* * * * *
Five Dalí POM (Persistence of Memory) Melting Watches
to Quim de la Boquería, Where You Eat Like a King on a Taburete (Barstool)
All photos by Gerry Dawes©2017 / gerrydawes@gmail.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest.
Gerry Dawes's Persistence of Memory* (Salvador Dalí) Melting Watch Awards.
English Version of Boquería Gourmand, a Book about Barcelona's Fabulous La Boquería Market (Foreword by Gerry Dawes)
Five Dalí POM (Persistence of Memory) Melting Watches
to Quim de la Boquería, Where You Eat Like a King on a Taburete (Barstool)
All photos by Gerry Dawes©2017 / gerrydawes@gmail.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest.
Quim Márquez,
Quim de la Boquería, La Boquería Market, Barcelona with his costillas
de ternera (veal ribs) with potatoes, Maldon salt and black Chinese
garlic.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2017 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest. Gerry Dawes's Persistence of Memory* (Salvador Dalí) Melting Watch Awards.
English Version of Boquería Gourmand, a Book about Barcelona's Fabulous La Boquería Market (Foreword by Gerry Dawes)
(With an opening quote from Quim Márquez, Quim de la Boquería. Click on link above.)
Yuri Márquez, son of Quim Márquez, Quim de la Boquería, La Boquería Market, Barcelona.
It seems only like just last year, when I took Quim, Yuri, then barely a teenager, and his little brother to Chinatown in New York City for dinner. Now the guy is the heart-throb of La Boquería. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest. Canon EOS 6D / Tokina 17-35mm f/4.
* * * * *
This article on Quim de la Boquería in Barcelona, is another in a series of articles on restaurants and tapas
bars from around Spain that I think, from my very personal experience,
deserve Five of Five Dalí POM (Persistence of Memory) Melting Watch
Award pins. I frankly don’t give a damn about Michelin ratings, Repsol
or any of the rest. I have been traveling and eating and drinking wine
all over Spain for nearly 50 years and I have been to the
restaurants in these articles multiples times. Yes, I am influenced by
the friendly relationships I have with many of the chefs and owners of
these establishments, but I would not have built these friendships if these chefs, restaurants and establishments were not as good as they are. And I take into consideration the downside for
those who might not be connected in some of the restaurants I am writing
about. Nonetheless, I personally have had repeated Five Melting Watch experiences
in all the places I am going to write about.
* * * * *
Quim de la Boquería, Mercat de la Boquería, A Culinary Ephiphany
Kay and I had just arrived in
Barcelona on a Friday afternoon in early February from a road trip up the
Mediterranean Coast, checked into our hotel and hustled down to la Boquería, hoping
to have a late lunch (at 4 p.m.!) at one of the world´s great market bars, El Quim de la Boquería, but half expecting the place to be
shutting down. At least I hoped I would
get to greet my long-time friend, chef-owner Quim Márquez. We found the
market still packed, El Quim still full of diners and Quim still cooking, as he had been since early morning. We we were able to score a couple of taburetes (barstools) at the side
counter, then as soon as a couple of seats opened up, Quim moved us up to the main counter looking into the kitchen. Knowing that I usually drink Rosat (Rosé)
Cava sparkling wine here, Quim’s staff poured us flutes of the excellent Cava
Juvé y Camps 100% Pinot Noir Rosé Reserva Brut.
Our lunch would be liberally lubricated with multiple glasses of this
delicious methode champenoise wine,
which is usually a fine match for the food you are likely to be served here.
Quim, his son and now co-pilot Yuri at Quim de la Boquería, La Boquería Market, Barcelona.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest.
Behind the counter, in what looks
like an impossibly small kitchen space, Quim, his son and now co-pilot Yuri, Juan
and Cristián Mora and
at least four other male staff members, even at this late hour, are still doing
a culinary ballet, dodging, weaving, pirouetting and cooking without missing a
beat. All the while out of this
maelstrom, they pour drinks (our Cava flutes are never empty) and serve the
three-sided counter surrounding the kitchen.
Even at this late hour, the taburetes
are packed with an ever-changing array of some twenty seated, others standing,
diners--market stand owners on their lunch break, well-known chefs visiting the
market, local shoppers and a United Nations of tourists--with dishes of
incredible food straight off the stove or, if a cold or room temperature dish,
from under the glass display cases. Each new diner is handed cutlery and a Quim de la Boquería place mat printed with some history about
this incredible place. Despite what
appears a first glance to be a chaotic scene, plates arrive in timely fashion
and are cleared when the diners, never given the sense that they should hurry
to give precious spot at the counter, are finished.
I have been to El Quim de la Boquería (in business more than 25 years) at least a
score of times and though I am always eager to come here, I was not expecting
the culinary epiphany that I would encounter this time. After we had been served the first couple of
dishes, I began to realize that Quim, his ingredients, cooking style, and his cooking crew
including his son Yuri, had moved in to another dimension. We had sat
down after 4 p.m. to what would be a multi-course meal of five-star world class
dishes.
Our first dish, a favorite of mine, was gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp with black garlic from China), at Quim a modernized version of one of Spain's most ubiquitous dishes that comes on a plate instead of in the tradtional cazuela (clay casserole dish in which the dish is typically served), the shrimps spread across a pepper-flecked pool of addictive, slightly picante seafood, garlic and Cava juices that sent us to the sliced-bread basket a couple of times to mop it all up.
A dish that was new to me here, but seems to be making the rounds in Spain, was a superb ceviche de corvina, corvina fish ceviche with passion fruit, mango, onions and aji AmarilloNext, a classic here served in a small paella pan, was huevos fritos con chanquetes, two fried eggs topped with pan-tossed tiny whitebait, with the yolk of the eggs as a divine sauce.
I once took Quim and his two then young sons, including his current co-pilot Yuri to a joint in Chinatown in New York. They loved it. Now, believe it or not, Quim also has a place in Hong Kong, so it is not surprising that he has picked up some Chinese cooking skills like the delicious crispy fried dumpling filled with rabo de toro (oxtail) and served with a soy-infused dipping sauce.
My weakness for leeks and romesco sauce (and more Cava Rosat) was indulged with calçots con vieras, chipirones y romesco, young tempura-battered leek-like onions served on a thin black slate slab, resting at an angle atop a scallops on a bed of baby squid and julienned carrots and onions, with a romesco schmear on the side (and an accompanying ramekin; I complain if I get a short ration of romesco) of one of my favorite sauces, romesco, which is made with hazelnuts, almonds, peppers, tomatoes and garlic).
On another slab of black slate, Quim served us our last course, his modernized traditional cuisine version of roasted costillas de ternera (veal ribs) with rounds of roasted potatoes, Maldon salt with dollops of black Chinese garlic aioli alongside.
With still two-and-a half hours before we were supposed to be at Albert Raurich’s Dos Pebrots for dinner, why not try dessert with that last flute of Cava, Quim’s Tarta de queso con fruta de la pasión, cheesecake with passion fruit? -- GD
Our lunch at Quim de la Boquería in Photographs
 |
| Quim Márquez and his crew in the tiny kitchen that turns out the incredible food at Quim de la Boquería. |
The blackboards at Quim de la Boquería with menu items and gastronomic pronouncements.
Our first dish, a favorite of mine, was gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp with black garlic from China), at Quim a modernized version of one of Spain's most ubiquitous dishes, which here comes on a plate instead of in the tradtional cazuela (clay casserole dish in which the dish is typically served), the shrimps spread across a pepper-flecked pool of addictive, slightly picante seafood, garlic and Cava juices that sent us to the breadbasket a couple of times to mop it all up.
On another slab of black slate, Quim served us our last course, his modernized traditional cuisine version of roasted costillas de ternera (veal ribs) with rounds of roasted potatoes, Maldon salt with dollops of black Chinese garlic aioli alongside. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2017 / gerrydawes@aol.com / Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest
Photos from other encounters at Quim de la Boquería
Joan Mora González pouring rosat Cava (Catalan rosé sparkling wine), Quim de la Boquería, a Boquería market, Barcelona, Jan. 14, 2014. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes
Alcachofas fritas (crispy fried artichokes
Alcachofas fritas (crispy fried artichokes
Patatas
bravas with picante red bravas sauce and alioli, Quim de la Boquería, a
Boquería market, Barcelona, Jan. 14, 2014. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2014 /
gerrydawes
Club Chefs of Connecticut and New York Taste of Spain Tour 2014 with Gerry Dawes: Quim Crab Burguer, Quím de la Boquería, a Boquería market, Barcelona, Jan. 14, 2014. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2014 / gerrydawes
* * * * *
Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?
Poem
by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse
Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt
Huntington,
in the courtyard of the Hispanic
Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York
City.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
About Gerry Dawes
My good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine
enthusiast cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless
crisscrossings of the peninsula have done the most to introduce
Americans—and especially American food professionals—to my country's
culinary life." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel
Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019
Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)
Dawes
was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía
(National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on
Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural
tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's
Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava
Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004,
was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles
& Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the
2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature
in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about
Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.
In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.
".
. .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià
in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow
narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish
correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food
journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a
self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again
brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane
Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher,
Food Arts, October 2009.
Pilot for a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
Experience
Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural
Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain
Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com
Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment