Pleasant House

All of this cold weather, a stressful week of overseeing construction at the restaurant, and the increasingly favorable exchange rate overseas has got me itching for some vacation time.

Chelsea and I like to get off the beaten path when we go on trips, and our tour of the Basque country brought us to the town of Briones. Technically not in Basque country, Briones is just outside the border, an ancient Spanish village in the Rioja Alta wine region between the towns of Haro and Cenicero.

We had been touring the Museo de la Cultura del Vino Dinastia Vivanco, in the valley below the old city, and were in search of some local comfort food. So we did what we usually do–this time in embarrasingly broken Spanish–and asked one of the locals to recommend a good place for “typical” local cuisine. A museum employee led us to Los Calaos, the restaurant in a cave. Jumping ahead, as Chelsea and I were finishing our meals, I waved to the woman who made the recommendation–as she was just arriving at the restaurant, a pleasant confirmation of the amazing meal we had just enjoyed.

The Museo de la Cultura del Vino Dinastía Vivanco

On to the cave. Briones is an ancient city. One of the most beautiful things to see there is the sixteenth century Iglesia de Santa Maria.

Iglesia de Santa Maria

Like the church, Los Calaos is an old structure and its most unique characteristic is that its dining room is in an old wine cave. This definitely added to the romance of the experience and was quite fitting since we were, after all, touring the Rioja. One element of the dining room that caught my eye was the iron grapevine lighting fixture above our heads.

The food was deliciously simple and representative of the locality. Our appetizer was a spider crab salad, which was light and refreshing. The main courses were rich platters of braised oxtail and roasted goat. (Spain is a carniverous country, and roasted goat or baby kid is a specialty of the Rioja.) I liked that these dishes were often accompanied by a few fried potatoes, the perfect medium to soak up the natural braising juices.

crab salad

oxtail

goat

If ever there is a time to order dessert it is during a long, lazy lunch while on vacation and/or somewhere that an unheard of dessert presents itself. Goxua was offered at Los Calaos–we were on vacation and had never heard of it! I am happy to say that I am now an ambassador of goxua, a creme brulee-like custard atop a thin layer  of spongy biscocho or sponge cake, and a crispy bruleed sugar crust. A perfect ending to an educational and romantic meal overlooking the Rioja.

goxua

Oh! And a bit of technical information. No matter how small, or how traditional, pretty much every restaurant in Europe has a vacuum pack machine, commonly called a sous vide machine.

happy kitchen at Los Calaos (sous vide machine on table)

Here’s a collection of photos from Briones, including the wine museum. I think it’s time you take a little vacation, too: