06/04/18
Foie Gras Mi-Cuit at Granja Elena in Barcelona, Spain. The picture does not do justice to this dish, but you’ll just have to trust me on this one. This fantastic dish is comprised of three components from left to right in the picture: 1. Foie gras, 2. Crackers, and 3. A mixture of olives, figs, and walnuts. The foie gras (duck liver) was half cooked (mi-cuit) and served at room temperature, a cross between a pate and a cheese spread, and had sprinkles of sea salt on top. The crackers were hard and brittle, the perfect type of cracker to experience the flavors of this dish, as a soft cracker or bread would not have brought out the diverse flavors of the dish and have the same effect. The mixture of olives, figs, and walnuts was both sweet and savory - a little bit like a jam, but not quite as sweet. The olives were Kalamata olives, a type of Greek olive. In addition, there was a trace of Calvados in the mixture, which is a French brandy with a bit of an apple flavor. As my friend José instructed, you place some foie gras on top of the cracker along with a bit of the olive/fig/walnut blend. Once you take a bite, the flavors explode and you realize that you’ve never had anything quite like this dish. The dense foie gras, and the flavor of the duck liver counterbalanced by the sea salt and the sweet/savory taste of the olive/fig/walnut blend was Bigtime! The crazy thing about this dish is that you would rarely ever see me eat olives, figs, or walnuts by themselves! Without a doubt, this was one of the tastiest dishes I had on a recent trip to Europe, and I would go out of my way to experience this dish again. Granja Elena is a tapas restaurant visited primarily by locals, as you won’t find many tourists there. Menus are in Spanish only, but the servers are friendly and eager to please. Open only breakfast and lunch. I also loved their Wild Sea Bass.