Our trip to A Coruña could be counted as 3 days, but the first day included the drive up along with everything you read about in last week’s post. The third day, to save you any suspense, was simply waking up, having a light pastry and juice breakfast that we’d socked away earlier, and then driving back home to Braga. This day, day 2, is really the one with good meat on the bone. Art, archetecture, and a hell of a meal, all rolled up in one lovely Wednesday.
We were up and out with a very light plan for breakfast – “find something”. That’s not our usual strategy, but we had plans for a nice lunch so we figured breakfast – especially since we slept in a bit and weren’t exactly rising with the dawn – could be simpler. We found a nice little spot in Café Hispano, the name of which made John giggle a little only because the decor was decidedly Anglo-American in focus, with vintage Guinness and Coca Cola signage all over the walls. Lisa helpfully pointed out that A Coruña is a port-of-call for cruise ships and this was almost definitely designed to lure those folks in; fiiiiine.
After breakfast we meandered a short little ways to the Marta Ortega Pérez (MOP) foundation, which is tasked with bringing in high-caliber art exhibitions for the enrichment of the populace. We’ve got a whole ‘nother post just on the place and the exhibition we saw, otherwise this will be an all-time long blog post. For now, here’s a bit of a tease for an upcoming in-depth post about Penn and his work.
After seeing Penn, we wandered around the city a bit, stopping for orange juice and people-watching. Then, a bit early, we went to El de Alberto. This (Michelin Bib Gourmet) was a bit of a shot in the dark (Lisa didn’t know about its M. rating before booking it) especially since they don’t share their menu (even a sample) online. Word of the mouth for the win, baby!
We each had the tasting menu, 53eu for seven courses, plus dessert (eight dishes altogether). They don’t do a wine pairing, but David, our excellent server, recommended several wines from their “by-the-glass” offerings that worked beautifully. We started with a black carrot in a curry reduction and shaped like a single sardine on the plate. Our second was a “sushi roll” of tuna tartare wrapped in thin-sliced cucumber with mango, a ginger sauce, and topped with dots of wasabi mayonnaise. We then enjoyed lightly seared and smoked mackerel on a sploosh of onion crema encircled by dots of wasabi mayonnaise. David showed us that we should pull from the outside of the circle inward to capture a piece of fish, thus allowing each bite to include all of the ingredients. The fourth dish was razor clams, chopped and cooked in a beurre blanc — seemingly a departure from the typical menus, based on looking at what others were having. This was likely due to Lisa’s single food allergy because other diners were enjoying scallops presented on their shells. (No idea about the dish otherwise.) Our next dish was roasted hake over creamy paprika potatoes topped by green beans. Just at the edge of seafood surfeit, we were presented with a rich beetroot risotto, dotted with bleu cheese (and Lisa switched to a Rioja). The seventh dish was roasted Iberico pork over an onion cream thickened with potatoes. Dessert was a tray of white chocolate “donuts” filled with a bischoff (cookie) cream.
The service was impeccable, they genuinely cared that we were enjoying ourselves and each dish was delicious. Neither of us care for razor clams — it seems impossible to get them tender instead of chewy so even the rich deliciousness of the beurre blanc didn’t change our mind. The risotto blew us away with its perfect texture and we will eagerly seek it out at our next visit. The donuts seemed overly sweet after the rich meal, and we each only tried one and had no interest in any more. A lovely chunk of chewy, tender, bread was provided at the outset and was often employed to surreptitiously sop up a bit of remaining sauce.
Replete, we happily paid our — brace yourself — 132eu (13eu for wine and nearly the same again for water added to the food bill), and ambled back to our room for a bit of a lie down.
Here’s a gallery of images (not ours) of many of the dishes we ate.
