A modern restaurant that specializes in cocktails and creative dishes, with gallery space for young artists to sell their work. If you like their food, they also offer cooking classes.

Entrance:

Easy to spot and right near Plaça de Sant Jaume.

Interior:

The artwork on display at the time was silly, colorful, and fun. Pretty empty on a Thursday night, but supposedly it is busy on weekends.

bread.


I decided to try the 5 course Special Menu (€16.90) which features samples from their regular menu.

First course:
Gazpacho (cold soup) of Fruit and Vegetable with Oil of Vanilla

A good cucumber cool gazpacho with a sweet berry taste and a thick layer of olive oil.

Second course (2 courses):
Sauté Tripple-Grooved Shrimps with Coconut “Ajo Blanco”.
Rice Black Pudding with “Piquillo” Red Pepper Emulsion.


I am lazy, so the shrimps were a bit annoying to peel. Not much flavor, I would have liked more of the faint coconut sauce and for it to be stronger. Underneath the shrimps was black sausage, topped with a strong red pepper sauce.

The main course (the last 2 of the 5 courses on one plate):
Cuts of Sirloin of Tuna Fish Marinated with Soya, Garlic, and Ginger, with Mango and Crudité of Zucchini.
Creamy of Red French Goat Cheese with Mushroom Vinagrette and Preserve of Tomato.

On the left was long, very thinly cut cold zucchini interestingly folded, and in a very strong oil and basalmic vinaigrette, almost like alcohol in flavor. In the center were 2 big chunks of tough chewy stringy tuna which looked like beef, and kind of tasted like it too! The slightly burnt edges were much too hard and tough to chew so I had to leave it aside. The only thing that saved the extremely dry tuna a bit was the small dollop of warm mango apple sauce on top. More of that would have been better too. Lastly, to the right was a scoop of super thick, super strong, super buttery, goat cheese on a chilled mushy mushroom vinaigrette and a tiny dot of jam on top. The jam tasted like strawberries, even though it was supposed to be tomato.

Couscous with Scallops, Big Prawns, and Wild Asparaguses €12.25

Overall, it tasted like a big plate of buttery egg fried rice with lots of little cuts of asparagus. The scallops were plain, and again, it would have been nice if the shrimp were peeled. Cute swirly design.

Dark Chocolate Compact with Caramelized Banana and Viennese Coffee Soup €5.00

2 slices of fresh uncooked banana with a thin layer of crispy caramel sugar on top. The cake had a very dense cake/fudge texture (like fudge and flour) and was bitter and only slightly sweet. As I was eating it, I remembered it was named a “chocolate compact”, I guess a very compact pressed cake! Sitting in a bowl of lukewarm milky sweet coffee which went well with the dry cake.

I can see the creativity in the restaurant, but the cooking, texture and flavor, still needs some work in my opinion.

Receipt:
Menu noche LMMiJ T1 18.10
Cous-cous T1 12.25
Compacto choco T1 5.00
2x Agua 50 cl T1 2.50 5.00
total+tax= €40.35 (dinner for 2)

This entry was posted by chicken on Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 at 8:28 am and is filed under Barcelona, Barri Gòtic, Bar, Creative/Fusion, Mediterranean. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.