OUT TO LUNCH IN MÁLAGA

We were five at table for lunch, all us semi-professional eaters—cooks, food writers, restaurant critics and guides. (See, I totally avoided saying “foodies.”) Málaga food mavens.

Our leader was Shawn Hennessey, she of Sevilla Tapas (I wrote about Shawn and Sevilla tapas here ), who was spending a week in Málaga. Shawn brought us together and chose a venue. (I had balked at going all the way to Málaga to eat sushi, so it had to be Spanish or, anyway, “Spanish.”)

Here I am at lunch with new friends, from left, Andrew Forbes , travel writer and communications consultant ; Victor Garrido, Málaga guide, and Fred Shively, photographer . Shawn Hennessey took the photo.

So, here we were at El Tres, which bills itself as “alta cocina clásica,” a mash-up of Spanish, Basque and French, right in the center of Málaga—not a tapas bar, but a proper restaurant (wonderfully comfortable chairs and welcome air conditioning on a blazing-hot day), part of Grupo Gorki which has several restaurants and bars in Málaga.

Presented with the carta, the menu, we dithered. For €47 per head (including wine), we could have a nine-course tasting menu. Or, we could exercise choice, with a la carte starters ranging from €12 to €23 and mains from €18 to €28. Many of the a la carte choices offered the option of media-ración, a half-serving.

A tasting menu is a good way to get to know a restaurant’s specialties. But, then you are locked in to what the chef wants you to eat. Shawn, who has plenty of dining-out experience, solved the dilemma—we ordered half-portions of eight different dishes on the a la carte menu—three starters, five mains—and split each of them between five of us (Shawn is an expert at divving up portions), providing a generous bite of each.

Here’s what was for lunch.

Porra antequerana

Two taste-teasers—a classic porra antequerana, sort of thick gazpacho cream with garnishes of chopped egg and ham, and a leek terrine with a smear of monkfish liver pâté and parmesan cream.

Porra is very similar to salmorejo, a Córdoba dish. Someone asked me, "what's the difference?" I don't rightly know. (My recipe for salmorejo is  here.)

Smoked eel terrine--divine.

Starter. Silky and rich, smoked eel terrine layered with sweet williams pears. Gorgeous. Best-liked dish by all of us, even Andrew who claimed he wouldn’t eat eel! Of course, we were famished and our palates were fresh.

Vegetable menestra.

Starter. Menestra de verduras con velouté of jamón ibérico, a vegetable melange, each one cooked to crisp perfection, with the unctuous ibérico ham as garnish.

Smoky rice with octopus and rabbit.

Starter. Arroz meloso de conejo y pulpo de roca al sarmiento (rice with rabbit and octopus, smoked over vine shoots). This was my favorite dish of all. Meloso rice has a juicy, creamy texture, somewhat like risotto. The smokiness brought together the mar y montaña—sea and mountain—of pairing octopus with rabbit.

Hake in green sauce with clams.

Entrée. Merluza de pincho en salsa verde, almejas y patatas confitadas (line-caught hake in green sauce, clams and confit potatoes). My second favorite dish—a classic rendition of a Basque dish (my recipe for this dish appears here.

Monkfish with artichoke.

Entrée. Rape envuelto en guanciale con crema de cangrejos y alcachofas (monkfish wrapped in cured pork cheek with crab cream and artichokes). The sauce was based on a traditional Málaga dish, with ground almonds as a thickener. Monkfish is a “toothsome” fish, as chewy as meat. The cured pork made it unusual.

Juan José López prepares steak tartare.

Entrée. Steak tartar de solomillo de ternera gallega (steak tartare made with Galician beef, prepared tableside). Classic.Galician beef is the finest.

Shawn snaps the steak tartar and tweets it to the world. (Follow her on Twitter @SevillaTapas.)

One bite--crispy roast pig.

Entrée.  Cochinillo con su piel crujiente y confitura de manzana (suckling pig with crispy skin and apple confit). Succulent. Time to switch to red wine!

Squab with carrot purée.

Entrée. Pichón deshuesado con puré de zanahoria y tostada de higaditos (boned squab with carrot purée and toasts topped with livers). Loved this, my third favorite.

The chef at El Tres is a young malagueña, Rosa Serrano, who has been in the kitchen since the restaurant opened in April.

Our made-to-order tasting menu worked fine. Enough food and a wonderful variety of tastes. Personally, one bite of steak tartare was enough. I’d rather have my beef with nothing. And, I could happily have eaten much more of the hake in green sauce and the squab with carrot purée. Good reason to return to El Tres.

El Tres
Calle Strachan 7; Málaga center
(34) 952 22 33 64
http://grupogorki.com/eltres.html
Open for lunch and dinner; closed Sunday.

One bite--smoky rice with octopus and rabbit.

One bite--flaky hake in green sauce with clam and potato.

One bite--menestra of vegetables with ham.

TIME OUT FOR TAPAS

Just when I was supposed to be slaving over a hot stove, preparing a recipe for this week’s blog, I got a phone call from Shawn Hennessey, “tapas queen,” my guide to tapas in Sevilla  (see her web site http://sevillatapastours.com/ and also my recent  blog post from Sevilla). She has been visiting Málaga and revisiting her favorite tapa bars there.

“I’m coming to Mijas! Can we meet at lunch for tapas?” I’m so excited that Shawn is meeting me on my own turf! (I live in Mijas.) So, of course, I drop everything.

Mijas is a small hill town overlooking the Mediterranean on Spain’s southern coast. It once had a dozen tapa bars in the casco antiguo, the old center. Of those, only two remain. But it has a dozen new bars, some mainly serving the day tourists, but others with ambitious wine lists and menus.

Bar Porras in the central plaza of Mijas.

We meet at the Bar Porras, on the Plaza de la Libertad, smack-dab in the center of town. Bar Porras is one of the original bars, where I learned Spanish cooking some 40 years ago.This is where I have coffee and read the newspaper most mornings after my aerobics class.

Shawn arrives with Victor Garrido, an independent tour guide who does in Málaga what Shawn does in Sevilla (http://www.welovemalaga.com/ ).

A plate of ham to begin our tapas lunch tour.

Having learned the tapa-tour-guide plan from Shawn, I immediately order a plate of ibérico ham and glasses of Manzanilla (fino Sherry). We are off to a good start.

We continue on to the Museo del Vino, just a short stroll up Calle San Sebastian. A historic village house was converted to be an enoteca, a wine museum, shop and bar with wine tastings. Seated at a big wooden tasting table, we are cozy on a nippy December day. In summertime, the little enclosed patio is the cool place for sipping. (http://www.museovinomalaga.org )

Cheese and a glass of Botani.

Shawn is delighted to find here her favorite white wine, the light and floral Botani, from Bodegas Jorge Ordoñez. The Museo del Vino specializes in wines from Málaga province. The wine pairs perfectly with a nutty, semi-cured cheese. We are served bread rolls and bread sticks and a dish of organic olive oil for dipping.

Grilled scallops and cherry tomatoes.

We share a tapa of grilled scallop brochettes with cherry tomatoes. A sprinkling of pimentón (paprika) and olive oil complements the sweetness of the shellfish. Likely the scallops are frozen—but they are, nevertheless, delicious.

A last stop before Shawn returns to Málaga to catch her train back to Sevilla. We perch on stools (not very comfortable) at Bodega El Placer, just off the central plaza. Touted as a “wine bar,” it seems to specialize in red wines and does not have Shawn’s favorite whites. 

Black squid croquette.

We sample several tapas here. I love the squid croquettes with a squid-ink alioli sauce. They are black and crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside. Think I will try this recipe myself one of these days.

Solomillo (pork tenderloin) is—in my opinion—too sweet with a fruit compote. The crispy langostinos tempura—jumbo shrimp, crisply fried—are divine, but again, a little too sweet in the saucing. Morcilla (blood sausage) doesn’t show any evidence of the raisins and pine nuts that  supposedly accompany it. The bacalao—salt cod—gratin is, uh, interesting, with its dusting of curry and turmeric, but again, with a layer of sweet compote that overwhelms the other flavors. What's with all the sweet sauces? They are not really traditional in Spanish cooking.

Ham, egg and crispy fried potatoes. Terrific!

The best dish of all? A perfect—perfect—fried egg. Estrellado—crispy around the edges, with straw potatoes, hot and crispy, and some meltingly tender scraps of fine ham. How to share this amongst three? Shawn, with enormous experience, proceeds to mix the egg, ham and potatoes all together.

Oh my god, that is so good. Thanks Shawn. Come back soon.

And, here's "tapas in Mijas" from Shawn's angle: http://azahar.me/2013/12/14/mijas-at-last/

Starting the tapas tour (photo by Shawn Hennessey)