September 18, 2023 Lunch - Cabralequia Snack Bar Dinner - Bendia Restaurant
We are slowing down a bit as the trip winds down to the last week.
Today we did only one thing, we drove to the cave in Arena in Cabrales, that has an exposition of the making of the famous blue Cabrales cheese, although Suzette walked on the beach to a cave exposed at low tide in the morning.
We started the day with a coffee at the hotel. Then we stopped on the way to Arena de Cabrales in a small crossroads town of Unquary??? to buy pastry and a cup of chocolate and a chocolate croissant, a loaf of bread, and some fruit at a fruteria.
We then wound our way along a narrow two lane road literally cut out of the side of mountains along a creek 23 miles up into the heart of the Picos de Europa to Arena de Cabrales. Cabrales is the name of the region and Arena, the name of the town, and after some hair pin curves found the Cabrales cheese Foundation, that sits beside and on top of a cheese cave located by the small river running through Arena.
We bought tickets and soon joined a tour of a typical cave where Cabrales cheese was being aged, a description of the cheese making process, and finally a tasting with a glass of apple cider. The cabrales was served on two forms, one was a slice and the other a creamy paste made by blending chunks of cheese. The creamy paste was more piquant. Both were served on small squares of Melba toast.
We were told there used to be 40 Shepard families that made the cheese, but now there are only 29. Cabrales cheese has received DOG designation
After the tasting it was approaching 1:00, so we decided to get some lunch.
We drove into the small town of Arena and parked in front of a small snack bar named. La Cabralquia.
It was 12:45 and we were told they opened at 1:00, so we waited and then ordered a bottle of cider. Cider is the drink of choice in this rural part of Asturias.
We were told that the annual cycle in this high isolated mountain region was to heard the goats and sheep up onto the mountain pastures in the spring and summer and to use their milk to make the cheese that the family would store in the caves and eat during the winter to survive.
The same can be said for cider. The abundant harvest of apples was processed into cider and thus preserved for consumption during the winter.
So cheese and cider are two of the bed rocks of Asturian diet and culture.
We may have stumbled onto a third at La Cabralequia, conserved or canned meat and vegetables.
Many of its menu items relied upon canned meats. At least the ones we ordered.
We ordered a plate of three pate’s, blood sausage, a wild boar, and a Cabrales and meat blend that was served with bread.
The waiter mistakenly thought we ordered asparagus, which in this area of Spain means conserved/canned white asparagus packed in water and served with mayonnaise,
Finally, we ordered a hot tapa of onions stuffed with spider crab.
Soon the waiter brought one of those silly but efficient cider servers that shots the cider into a glass placed in the server’s wire holder at high speed which aerates the cider that makes it more effervescent and pleasant to drink.
Then we were brought a plate with three small mounds of tinned meats, the blood sausage, wild boar, and one of Cabrales pate mixed with a meat pate with a basket of hard Melba toast squares that are sold in cellophane wrappers and then a basket with chunks of baguette several minutes later.
Then he brought a plate with six white asparagus in the water they had been canned in with to rosettes of mayonnaise.
Looking up at the high mountain peaks surrounding us in this small village that so recently had become accessible by torturously winding roads cut through mountain valleys and world famous for its cheese I could look back in my mind to before its current days of fame and roads to the winter days of isolation in this valley with only those things you could store during the winter to eat; cheese, cider, a few tins of meat, and hard bread.
Finally, we were served the onion stuffed with spider crab, which was two onions cored out and stuffed with some tinned crab meat glazed with a tomato sauce and olive oil and baked in a round ceramic baking dish. We ate the onion sparingly to avoid the greasy sauce but again could imagine how the red greasy sauce flavored with tomato and fresh onion would be a delicacy would be a delicacy on a cold winter night to be savored with a fresh loaf of bread.
After a second bottle of cider and our light lunch we went shopping for a slice of cabrales cheese and perhaps some ham.
We parked and wandered into a small grocery store that had a meat counter in the back and soon found a thin slice of cabrales. The lady who helped us sliced six slices of pork loin for us also and we bought a bag of ice put in our cooler.with the meat and cheese.
We then retraced our path back along the 23 mile circuitous road back to the village of Unquery??? And then the last ten miles to the hotel arriving at 3:30.
We were tired and Suzette had to work, so I napped and read while she took her laptop to the sitting room and worked (Mirador has beautifully appointed sitting rooms and a card room and terrace) until 5:30, when she returned and rested for an hour.
We then walked along the road past the Los Emilios restaurant that was temporarily closed for vacation until Wednesday to where the road ended at the beach and rocks and back to the Mirador and made a reservation for 8:30 for dinner in Mirador’s lovely, Bendia Restaurant and then returned to our room.
We decided to drink one of our wines and watch the sunset on the small terrace at the basement level beside the top of the stairs that lead to the beach.
We opened a bottle of the chilled Casa Latta rose from our cooler and poured full glasses with added ice cubes and took the elevator down to the basement level.
When we stepped out the door onto the stairs to the beach and access to the terrace, we were the only people on the terrace.
So we sat and talked and watched people on the beach and gulls sailing on the air currents over the beach in the late afternoon sun until the sun set.
At 8:30 we returned to the restaurant and initially were seated on its outdoor terrace, but since the wind was blowing, we soon became chilled and moved inside and Suzette fetched my sweater from the car.
We determined that since we were not on a meal plan we would order from the a la carte menu. As soon as we saw the English translated menu, we found three items that appealed to us both, cream of lobster soup (lobster bisque), fried clams, and the fish of the day, which today was monkfish.
We then looked at the wine list and picked the Albariño that was not the cheapest, Fillaboa, that had both bright fruit flavors and pretty high acidity. It went well with our seafood choices and to sip after the meal.
We were served bread and a small appetizer of foie gras mousse on a thin baguette toast topped with a marmalade and hazelnut that was fabulous.
The first dish served was a couple dozen small clams that were steamed in wine and water with a liberal amount of shaved garlic slices and just a little butter. We were thrilled that the clams had not been fried and that they had been prepared almost the same way Suzette prepares clams, except that Suzette adds more butter.
We ate the clams on pieces of baguette dipped into the broth as bites of a yummie steamed clam poorboy.
Things get lost in translation when Spanish menus are translated into English because of the disconnect between cultures.
The other two dishes were served together, the grilled monkfish and lobster bisque.
When Suzette tried the monkfish. she immediately said, “This under cooked.”
So we sent it back to be grilled a “little mote” and tried the lobster bisque which was lovely that had a sautéed scallop and some black in of squid.
We liked the bisque a lot and just as finished it the plater of monkfish and sautéed potatoes and mayonnaise was returned. The monkfish was now grilled perfectly and flaked when cut with a knife or fork plus it was hot of the grill so deliciously warm.
We loved every dish for two reasons; there was practically no salt used in any dish and the dishes were prepared the way we would prepare them.
We loved dinner and still had some wine kleft so I poured it out into zsuzette’s glass and we decided to go sip it in the sitting room where American songbook covers were being played on Spotify, such as Rufus Wainwright singing “Over the Rainbow”. I stopped at the bar and asked the bar tender who was also the maitre d’ to pour me a Torres 10 year old aged brandy.
He filed a large sniffer with a rather large pour. It was 10:30 and there were still folks dining when we left the restaurant.
We were the only ones in the sitting room. We sat and sipped and talked about all the good and bad experiences of the trip so far, until 11:25 when we went back to the room and bed.
I woke several times during the night and blogged, finally finishing this entry at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday.
Not much happens commercially in Spain until 10:00 or 10:30, so we have learned to sleep in. We will drive to the National Museum of Archeology at the Altamira Cave today.
We considered it a successful day with insight into how cabrales cheese entered the world of gastronomy from its simple survival origin and with a wonderful gourmet meal cooked to our standard and in our style of cooking topped off with a good brandy. The Torres brandy had a smooth caramel flavor and rolled down the throat without and burning sensation.
I shall look for it when I return home in a week.
Bon Appetit
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