Skip to main content

EL RACO D'EN MIQUEL, PONT DE MOLINS, SPAIN: RESTAURANT REVIEW

We go to Spain to shop about twice a year. It's a southern France thing. Lots of stuff is cheaper in Spain - clay pots, for instance. And cigarettes. Everyone who smokes and has a car capable of making the run buys their cigarettes in Spain. You can also find stuff in Spain that you can't easily find in France - sherry, Hellman's Mayonnaise, and rioja come to mind. So, twice a year...road trip to La Junquera, a paradise of malls, groceries, and liquor stores. And food courts. And Spanish food court food is...yes...food court food.

We all have our own takes on what constitutes a good meal while on the road. For some, Cracker Barrel works just fine. Waffle House, too. (My European friends will just have to imagine what one finds in a Waffle House. I'm not going to try to explain.) Others prize out-of-the-way diners that serve juicy burgers, fresh-cut fries, and homemade cherry pie with hand-dipped ice cream. I admit to being of the latter persuasion. I also admit to having failed to have figured out how to find exceptional road food while traveling here in France. Regular readers will know that bad meals here are few and far between. But a road food meal is judged differently than a pleasant interlude in a local cafe. And when it comes to Spain, I just have too little experience.

We started our latest shopping excursion in Figueres to check out a huge pottery outlet there. It's a bit further south into Spain than La Junquera  but worth the trip. Good prices on clay pots and saucers. When we headed north, we came across El Raco D'En Miquel along the old highway that parallels the toll road. As lunchtime approached, we decided to give El Raco a try.

We  arrived just at noon and, although a sign said that the restaurant was open from 8h00 to 22h00, we were informed that lunch service did not begin until 12h30. That made sense as the wood fire was just being laid under the grill. Would we like an aperitif while we waited? So we nursed beers until a waitress with no French or English arrived and, through a series of pantomimes suitable for the kiddies, explained our luncheon choices. (At La Junquera, everyone speaks French and English in addition to Spanish. Fifteen minutes further south? Not so much.)

The menu was diverse and interesting. I started with a salad chevre chaud (hot, fresh goat cheese). Tasty. The girls both chose grilled asparagus topped with slices of grilled ham and tomato. An interesting take, perfect when asparagus is in season, and well executed. For the main, I had a piece of grilled sausage, interestingly spiced. Liz had grilled rabbit, a large and meaty quarter. And Cathey had a heaping plate of crispy fried sardines. With simple desserts, a jug of rioja for the girls, and another beer for me, the total came to under 40€, the meal formula at 11.50€ that included the wine and one beer, plus the three beers while we waited.

Fine, hearty road fare. You can read more of my restaurant reviews HERE.








Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

RESTAURANT TEN, UZES: RESTAURANT REVIEW

Ten sits just off the market square in Uzes, one of the prettiest villages in southern France. The newly renovated space is airy and comfortable with tables of sufficient size and sufficiently spaced to provide for a pleasant dining experience. Service was cheerful, fully bilingual, and attentive without being overbearing. The food presented well to both eye and tongue. And the rate of approximately 30 € per person for a party of five included starters, mains, a dessert or two, two bottles of local wine, and coffees at the finish. Reasonable if not cheap eats.  So why am I hesitant to give an unqualified thumbs up?  It took me a while to figure it out. Uzes is a quintessentially French village in a quintessentially French region of southern France. There are those who will say that the Languedoc is just as beautiful but less crowded and less expensive than its eastern neighbors. I know. I'm one of those people. But the fact remains that for many people, villages like Uzes are t
Post a Comment
Read more

Kreuz Market vs. Smitty’s Market: Texas Barbecue in Lockhart

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I didn’t taste Texas barbecue until I was twenty-two years old. What the hell do I know about barbecue? And what could I add to the millions of words that have been written on the subject? Well, I know a bit about food. I’ve managed to check out a few of the finer joints in Texas – Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse in Dallas, Joe Cotton’s in Robstown before the fire, the dear departed Williams Smokehouse in Houston, and the incomparable New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville . So I can speak from a reasonably wide experience. This will not be a comprehensive discussion of the relative merits of Texas barbecue as opposed to the fare available in places like Memphis or the Carolinas. It’s simply a take on our recent visits to Lockhart and the relative merits of Smitty’s versus Kreuz from our point of view. I’ll get all over academic in a later post. On our way out to the ranch in Crystal City, we stopped at Smitty’s. You have to look
2 comments
Read more

VINS I LICORS GRAU: LARGEST WINE BOUTIQUE IN EUROPE

One of the regular sporting activities that those of us living in the south of France enjoy is the semi-annual Run to Spain. Most everybody takes part. It's not a track meet, though. It's a shopping run. We go because some items are cheaper in Spain, substantially so. (I buy Cathey's favorite perfume there because it sells for less than in the duty-free shops, much less than in the local French parfumerie . But don't tell Cathey that. It'll be our little secret.) Some items simply are not available locally - a reasonable selection of Spanish wines, a bottle of brandy to feed the Christmas cake. And so, off we go Spain. Just across the border sits La Jonquera, a small Catalonian town whose name is now attached to a massive array of opportunities to spend euros - department stores and specialty shops, garden centers, liquor stores, tobacconists, groceries and butchers. You want it? You can buy it somewhere along the main drag heading south out of the old town. We
2 comments
Read more