Cabeza de cordero/Sheep’s brain served in its own skull

Note the teeth.

Tonight we ate sheep’s brain served in its own skull.
The waiter told us they chop off the head, cut it in half down the nose and roast it. After we ordered, we downed most of our bottle of txakoli in preparation.

The head arrived, eyeballs and tongue intact. It didn’t taste as bad as it sounds, but it won’t become one of my fave Spanish dishes. The outside was firm and the inside significantly softer, like a piece of seared tofu. Something about the texture bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I remembered this morning: the texture reminded me of undercooked scrambled eggs that made me sick at summer camp one year.

Jackie, with squids and Txacolí

We also ordered the chipirones — squids cooked in their own ink. They smelled very pleasant and tasted like grilled calamari with a rich sauce. I gladly finished those off.

The dishes capped an adventurous day of eating. We grabbed some pinxtos (tastes) in Bilbao’s old town — gourmet bites featuring ingredients like seared foie grois and lobster atop slices of French bread. People bar hop in the evenings, eating pinxtos with friends and washing them down with small glasses of beer, wine or sidra (cider.) We had one of each during the evening.

Stop 1: sidra, pinxtos: fried calamari stuffed with lobster, salmon and salmon mousse, jamón iberico with mushroom.

Stop 2: Mahou (Bud Light), pinxtos: baccalao (salted white fish) marinated in olive oil, pulpo ala gallega (octopus with olive oil and paprika)

Stop 3: Bottle of txakoli, chimpirones en su tinta (squids cooked in their ink), cabeza de cordero (sheep’s brain)

La siesta/2 to 4 p.m.

We got off the beaten path in the Navarra region and detoured to Olite (population 3400), drawn by the wine museum one of our guidebooks told us about. Off the highway, it took us longer to get there than we thought, so we arrived to a sleepy town mid-siesta. The wine museum, bodegas, stores, everything was closed for the 2 hour lunch break. Restaurants and bars were still serving, so we did what the Spaniards do: drank wine, ate cheese bocadillos (French bread with thick slices of cheese) and window shopped.

We walked into the busiest place we could find (my personal rule for finding good food/drink in an unknown place) and ordered a glass of the two specialty wines brewed in the region (Navarra.) Both were good but the Ochoa was better. We were shocked when the bartender told us it was 2 euros for both glasses. That’s about $1.35 at the current exchange rate.

Vino y tapas/Wine and snacks

Dinner was a classier affair than originally planned, with stops at three wine bars/restaurants in Barcelona’s La Ribera neighborhood.

At stop No. 1 we had cava, which can only be called cava if it comes from Catalonia. We nibbled on tomate con berejena seca y alcachofa en aceite de oliva — a plate of sundried tomatoes, eggplant and artichokes swimming in a cup of olive oil. It was fantastic. Josh gave it a 4.5 out of 5, saying, “I would have like more.”
“It was just a tapa,” I said.
“I know that, but it was soooo good.”

Wine bar No. 2: I had a white from the Rueda region, Josh a tempranillo blend from the Rioja region. Spain marks its wine by the region in which it was produced. These labels can hurt better wineries with lower-end bodegas for neighbors. Mine was okay, tasted like a light pinot grigio. Josh’s like a decent pinot noir.

Wine bar No. 3: Josh wanted to change it up so he ordered a white from the Navarra region, very oaky, but “better than Yellowtail.” I had a copa of the txacoli, which is a white specialty of the region poured at an arm’s length from the glass. I wanted to know how to pronounce it, so I asked the waiter. (Chakoli) He joked that my pronunciation gave me away as American. I told him I liked Madrid better than Barcelona. He said he liked Mexico better than the U.S. I asked why Mexico with its swine flu. And he pointed out that the swine flu is in Spain, too.

We ate estofado de alcachofas con pulpo (a stew of mushrooms, artichokes and octopus) and tako de bacalao cremat de calcot y romesco (fried white fish with two sauces.) Excellent, nontraditional tapas.

Crítica/Review: Wine

2008 Rioja from Bodegas Antaño

Smell
Jackie: I smell cherries.
Josh: Sure.

Taste
Josh: A little spice at the front of my tongue.

Texture
Jackie: Silky, with a little bite, crisp when you inhale after a sip

Verdict
Josh: 3.5/5 copas It was pretty solid.
Jackie: 3.0/5 copas. This is something I could easily drink every day.