We were just cruising by this place after getting a bit tired of pintxos crawling and as luck would have it they had a spare table for us. This is a classic restaurant that opened in 1948 and it is located on the restaurant street Fermín Calbetón in the heart of the old town. We sat at a comfortable table next to a tank of fighting lobsters and ordered the following:
Crispy vegetables, langoustines and gambas with a reduction of sweet sherry vinegar
. This was a bit dull, but the seafood was nice enough.
Alubias ‘Babarrun beltza’ bean stew with stewed cabbage, crispy bacon and salted pickled green chillies
, which David found to be delicious even though he hates cabbage.
Daniel had a
salpicón of lobster with tomatoes and a spidercrab vinaigrette
which consisted of most of a lobster and was incredibly delicious.
Our main courses were:
Palourdes grilled with salt and lemon
, once again an excellently prepared grilled dish that really showed the quality of the ingredients, although it was a bit salty.
Again Daniel ordered wisely, choosing the
grouper supreme with onion, apple, cider vinegar and butter sauce
. The richness of the butter was cut by the apple and cider vinegar to produce a very pleasing effect. The grouper was perfect, indeed supreme.
For desserts we had:
Chocolate mousse with coffee bean and orange ice cream
, which was really rather nice.
Orange sabayon and caramelised coffee strings
which was light and airy unlike Daniel’s dessert:
French toast with nougat, sesame seeds and refreshing goat’s milk ice cream
. This was rather stodgy and lacked clarity and focus.
All in all this was a pretty good meal, and not outrageously expensive either. Considering the quality of the food this was very good value for money.
Daniel and David.
