September 1, 2024 Breakfast - Panaderia Frances Lunch - Sotovento. Dinner - two bites of cold monkfish and a bite of scorpion fish pate’ with a sip of Rioja White wine

September 1, 2024 Breakfast - Panaderia Frances  Lunch - Sotovento. Dinner - two bites of cold monkfish and a bite of scorpion fish pate’ with a sip of Rioja White wine 

We are trying hard to lose weight, but I need nutrition in the morning. So at around 10:00 this morning we loaded our dirty clothes into the car and went looking for a laundry to wash and fold the laundry. We did not find one so we drove to the town square and went to our now favorite Bakery that has a very French approach to baking and really strong coffee that Suzette prefers.

Suzette ordered her usual, a cafe con Leche and a croissant. I needed more energy so I ordered a glass of orange juice and an apple filled pastry, much more finely crafted than the flaky apple turnovers offered in the U.S., I even the apples in sauce were cut into squares.

The 

After the breakfast, we walked down the street to the automatic laundromat. A crowd of skateboarding back packers were emptying their back packs into the washing machines. 

What was interesting was that the laundromat was within the same block as Sotovento, the five star restaurant where we reserved a lunch time of 1:30.  

We returned to the Posada and sat out on the terrace and read and sipped a beer until 1:00 when we drove back to the area of the restaurant and found a good parking spot within two blocks of the restaurant. 

We arrived about 1:20 and were seated. Sotovento has fine linens p, glassware, and silverware. It is essentially a husband and wife operation with about ten tables. There is a daily menu. Here is the menu for today.

The wife waitress said we could share and that is exactly what we did. We split the leeks with a seafood salad, a sea urchin shell stuffed with a uni and crab cake sort of stuffing and an entrecôte sreak on a bed of potatoes cooked with a local cheese and onions garnished with a puff pastry topped with a slice of Cabrales cheese. We decided upon a bottle of Martin Codax sparkling cava to go with all the different foods and ordered water and bread. 

Soon the senora brought us a bowl with four mussels in a paprika broth as a house appetizer. We dipped pieces of the sourdough dinner roll into the broth and ate it with the mussel.

The first course was a leek confit resting of a seafood salad of marinated shrimp, mussel, octopus, and fish on a platter decorated with little pastry stars of mayonnaise and reduced balsamic. We loved this dish. It was a wonderful dish and the most creative of the three dishes.

The second was not as successful, sea urchin shell filled with a crab cake flavored with sea urchin. I could not taste the uni and found the crab cake filling doughy and over seasoned. We persevered.

Finally, the carne was served. A filet grilled to rare on pile of butter sautéed potato slices garnished with a rectangle of puff pastry on which was a slice of cabrales, on top of which were a walnut and several candied plum pieces.

We liked the steak although it had veins of grizzle that had to be surgically removed.

The Martin Codax Espumoso was lovely, aged 24 months on the lies in full methode Champenoise.

We passed on dessert to try to stay on a semblance of a diet.

Then after this sublime meal came the ridiculous.  We returned to our car and toted our laundry under our arms to the laundromat and washed our laundry.

When we finished we took it back to the Posada and backed up it away and rested.

At 8:30 we went out to watch the sunset and snack on monkfish and scorpion fish with a potato and piece of bread.

Bon Appetit