The first…just outside the town of El Pont d’Armentera (where we soon would be returning for our feast of calçots). The ruins of the tiny village and castle of Selmella.

Next on to the region of Querol which is a hilly area near the river of Gaià. The castle of Saburella sits high on a hill looking over its once domain.

Along with the beautiful landscapes, we encountered a few unusual landmarks.

And now….for the food! We went to a great restaurant called – La Sort, and tried to get our fill of the calçots and the heaping plates of artichokes, beans, and grilled meat.

Add in drinking wine out of a communal porro and funny bibs for keeping romesco sauce off the clothes and you have the recipe for a good time. The use of a porro is an acquired talent, but lifts the act of drinking wine out of the hands of the snobbish and into those not afraid to wear their wine (at least for the amateur).

An excellent way to spend a Saturday!

View Larger Map

At ESPAISUCRE, we fight for the right of the restaurant dessert to be seen as an element with its own personality and codes, where the result, the sum of technique and experience, quietly blurs the limits that separate the concepts of sweet and savoury.

Nothing could have prepared us for the molecular gastronomy that awaited us.
The menu (these are just a few of the courses)

• “Marialuisa” cold soup with green apple and spicy yoghurt ice cream and pineapple foam
• Flowered flavour: raspberry sorbet, hibiscus soup, rose ice, tomato foam, red wine gel
• Extra virgin olive oil cake, white peach sorbet, green olive and “San Simón” cheese whip
• Empyreumatic (i can’t begin to explain this thing. meringue, chickory ice cream (did not like) and beer foam (oh god it looked like a drunk had hiccuped on my plate)
• ”Ginger ale”, cucumber and pineapple-tarragon sherbet
• Truffle mushroom, butter ice cream, hazelnut, cocoa

Because our group was large, they had put us in the private dining room. As we perused the menu, a little collective gasp had gone up over the prices. Yikes, this was an all or nothing commitment into daring eating. The waitstaff was stiff, uninterested in our jokes and laughter, and on more than one occasion were not interested in telling us what we were eating. I know that the language barrier was apparent, but we had two local Catalans with us and several others who were fluent in Castellano. Oh, I haven’t even mentioned the bacon ice cream! I cannot remember the dish exactly but it involved pineapple in some form of foam, whip, ice, cake….it did not work for me. Others at the table did enjoy it, saying it reminded them of the ham & melon combo that is very popular in Spain. Nope, not for me. That and the beer foam (see ‘Empyreumatic’ above.) But the rest of dinner was amazing. I was truly surprised that these “creations” that looked so intimidating could taste so good. The one that most surprised me was the olive oil cake with peach sorbet and cheese and olive whip. My palate did a little dance.

Now for the official Jason review….

The food was basically just crazy good. I’d never imagined that asparagus ice cream in a tomato broth could be so good (or at all good, for that matter). Oh my god, was it good! The unsweetened asparagus ice cream cut the acidity and sweetness of the screamingly fresh tomatoes beautifully.

My duck breast with dark chocolate was also wonderful, and reminded me a lot of a really well implemented molé. Can’t go wrong there. And olives go spectacularly well with white peach ice cream, one wouldn’t think that would work, but it worked amazingly.

The last course was an arrangement of more traditional sweets which were almost uniformly wonderful. The curry galletas were phenomenal, and so were the chocolate and coconut chupachups (suckers) and the sesame wafers. Hell, they were all yummriffic!

But there were a couple of duds. The helado de mantequilla (butter ice cream. yes, you read that right) was pretty icktacular on first taste. I liked it a lot by the end of the dish, though. And the beer foam thing Corrie mentioned didn’t go over generally well.

Oh, and of course, since this was a menu del degustation (tasting menu), each course had its own accompanying wine served with it. Butter ice cream doesn’t really mix too well with sweet desert wine or any other food. But by the same token, nothing can taste too bad when you’re on your sixth glass of wine…

The only real problem was that the restaurant didn’t make us feel welcome. We were there to have fun, but they wanted to offer us a stiff and officious dining experience, even though we were in their private dining room. I’m a firm believer that at a price point like this, the waiter should be adept at figuring out the type of dining experience his clients want, and should be able to adopt that role on demand. Ours eventually loosened up, but not until Ivan jokingly asked for a bottle of ketchup, at which point the waiter finally cracked a smile and banned him for life.

All in all, a fascinating but expensive dining experience with intensely original food from an intensely original set of chefs, some trained at the (in)famous El Bulli. Wonderful and interesting, but all things considered, pimientos del padron and pa amb tomate are probably more my thing.