, so it lasted two hours.
We went back to the room to my newly found pillow.
Suzette went to sleep and I blogged this entry.
Suzette counted this another good day with two good activities: wine drinking at a new good winery and a beautiful drive in the country and picnic lunch.
Bon Appetit
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