[Pigging by Wilfrid: August 25, 2008]
I took an apartment in a narrow, quiet back-street right behind La Bocqueria, which I regard as at once one of the most soothing and most stimulating environments in the world. If a little whiffy in the afternoon. But I made plans to eat in the Eixample.
(Reservations for 9pm were easy everywhere; by the time my dinner was concluding some time after 11pm, the places had finally filled up.)
Hisop is no longer a newcomer. It's in a sidestreet off Diagonal, about ten minutes by cab from Plaza Catalunya. Chefs and co-owners, Oriol Ivern and Guillem Pla have been displaying a creative take on Catalan flavors in this neat little box of a restaurant for almost ten years.
Indeed, driving around the Eixample in the first week of the trip, I noticed - in addition to a surprising number of Japanese options - any number of smart, swankily-designed little restaurants. I had come with recommendations, but it was clear I could only scrape the surface of how Catalan bec-fins eat now.
Hisop is designed like a puzzle box. The cool white space is broken up (as are the servers tunics) with red and black squares and cubes. As dinner unfolds, what seemed to be random elements in the decor turn out to be concealed drawers and cupboards. After a warm greeting, servers slide and back and forth, quietly, like well-carpentered drawers.
With flutes of cava came a choice of breads - olive, walnut, and a baquette - with finely contrasting olive oils - fruity from Tarrahgon and spicy from Cordobes.
The task of an amuse to refresh and stimulate the palate; it can also serve the function of reassuring you that everything is really going to be okay. It's the moment when you smile with relief, because you know these people can cook. Or in this case, compose a dish: a good oyster on a mild almond cream, spiked with ginger and a touch of garlic.
We had ordered the tasting menu, being permitted to make small adjustments for the youngest member of the party (which turned out to be unnecessary, as everyone ended up trying everything). I had planned on eating percebes during the trip, and was pleasantly surprised to be confronted by one at the beginning of the first restaurant meal. A cute little fellow too (it's a kind of barnacle), perched on a cube of watermelon, itself touched with crunchy rock salt.
You twist, pull and eat the soft part of the creature - and you can squeeze some more tastiness out of the hard shell part too. Briney meets salty meets fresh and sweet. There's a tart little scoop of ice on the corner of the plate too, although I couldn't puzzle out its derivation.
The first foie of the trip, and in retrospect perhaps the best. Generous slices, seared, and served with sharp cherries and a superior slick of chocolate sauce, perfumed with anise. Thanks partly to the cherries, the dish was far from cloying.
The fish (unpictured) was monkfish, topped imaginatively with wobbly bone marrow and some miniscule wild mushrooms. That all worked, but I couldn't figure out the role of the other component - a prune and armagnac ice cream. Now I like prune and armagnac ice cream, and I made sure to eat it; I just couldn't fathom how it was intended to interact with the fish.
While the seniors were enjoying these conundrums, junior was relishing a first rate revision of egg-fried rice.
The bird's next appearance of the dish had been enhanced by the raw quail egg balanced on top, which immediately got stirred in to the excellent, slightly soupy rice. Baby squid lurked in the depths; what appeared to be brown gravel of some kind scattered across the surface were actually perfectly crisp and savory shavings of egg-white fried golden brown. Considerable artifice resulting in something really accessible and simply enjoyable.
Tasty, rare lamb came with small, earthy pieces of sweetbread, white asparagus and a few little mushrooms. The plate was streaked with a lemony citronelle sauce. In contrast with some of the other creations, this was fairly straightforward.
The junior member of the party won the lottery, with a hunk of juicy suckling pig in a truffle sauce under a thatch of truffle shavings. It lazed on a pillow of brioche stuffed with more foie gras, and spears of green asparagus. Luxurious, and one of the best things we ate (I had to be restrained at that point from ordering the rabbit with snails as an extra course).
A generous selection of cheeses for three: several were local, one - a really excellent blue cheese - seemed on enquiry to be called "Tio" or "uncle; there was a cheese streaked with winter truffles and a rocky orange nugget of French mimolette. Top quality.
I didn't really get any of the chocolate dessert, except perhaps a nibble of the marinated pear.
I did enjoy an imaginative selection of melons, each with its own sauce: two wine reductions, and one - my favorite - a sweet syrup of sherry. French toast on the side and vanilla ice cream.
A generous parade of entertaining mignardises included wasabi-accented chocolates, sugared olives, tiny slices of sweet apple pie (think upscale pop-tarts) and slender test tubes filled with a sort of gin-tonic syrup (they went to the trouble of creating a non-alcoholic version for the child); a gin-tonic jello cube to go with them.
With glasses of cava, a bottle of white from Rueda, a glass or two of red, coffee, everything included - a shade over 200 euros for three people. An accomplished performance.
Hisop will flash at you here.
