September 16, 2024 Lunch - Culler de Pau

 September 16, 2024 Lunch - Culler de Pau 

Today was one of those rare events that folks like me can count on the fingers of one’s hands, a 14 course meal at a two star Michelin restaurant.

The restaurant was Culler de Pau, located near the beach near O Grove about a 30 minute drive from the house we are renting in Combarro.

https://www.cullerdepau.com/en/

We ate a light breakfast and then at 12:20 drove to the restaurant, arriving a few minutes after 1:00.

We were directed to a seating area next to the kitchen garden where over 300 plants are raised for use in dishes and served glasses of vermouth made from leftover wine and herbs from the garden.

 The dominant flavor was of anise. At 1:30 we were guided to our table for seven in the dining room up stairs with a view of the ocean through 12 foot high glass.

Soon the meal began, but first a small ceramic glass filled with herbs and a thin cucumber soup was served. We were told to drink the soup without removing the herbs. Tarragon was one of them.  It was delightfully refreshing.

I will only describe several of the dishes I especially liked, but here is the menu and pictures of most of the dishes, each on interesting ceramic or wooden plates or bowls.

                                                                   The menu of dishes

                                                                 The cucumber soup

                                                             A wedge of tomato in foam

                               The beet root sandwich, the mushroom sandwich and the flowered pickle

                                  The most beautiful and tastiest dish, a pickle garnished with flowers

                                                The mushroom sandwich and garnished pickle

                                Baby white shrimp with oriental garlic

                             Cambados scallops with kiwi balsamic 

                              Albacore tuna on baked fermented rice

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                        Pickled asparagus and vegetables from the garden

                                                    Crab filled cannelloni in crab stock soup

                                                                          Chard soup

                                                 Egg with San Simon cheese with bread crumbs

                                             Vinegar monkfish with capers on red pepper sauce.

                                                               My least favorite dish 

                                      Tempura fried monkfish skin. My favorite dish

                              There was even a bread course. With chunks of homemade bread.

                                         Grilled pork loin with baby eggplant in foam and carrots

          Dessert - ice cream with olive oil and gratinee of apple

     Dessert - donut shell dusted with cocoa and stuffed with hazelnut cream on bed of caramel rocks

                                                       Palate cleanser - honey and yogurt

                                                      The extra desserts or chocolate course 

We drank three bottles of wine, two bottles of 2020 Pazo Senorans albarino, aged 18 months on the lies with the fish courses, a really lovely bottle with no acidity and a bottle of Mencia the sommelier recommended for the pork dish that was also quite nice that expressed Menchia’s typically earthy aftertaste and low acidity.

We did not leave the table until 5:00 and again we were directed to the pergola in the garden where we were served coffee or teas made with herbs from the garden. I drank a spearmint tea.

I particularly liked the raw scallop covered with a kiwi cream on a dab of balsamic and decorated with a small begonia flower.

Also the mushroom sandwich was excellent, a thick mushroom pate sandwiched between two ultra thin rye crackers all of which was precisely cut in a round.

After the tea and coffee it was 5:30, so a four hour meal. What a way to spend a day!

For those who are interested in what a meal like this costs, the meal cost $150 each and with the addition for all the wine, water, and other beverages it totaled $200.00 each.  

Billy and I paid for the meal from our trust given to us by our mother, who was a gourmet cook and loved meals such as this. We dedicated the meal to her and toasted her as the person who put us on the track to enjoying such a meal with the years of gourmet food she cooked for us and others.

We drove home and fell into bed and Suzette and I rested and read until 10:30 when we shared a cup of Greek yogurt and went to bed.

Luke, Mickey, and Rebecca drove to Pontevedra and returned around 10:20 and the watched a movie on Netflix.