La Dolça Herminia
Where? La Dolça Herminia (Gothic Quarter, Barcelona, Spain) Map Menu
When? Sunday January 14, 2024
Who? Me
Food Style? Mediterranean
It’s the end to another weekend in Barcelona and I’ve chosen a recommended place in the Gothic Quarter of the city. It looks a little pretentious with its immaculate white cloth and chic decor and ambient lighting, and the fact that all the wait staff speak English is again both reassuring and worrying because it’s probably going to be touristy. A lot of the other patrons are English speakers too. Oh well. Let’s give it a go. As usual, the fideua and the paella cannot be served to me, a loser, who is dining by himself, so I’ve gone with a starter of eggs in chips with Iberian jamon, and baby octopus. The dessert looks good as well, I’ll see how I feel after the two dishes.
Appetiser
Huevos Estrellados: fried eggs broken on chips with Iberico ham shavings
You know, if they did poutine like this, I would be way more inclined to eat it more regularly. The shavings of jamon provide the saltiness, and the egg yolk adds a nice richness to the dish. It doesn’t feel gross and soggy like poutine, the fries are still crunchy and appetising. Not bad to start with!
Mains
Baby Octopus: cooked in onion, with spice, crushed potatoes and lemon aioli
This smells really good, lots of garlic present. The octopus is soft and the tentacles are slightly crispy, and the mash has soaked up all that delicious sauce. They’ve left a few pieces of crispy garlic inside too, that really helps add a nice textural element to the dish. It’s rich and satisfying and despite the small portion, I’m pretty content with the amount of food I’ve had. Of course there’s always room for dessert.
Dessert
Tim Baon: nougat ice cream with crema catalana and chocolate sauce
"A favourite of our most loyal diners", it says. This looks very interesting. They’ve taken a block of nougat ice cream and covered it with the crema catalana, and brûléed it as well to give it that delightfully crispy sugar crust. It goops over the side tantalizingly, and my first spoonful is delightful, full of the different flavours coming together harmoniously. There’s some nice chunky bits in the ice cream too, I wish there were more. A fantastic dessert to end the meal.
I notice that a lot of Spanish restaurants wait for you to ask for the bill, they don’t slap it in front of you when you’re done as a kind of nudge that you should vacate the table. It’s nice to enjoy a little bit of time to write and finish up my blogs but also the introvert in me hates having to catch the attention of the waitstaff.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:32am on Thursday March 7, 2024 :: 0 comments :: 