September 12, 2023 Lunch - Picnic at Ourense’s Public Mineral water pools. Dinner - O Birran Gastropub in Ribadavia, Spain

September 12, 2023 Lunch - Picnic at Ourense’s Public Mineral water pools. Dinner - O  Birran Gastropub in Ribadavia, Spain

We slept a little late this morning but arrived at the dining room a few minutes after 10:00.

I must state right up front that the Casal de Armans Winery where we are staying has the top rated restaurant in the area that is Michelin recommended. We made a reservation for lunch in two days.

After we were seated for breakfast I saw there was a small ramekin filled with fresh tomato compote, so I asked for two fried eggs and then toasted a slice of brown bread.  I took a small pile of Serrano ham and spread the tomato compote on the toast and garnished it with slices of cured ham, which is sliced ultra thinly and ate a wonderful breakfast.  I also ate a bowl of the best granola I have eaten on the trip with yogurt and washed it all down with the best fresh squeezed orange juice I have drunk on the trip.

We then drove to the tourist information office in Ourense where we obtained a map of the Ourense mineral water baths, which we then drove to.

There was an attendant who spoke some English who directed us to the 100 degree pool that was the coolest of the four.

After we soaked for about an hour, it was 2:00 so Suzette fetched our picnic basket and we sat at a granite picnic table shaded by the trees growing along the Minho River and ate our lunch. We mostly ate the uneaten slices of ham, salami, and cheese left from our tasting at Soalheiro Winery yesterday with the best bottle of rose we have drunk in days produced by Quintas del Melgaco in the same area as Soalheiro in the Vinho Verde  wine district of northern Portugal near the Minho River.  It tasted like a blend with lots of Albariño and was a delightfully smooth and pleasant rose. Thanks to the kid in the wine store who recommended it when we asked him for the best rose.

For dessert we shared a party we bought at the Divina Grula bakery made by the nuns at a nunnery in Guimaraes that was chocolate and sweetened spaghetti squash with almond slices on top baked inside a small ice cream cup.  It was charming and delicious.

We then drove back to Ribadavia to find a laundry but it was closed as was the tourist information office and we realized we were back in Spain where most service providers other than bars and restaurants close from 2:00 to 5:00.

So we returned to Casal del Armans at 4:00 and I napped until 6:15.

We then dressed and drove back to the laundry and Suzette took in two bags of laundry to to washed, dried, and folded by tomorrow at 6:00.

We then retraced our path to the Plaza Mayor next to the castle and parked and walked to tourist information but it was closed until 10:00 tomorrow.

It was 7:30 so we sat at a cafe and Suzette drank a beer and I had a water and a bad glass of wine.

Suzette found several good restaurants in the area including a large restaurant on the other side of the plaza. We settled on a gastropub that was a two minute walk from the plaza named O Birran.

When we neared the small plaza dominated by the small Magdalena church we saw signs for Barrio Judia and plaques on the ground with Hebrew words. We asked a waitress who was setting silverware on tables when the restaurant would open and she told us, “8:30”.

So, we walked on a lateral street past an old Taberna out to an old entrance of the walled city and saw several more Jewish references and took photos of the entrance and a section on the remaining outer wall and enjoyed walking the narrow winding streets of this old city.

I later found that:

When King García I chose Ribadavia as the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia (1063-1065), the first Jews must have arrived in Ribadavia though we can say that the Jewish quarter formed around the 12th and 13th centuries, encouraged to do so both by the settlement of Jews since the 10th century in the neighbouring area ...

So there was a concentration of Jewish people in this area where the buildings date back to the 12th century.

The winding streets and old intact buildings are celebrated to this day in an annual festival as a proud reminder of Ribadavia’s role in the history of Galicia and Jewish people’s role in that history.

We then walked back to O Birran restaurant at 8:30 and sat at a table under the old arched portal next to the small plaza in front of Magdalena Church in the Jewish section.

We ordered two glasses of a 2022 Monica Albor blend of Treixadura and Godella grapes of Ribeiro that was fruity but not particularly to our liking. 

The waitress was very knowledgeable and recommended an octopus dish and Suzette found a dish she wanted to order using her translation app on her phone to translate the menu; Anchovies with Burrata and Romesco sauce.

When the waitress returned to take our order we had finished drinking our first glass, so then asked the waitress what wine might go with the two  dishes we ordered and she said, “Semi”. So we ordered two glasses of the wine she recommended and it was a wonderful, well balanced and complex Ribeiro with a lightness of fruit, a 2022 Mauro Estevez blend of Treixadura, Albariño, Godella, Loureira, and Lado grapes, numbered bottle 5005.

Soon the anchovy dish arrived and it was also fabulous; a pile of large smoked anchovies resting on two halves of a ball of burrata with cream oozing around the edges and into a dollop of Romesco Sauce on the side that bled from red into pink as we mixed the cheese and Romesco sauce with bits of anchovy.

The two things we liked about this dish were that it was incredibly easy to make once you have the Romesco Sauce. Suzette said this dish will likely appear on her Spanish Journey menu for November and December. So we discovered a new dish.

Second, the three ingredients in this dish retained their unique characteristics and flavors but together complemented each other, so that when combined as one bite, created a uniquely unified flavor. That is a rare and noble result in gastronomy and identifies this restaurant as a gastropub.

Traditionally, when you order anchovies, you are served a few anchovies laid on a plate with a little olive oil drizzled on them just as they come out of the can or jar.  O Birran took the traditional rendering a couple of steps further.

The next dish was a take on the most traditional dish in all of Galicia. Pulpo Galicia. Pulpo Galicia is usually sliced boiled octopus drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with paprika and served on a wooden platter.  It is found everywhere and is essentially the same as chicken fried steak or BBQ brisket in Texas. This dish was named “”Pulpo con Tutilla”.

But what was done with this dish was to place a layer of  sliced cooked potatoes on the wooden board before the layer of octopus, then the boiled octopus and then the sprinkle with paprika and then a crumble of local cheese was added on top of the Pulpo Galicia and the whole wooden platter was broiled in the oven until the cheese melted and several top edges of octopus got crisp.  The result was fabulous.  Again an integrated dish was created with disparate flavor elements that united into a complex and tasty combination that went well beyond the original traditional parameters of the dish.

We loved the food and especially the wine but for the sake of our stomachs, neither of which were in great shape, we stopped eating and drinking.

It was 9:30 and by the time we walked back through the Jewish section, the Plaza Mayor, and the illuminated castle to our car and returned to our room up the hill it was 10:00.

Bon Appetit