In which I pass up the pig

Hotel Palaciode la Velada, Ávila, Spain, March 31, 2013—

WE RETURNED TONIGHT to a place I remembered much liking last time we were here, a number of years ago — snug parlor with fireplace, big L-shaped dining room, white tablecloths, dark heavy beams, lots of game trophies on the walls.

I'd had sopa Castillana for lunch, not a very good one at one of the cafés on the Mercado Chico, but didn't let that stop me from ordering it at dinner, and I was glad. This was a fine version of the classic dish: torn bread in tomato-flavored hambone stock, with a fine egg broken into it just before serving. I eat half with the spoon, then lift the soup-bowl to my lips, that's the kind of guy I am. Delicious.

I did pass up the cochinella, though. Instead, I ordered the ternera a la plancha, which turned out to be a veal cutlet, a little dry and overcooked, I'd say, with nice little pommes frites on the side. Dessert was a fine almond ice cream with chocolate ice cream and whipped cream.

Rioja, Cune (Crianza), 2009: very approachable and mature (in half bottle)

• Meson El Rasto, Plaza del Rastro, Ávila, Spain; 920 21 12 18

Suckling pig

Hotel Palacio de Los Velada, Avila, Spain, March 30, 2013—

WHEN IN SPAIN, one eats suckling pig. At least we do. We dined on cochimillo last night, in Madrid, and we did so again tonight, an hour's drive and an age away, in Avila. It was a scientific experiment, devised to search the pure truth. This requires finesse, discipline, and care. It isn't easy, but someone has to do it.

Last night we ate at what the Guinness Book of Records lists as the Oldest Restaurant in the World. We've eaten at other Oldest Restaurants in the World, in Rouen for example, but I wouldn't dream of quibbling. When we left the restaurant we looked in on the kitchen, where a Filipino cook who spoke perfect American English was cleaning up after the last service. He pointed out the handsome tiled wood-burning oven where our piglet had been cooked: the original oven he assures us. Well, then, I said, be careful with it, it does a great job, you wouldn't warn the place burning down on its account.

Goya waited tables here, it"s said, while waiting to qualify for the art academy — that would have been in the 1790s, I suppose. The place reeks of nistory, and does a fine job of maintaining its reputation for authenticity. Our pork was succulent, a little inaccessible for cradling and little bones, thoroughly satisfying. One must eat here, once or twice; one does not need to return on every visit to Madrid, I think.

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TONIGHT IN THE COLD NORTH, in Avila, after a walk around the upper Old City, and attendance at the Sabato Sacro procession, we stopped in at a place I"ve been wanting to try, in a building whose hotel accommodated us very nicely a few years back. here I began with Sopa de Fideos, thin but substantial soup with angel hair pasta cut short, and went on to the suckling pig.

If Botin works successfully to maintain its reputation, this place works just as hard to develop its. I thought the pork just as well chosen just as well stores and prepared, just as well cooked and served as last night"s, and perhaps to slightly better effect. The flesh was a little dry, but there was no extraneous juice left on the plate. The skin was crackling-dry and resonant, but not leathery or difficult. Slight edge to Avila, I think.

Tinto, of course, t Hugh one of these days I'd like to try a white Rhone with this dish

• Restaurant Botin, C/de Los Cuchilleros, Madrid; 913.664.217; •Las Cancelas, Cruz Viejo, 6, Avila, Spain, 920.21.22.30

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Location:Madrid, Avila

A l'Asturiana

Hotel Zurbano, Madrid, March 28, 2013—

IN YEARS PAST, here in Madrid, we've liked La Fuencisla, on the Calle San Mateo, no. 4. Naturally I looked it up yesterday, our first day here, only to find it was in some question, with only a one reference on the Internet — dated July 4, 2007. The glowing description corresponded with what I remembered of the place, but was followed by three troubling and enigmatic comments:

Gerardo, 12:34 pm: There was a time I wanted to reserve, but no one answered the telephone. Is it still open?
Anonymous, 1:21 am: It's closed Señora Teresa died and it closes
Anonymous, 12:53 pm: She isn't dead and functions perfectly

Now that last entry is ambiguous, No esta muerta could conceivably refer to either Señora Teresa or the establishment itself, if you stretch a grammatical point. So today we simply stopped by to see for ourselves.

Well, not so simply; I had described the location imperfectly in my book Mostly Spain, which I was ill-advisedly using as a source. Down one street and across to another we went, asking in at shops and apartment-house doorways, finally closing in on the location, where we found a hot-dog-and-hamburger joint-cum-cocktail-lounge, where a young man was perched on a ladder at the front door, washing the transom.

Is this La Fuencisla, I asked, doubtfully. Yes and no, he answered, La Fuencisla was here, but it changed four years ago. It changed, I said, did it change a lot?

Go in and have a look, he said, it's not the same. I peered inside. No, it was not the same at all. No old men playing cards at dusty tables, a bottle of wine at the elbow; no promising dining room beyond. No Señora Teresa of the delicious eponymous soup. Oh well: there was a perfectly acceptable place not far away, at the Center for Asturian Culture…

There we found the capacious and rather sleek dining rooms completely booked — no surprise; this is a holiday, Holy Thursday. We were given a nice table in the bar, though, with a plate of soft blue sheep's-milk Cabrale already at the center for us to dip hunks from a nicely-textured couronne of bread into.

We consulted the quirky English-language menu, featuring such things as mixted salad and seaworthy clams, and then compared it with the Spanish original, and ordered: a mixted salad, the house tortilla; a couple of ham tortillas, a bowl of soup for Mel, and — since I was hungry — ventresca, tuna belly. And expeditiously everything was brought at once, family-style, the tuna last, after we'd had a chance to do justice to the rest.

The Spanish tortilla is nothing like the Mexican one: it is an omelet. The house tortilla, though, was something else again: a huge wedge of what looked rather like a pink somewhat grainy angel cake: raw tomato purée folded into the beaten eggs, which are then cooked slowly, I'd guess, covered, in a casserole. The result is surprisingly delicate.

Mel's soup arrived in a big tureen, and the mixted salad was easily enough for the four of us, some of us twice. The ham tortillas were apparently quite good; I didn't get a taste. And my tuna was delicious: poached, perhaps, in olive oil; innocent of lemon or parsley or any such distraction; moist and succulent, and accompanied only by a few pleasant French fries.

We skipped dessert, but I had a very good espresso with my limoncello-like licor. Not quite up to La Fuencisla, but we live in the present…

Albariño, Mar de Frades, 2011: soft, present, nice finish—

• Casa Hortensia, C/Farmacia 2, 2a Planta, Madrid; 915 390 000

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Location:Madrid

Tapas in Madrid

Hotel Zurbano, Madrid, March 25, 2013—

AFTER TOO MANY meals, let's call them, on airplanes and in airports, we went out tonight, tired but in need of restoration — ah, that's why they call it that! — to a little place down the street, where we had tapas and a bottle of wine. We're with my Australian brother and his Australian wife, who had had an even worse journey, thirty hours all told, Melbourne-Abu Dhabi-Milan Malpensa-Milan Linate-Madrid, and were in even greater need of restauración. We asked for tapas, and were apologetically given a menu only in Spanish along with a plate of jamón,, ordinary Spanish ham, nothing fancy, but tasting faintly of maturity and industry, not the ultra-refined bland sort of ham we'd had under our Eggs Benedict a few hours earlier at Heathrow.
And then a salad of red peppers with tuna bellies, and bacalao croquettes, and young chorizo on toasts, and good bread and decent olive oil and a little salt. I like it here.

Verdejo, Protos (Rueda), 2011: smooth, good color and flavor, nice finish

• Restaurante La Nova, C/ Zurbano 83, Madrid; 914424902

Roast chicken

Santa Rosa, March 24, 2013—

CHICKEN FROM THE ROTISSERIE, that is. A Rocky, of course, free-range and all that, bought at the supermarket and finished and eaten at the home of a couple of old friends.
With it, delicious asparagus from someone's garden — first of th season, for me; always a welcome sigh of Spring. And leeks and carrots that Lindsey provided, as well as another tasty ice cream Sundae…

Sauvignon blanc, Kenwood, 2012; red table wine, "Friends.red" (Pedroncelli), 2011—

Potatoes!

Eastside Road, March 23, 2013—

EXACTLY THE DINNER I most enjoy here at home, and I did it all myself. Well, nearly all. The little potatoes, about the size of my thumb, came from the Sebastopol Farmers' Market; so did the sausage — Franco Dunn's Toscana sausage, poignant and determined. The garlic and rosemary came from our garden.

I cleaned the potatoes, minimally, and threw them and a few unpeeled cloves of garlic into hot olive oil in a black iron skillet, added the rosemary and salt — good sea salt. They didn't take long, at fairly high heat, covered, to cook; they were soon tender.

Then I sliced the sausages, say three-quarters of an inch thick, and tossed them in as well, and continued cooking, uncovered — Lindsey insisted — until they were done. That's all there is to it.

Green salad, of course.

Cheap Primitivo (Grifone, from Puglia)

Leftover corned beef; assisted

Eastside Road, March 22, 2013—

WE ARE INTENT on emptying the refrigerator; you'll understand why if you look in on this blog next week. Tonight, then, the last of St. Patrick's Day's corned beef and cabbage: mostly potatoes, as you see; one pathetic little carrot; a tiny remnant of that delicious cabbage; a small piece of corned beef.

Fortunately Lindsey took pity on us both and picked up a bit of Fra Mani ham, which she seared in the black iron skillet and added to the mix. Afterward, the green salad; then a nice ice cream sundae, with toasted pecans and chocolate sauce.

Primitivo, Grifone (Puglia); pleasant