For those of you who have been following this blog and know me, you know that I am a cancer survivor as of recently.  March 21st, 2006 I was diagnosed with stage 2 non-hodgkins lymphoma.  March 24th I graduated from cooking school in NY, and March 26th I was in the doctors office in California.  Four months after the initial diagnosis in NY, on July 21st 2006 at the City of Hope in Duarte, I was cleared of having any cancer in my body and released.  They told me that for this specific type of cancer that the two-year mark was an important date: if the cancer hadn’t resurfaced before it, it most likely wouldn’t ever.

Today is the 2-year mark.

Well, I sit here in San Sebastian, Spain, outside my current place of employment, and I cant help but feel an ocean of happiness.  This blog had been a source of inspiration, reflection, and release for me.  As of this moment, 6,782 people have visited this site, which isnt a ton, but to me feels like it.  I am grateful for all the comments, views, and support people have shared.

Thank-you.

Patrick

I’m here! Its really beautiful, and the landscape explains why this city has so many restaurants.  As soon as I left the airport in San Sebastian, I was driving between community farm plots.  The rolling green hills and mild temperature make this place a miniature version of the San Joaquin Valley in California (where something around 1/5 of the world gets its food).  I haven’t been able to snap any photos yet, but as soon as I get picked up by the people at Mugaritz and taken to my apartment, Ill try to post. I read an article in a Spanish newspaper today that discussed Ferran Adria’s recent accolade of winning the best restaurant in the world for the third year in a row (Mugaritz was #4).  Some writer in Apicius magazine said that the new wave chefs should be dubbed “technoemotional” - that is to say that they create emotion through edibles.  Not sure I agree with the title, because Ive had meals that moved me emotionally that weren’t served in a test tube, or on a spike. Thoughts?

Ribeye

Ribeye

Great marbling, and amazing flavor. The farm has like 15 head that they butcher and sell the same day. This bone-in ribeye was 18oz of joy.

I just had some great news delivered to me. I will be working at Mugaritz starting in July. Very exciting…

Good God. What a lifesaver this restaurant is. I walked in and saw about 20 arm-sized zucchini from Chefs garden. A great sign. Hospitable wait staff made for a really great time. We looked at the tasting menu, and asked chef to cook whatever he felt like. I only have about 2/3 of the pictures because my camera died on me. The GM will email me the rest of the photos, as he lent me his camera when he saw that mine died… Hows that for service?!

Delicious pickled vegetables. We ate them with:

Delicious house-made charcuterie. Chef gave us a brief tour of his small hanging area where all his meat is curing/hanging. Awesome.

The next course was a single bite of fresh strawberry, shaved benton ham, and hazlenut. Great one-biter.

The pate was delicious and came with nitrogen-frozen mustard pearls, cornichons and herbs. The frozen mustard slowly melted and was really great idea and application.

The next round was scallop cooked at 55C and sliced thin. I actually thought it was raw. Great clean flavor and came with trout roe, chamomile gelee, and mango vinegar. The mango vinegar was amazing. More roe though

I was hoping to use one of the salt griddles. The tuna and pineapple were great quality, but the real star, aside from the griddle, was the miso butter. SO FUCKING GOOD.

By this course I had drank enough to kill a small horse. Halibut CVAP’d with ramp puree, morels, beans, and peas. I LOVE CVAP FISH.

Im pretty sure this was Cod. It came with ramp puree, truffle puree, and sliced truffles. wow. truffle puree…

Foie breakfast: pain perdue, whipped maple (methocel f50) apples, and i dont remember the puree.

The second foie dish isnt pictured here because my camera died. It was a ‘liver and onions’ version with onions from their garden. Tasty.

We had a couple meat courses which I dont have photos of either, but they were delicious. We also had a cheese course which was sadly, mediocre. We asked for an assortment of cheeses but were given all semi-aged cheeses, even though there were other types (blue, washed rind, fresh…). Onto dessert.

Trefoil cheese, herb salad, aged balsamic. Really great cheese. The farmer raises the goats, milks them himself, and makes the cheese… wow.

Strawberry, amaretti cookie, coconut sorbet.  Light and refreshing. These strawberries are some of the best Ive ever had.

Chocolate, brandied cherries/puree, cocoa nibs…. good.

Thanks Sean.

Unfortunately I have no pictures of this meal, so I’ll keep it short and sweet. The chefs tasting for $155ea did not come with dual preparations, nor did it have a real foie course. We specifically asked the server if they could give us a foie course, to which he replied “of course”.  Foie Gras ravioli does not count as a foie course. Sorry. The fish was fresh and for the most part the seasoning was right on, but some courses left a lot to be desired.

The squid noodles with tomato sauce were lackluster. Overcooked squid and overseasoned tomato paste was the ’sauce’.  The desserts, however, were the biggest let down since fruit stripe gum.

The dessert amuse was a vanilla mousse, pistachio ice cream, and tangerine gelee. First of all, it needs to be clean, light and refreshing. The vanilla mousse had way too much gelatin and weighed everything down. It was a KLUNKER of a taste, and nowhere near what I would consider a dessert amuse. Bad Sign of thigns to come.

The next dessert course was coconut sorbet, tapioca, and coconut broth. Sorbet was fine, but the broth had thai chilies steeped in it.  I swear to god, it felt like I was eating DINNER at a thai food restaurant it was so hot. And I love hot food. RUINED my palate and the dish.  Not to mention the following dish, although, that didnt need any help being bad.

The next dessert course was banana, peanut butter, granola, passion fruit. The banana, I shit you not, was a sliced half banana, coated in banana bread bread crumbs, peanut butter ‘mousse’ (basically peanut butter - quenelled) and little passion fruit foam.  Dude, i ate breakfast already. This is a Michelin starred restaurant charging $155 each for a tasting menu and you give me a raw banana from Chile and Jiffy? We took one bite and gave it back.

The next dessert had a paint brush stroke of chocolate across the plate. Let me tell you, brown smears on plates just look wrong.  The chocolate ganache was the size of my small pinky finger. Just disappointing. All around awful desserts. Really very little thought put into them, and poorly executed. Not going back. Ever.

For $600 I can think of plenty of things to spend my money on, other than overpriced food.

I came back from Hawaii and loaded my car up with the remainder of my things I didn’t ship and started my drive across the US. Yes, I moved out of San Francisco finally. I think I have experienced a solid amount of SF cuisine, and need to change it up. I will go back someday, but since I am still able to move around freely, I will.

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What a drive.  I dont think Ive ever been tired from sitting for 8 hours a day, but damn.  It took us 6 days and we stopped along the way to eat and see some friends in Denver, St. Louis, and Charleston. After the Providence dinner, I was really hoping for better meals at Niche and McCrady’s.  Luckily I was rewarded with much better meals.  My friend Adam is a cook at Niche and set us up with a delicious tasting menu that made the trip to St. Louis 10 times more amazing.  The menu photo will have to suffice as I have no food pics.  The cooks were great to hang out and talk to and they are truly the stars in that restaurant.  By the way, I can’t stand it when servers tell you their name. FYI. I dont want to get to know you personally, just serve my food and be courteous.

A great trip that I recommend to all to try at least once in their lifetime.

So sorry it has been awhile since the last post of interest. I went on a long-deserved vacation to Hawaii and had a blast.  Beautiful oceans and even tastier fish.  Some of the best fish I have ever tasted.

Clockwise from top: Tuna, Opah, Ono, Hamachi. Amazingly fresh and almost sweet. Destined for…

Then came the fun.  We looked around for fresh uni everywhere. Sadly, there was nothing to be found, so we improvised. Using a snorkel tube and a sandal I harvested 3 gorgeous uni.

They were a little smaller but still large enough to have nice-sized ‘roe’.

Absolutely without a doubt the best uni I have ever tasted. Clean, briny, creamy.

is due to my move across the country. I drove from LA to Baltimore all last week.  I also ate at some great restaurants: Providence in LA, Niche in St. Louis, and McCradys in Charleston. Ill update as soon as I can.  (McCradys and Niche were amazing. Providence…. well… hmm. Not so much.)