An Eating Trip to Spain: Arzak, Etxebarri, Lufthansa 747-8 J, Swiss A220 Y / 777 J

[yflyer]

It was only the next morning that I realized how good the Europa's location was...



We were very close to the main beach at La Concha Bay...



...and walking distance to the old town.



What a beautiful city San Sebastian was. We spent the next few days exploring the old town and eating some amazing food.

[yflyer]

We spent the morning of our first day in San Sebastian exploring the old town on foot....



As we had a big lunch coming up that day, our first stop was Santa Lucia Churreria / Chocolateria for a simple breakfast of churros...



The menu...



This place first opened in 1956...



Coffee and Churros dipped in hot chocolate...what a nice start to the day...

[yflyer]

We wandered around the streets of the old town at random...



There was something to see along every street...



Fresh seafood...



I spied small silvery slivers of what looked like small fish...these were Angulas, or baby eels, a rare and frightfully expensive delicacy in this part of Spain, only available during winter. I was so happy to see that they were still available in March...but where could we eat these?

[yflyer]

Along another street, a small minimart...



This one had a great selection of cup noodles and Asian grocery items...at least I would have somewhere to go in case I needed an Asian food fix!

[yflyer]

We visited the Mercado...unlike the traditional markets like Boqueria market in Barcelona, this was a thorougly modern affair...



Down an escalator...



...to a basement market chock full of stalls...



I could already sense Mrs yflyer doing her recce and deciding what she wanted to eat later on during our trip....

"What are kokotxa's?" she asked...



It turns out they were fish chins...a delicacy!

And there were percebes, also known as goose barnacles...

[yflyer]

We left the old town and walked along the wide promenade along a huge expanse of crescent shaped beach....



In the summer high season, the beach would be packed, but at this time of year, it looked beautifully open and uncrowded...

We headed up to the scenic lookout point at Monte Urgull to take in the view...



It was a great day to be exploring the city...mild weather and clear blue skies...



There were still several old artilery pieces at the lookout point,...



Views from here were great, but we were told that the views were even better from Monte Igueldo, the peak at the other end of the crescent-shaped beach...

[yflyer]

That afternoon, we headed to Arzak for lunch...



Mrs yflyer had wanted to dine at Arzak for many years, and as mentioned in the intro to this TR, we only locked in our trip and booked our air tickets after the restaurant had confirmed our reservation. Chef Juan Mari Arzak is a legend in the culinary world, someone who has had great influence on the Basque culinary scene. Arzak was the first restaurant in Spain to be awarded 3 Michelin stars, in 1989. Since 1995, he has been joined by his daughter, Elena Arzak, who now jointly leads the kitchen with Juan Mari.

The restaurant was a 10 minute taxi ride from our hotel. To say that we excited and and thrilled to be having lunch there would be an understatement.

The taxi dropped us off at the door, and we were ushered into the dining room, as the first guests of the day.

We were totally stunned to be greeted in the main dining room by Juan Mari Arzak himself. We were so stunned, in fact, that we forgot to take a photo with him. We each shook his hand and told him how pleased we were to meet him.

We were then shown to our table in the intimate dining room, styled in dark tones.



We later realized how privileged we were to meet Juan Mari in person, as he made no subsequent appearance in the dining room that day, and as far as we knew did not personally welcome the other diners that day when they arrived for lunch.

[yflyer]

We decided on the tasting menu with wine paring....



Our first wine was Cava Brut Nature Gran Reserva - Corpinnat from Torello, in a special bottling for Arzak...



Crisp, dry and refreshing...what a wonderful start!



Then a procession of small amuse bouches...



A delicate yet intense fried garlic soup...



Sardines with absinthe...



Blue corn ear with crispy noodles...



We polished these off, washing it all down with the sparkling caviar, and fresh squeezed Orange juice, in Miss yflyer no.2's case, although as the trip progressed, we found that she indulged and appreciated more and more of the wine on offer...

[yflyer]

Aside from the amazing cuisine, this lunch was turning out to be a great introduction to the wines of the Basque Country, seldom found outside the region. The next wine was from Bodega K5, a boutique winery located in nearby Getaria, by the Cantabrian sea.



Made from 100% local Hondarrabi Zuri grapes, native to the region, their K5, a wine with a Getariako Txakolina
Certificate of Origin, was light and citrusy...



The wine paired beautifully with the next course of cured fish, with pumpkin seed powder, Jerusalem artichoke and nasturnium leaves...

[yflyer]

The next course was "unclothed" prawn, and this came with a very unusual wine pairing, a sherry, Sacristia AB Manzanilla...



The prawn dish was a sight to behild...



A red prawn, deshelled, with an impressively huge head still attached.

This was done two ways...the body was still tender and almost gelatinous...while the head was crisp and pungent...

Delicious!

Mrs yflyer really enjoyed this too, although she did say that it did not eclipse memories of her stunniing prawn dish at Bel Canto in Lisbon. a few months prior...

[yflyer]

The next dish was marbled egg.



This was paired with a wine which was a collaboration between the Arzak family and Bodegas Chivite. This wine, a Grenache rosé in the Las Fincas range, from Chivite, was from a special limited edition, barrel fermented, with numbered bottles.



The egg was soft boiled, with a still runny yolk...



For our monkfish course, the paired wine was a 2014 CVNE Monople DOCa Rioja, yet another wine we had never encountered before...



This was a white wine, with grapes harvested from the Villalba de Rioja vineyard at at altitude of 600m...



The monkfish was rested in Basque whisky, and came with crisp fish skin and avocado sauce...

[yflyer]

Finally the meat course, a sublime pairing of roe deer and venison, each tender and delicate in its own way, yet quite different in flavour...



This was paired with Vina Arana Grand Reserva DOCa Rioja, which was yet another special bottling for Arzak...

[yflyer]

At that point Elena Arzak came by the dining room.

We thanked for an amazing meal thus far. She thanked us when we mentioned that we only booked the air tickets after our Arzak reservation was confirmed.




When we told her we were from Singapore, she mentioned that she did get quite a number of guests from Singapore at the restaurant.

She was particularly happy to see that Miss yflyer no.2 was enjoying her meal.

"You're educating her!" she declared, with a big smile...

[yflyer]

A palate cleanser came next: bitter orange ice cream with fig sand and bergamot frost...



Brännland artisanal ice cider to pair with our first dessert...



...which was yuzu and cherry cream with a mint crisp...



Finally Torelló Dolç Vittios Merlot, a semi-sweet red dessert wine...



...to go with our second dessert of chocolate "ruins" and ice cream...

[yflyer]

Finally, pralines and sweets...





Coffee...



We had arrived at the restaurant at 1.15pm. It was now 4pm.

What a memorable and satisfying meal -- it was great to finally dine here, and what a wonderful bonus to have met Elena and Juan Mari Arzak in person as well.