September 16, 2023 Lunch - EntrePiedras in Castrillo de los Polvazares, Dinner - Vermouth and Tapas at Vermuteria Rio in Astroga
Another amazing day. We started with coffee and tea and a slice of homemade cake and a chocolate covered puff pastry in the Hotel Gaudi bar around 10:00.
Then we walked to the Roman Museum and toured it. Astroga was the site of a Roman walled city, remnants of which remain as well as lots of artifacts, like funerary headstones and Roman coins.
After touring the Roman Museum, which is built in part in the exposed part of a barrel vault that was part off the Roman forum that is across the street from the ruins of the baths, we walked the four or five blocks to where the walls of the city used to be on the west on an elevated plateau that provided a natural line of defense.
On our way back to our hotel we stopped at a bakery and bought four almond flavored biscuits and two chocolate croissants as emergency back up food or breakfast, whichever came first.
At around noon as we walked from the bakery, we stopped at Vermuteria Rio about three blocks from our hotel and had a cup of hot chocolate, the thickness of which most closely resembles warm chocolate pudding.
When you buy a drink at a cafe, you usually receive a tapa related to the drink. In the case of the hot chocolate, we received squares of allspice cake that we tore and dipped into the thick chocolate.
We also stopped at a specialty food shop and bought a small bar of orange flavored 38% chocolate and a 900 gram bar of 80% cooking chocolate. Astroga is a chocolate making center in Spain dating back to the days of Hernan Cortez’ conquest of Mexico when cacao was first brought back to Spain. We also stopped to look at a fancy confectionary and pastry shop.
Then at 1:00 we returned to the hotel and fetched our car and drove out of town along a road that paralleled the Camino and saw lots of pilgrims walking out of town.
We soon came to a small town around 1:30 named Castrillo de Los Polvazares that was built all of stone and drove to the small restaurant named Entrepiedras (in the middle of stones) that was highly rated.
We were attracted to Entrepiedras by a menu item, roast duck stuffed with plums.
Although everyone seemed to be ordering the Comida de Dia that featured a regional mixed grill meat stew named Comido Maragato and garbanzo bean stew, including to pilgrims sitting next to us, we ordered off the a la carte menu.
We ordered an asparagus cake. Then Suzette ordered a blood sausage pie and I ordered roast duck stuffed with plums.
We also ordered a bottle of water and a bottle of the house wine, which turned out to be a Leon region Mencia red wine.
Soon the pastel of asparagus arrived with a lettuce salad dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The pastel was a gelatin of milk, and emulsified white asparagus, very light and lightly flavored of asparagus.
It was delightful and very unusual.
We then were served the blood sausage pie, which was also very interesting, a mixture of ground blood sausage, raisins, and pine nuts wrapped in puff pastry and baked. It was fabulous. Think of a calzone in croute.
Then a little later a small wok shaped pan was served with the backbone and leg quarter of a duck buried in a mass of oil, plums, prunes and sautéed onion. Some of the duck that was next to the pan surface had become hardened and glazed with plum flavor. The leg quarter was intact, but most of the breast had fallen off or had been butchered off the bone.
I tried not to eat too much, especially the oily medium to avoid another unwelcome reaction from my bacteria in my gut, but enjoyed every bite, and washed each down with a sip of red wine.
Finely Suzette convinced me to stop and we sipped the rest of the red wine and ordered a dessert of chocolate molten cake.
I was amazed at myself. I only ate two or three small bites of chocolate cake served with whipped cream.
I guess the big cup of chocolate two hours earlier satiated my chocolate craving.
My gut bacteria must have liked the duck meal as much as I did because we happily drove back to the hotel and napped from 4:00 until 5:30.
We got up and walked in the other direction to look at the church and a ruined section of the Roman wall. We then visited the Episcopal Palace that Antoni Gaudi designed to house the region’s Archbishop. It is a fantastic building with beautiful interior elements and an extensive museum of artifacts and items accumulated by the Catholic Diocese of Astroga, which is one of the oldest in Spain, apparently dating back to 254 CE.
One of the most amazing aspects of the Palace’s interior was the extensive use of hand painted earthenware tiles. The building was finished after Gaudi’s death using his design and the work of many master craftsmen.
We finished our visit to the Gaudi Palace around 7:30 and headed back to Vermuteria Rio for some serious vermouth tasting.
Suzette has become fond of vermouth on the trip and wanted to taste several Spanish vermouths side by side to find a favorite to buy.
We tasted seven reds and three whites. Suzette prefers red. Suzette decided that she liked both the red and white produced by Guerra best.
It was hard to pick vermouths to try from the inventory of over 50 different choices, but
several were clearly not to our liking.
We were served a plate of tapas with each of the three selections of vermouth. There was so much food and wine, we simply stopped drinking and eating after a while.
Slices of pork, canned mussels, anchovies, sardines, and tortilla Espanol were served on thin slices of baguette and there was an interesting sautéed onion wrapped a small flour tortilla and lots of green olives.
After our grand experiment which cost €16.50 that satisfied our hunger, thirst, and desire to find a good Spanish vermouth, w e returned to the room.
I had gotten a call at the Vermuteria from Rahim during our vermouth tasting that he had sent me a contract to review, so I reviewed it and then started this blog and then went to bed.
Tomorrow we travel back to the coast and Asturias and on our way visit a Tito Bustillo Cave, a Paleolithic shelter with wall paintings that is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
http://www.centrotitobustillo.com/en/2/la-cueva/24/cueva-de-tito-bustillo-patrimonio-mundial.html
Bon Appetit
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