Zelai Txiki

We went out for our first sit down mean and it was a good start.  The restaurant was about 1.5 miles from our hotel so we decided to walk, thinking that we could take a cab back.  A nice before dinner walk.  Had reservations for 8:30 but we were still the first one's in the restaurant.  Makes me fell like we are the old people there for the early bird special.   Like when your parents show up a half hour early for dinner.  I guess maybe we should have spent another hour or two at the pinxtos bars.  Zelai Txiki is a restaurant in a residential area of Donastia,  basically a large older home that got converted.  Guess they are not too strict on the zoning laws here.  Not one of the Michelin started restaurants that Donastia is know for but a nice one non the less.  Warmly greeted and seated they offered us the English menu.  We grudgingly acquiesced.  I always feel like I'm being given the child's menu, but my Spanish is still not very good.  I just like the challenge of being able to figure out what's on the menu.  She also gave us a specials menu and asked if we wanted her to translate if for us.  We shook her off like a pitcher shaking off a sign he didn't like.  Unfortunately when she returned we had to ask her to please translate it for us, the very thing we had just 10 minutes before insisted that we didn't need.  First slice of humble pie for the night.  The waitress was very pleasant.  I think we impress her with our 2 Basque words, Hello and Thank you.  We're pretty good with those two.  Started off by ordering a bottle of the Muga Reserva 2010, for 29 euro's, really nice bottle.

They started us off with 2 amuse's.  First mushrooms wrapped in  (what I could have sworn was thinly sliced potatoes) but the waitress said no, that it was wrapped in pastry???  Second was some little anchovies on toast with some balsamic reduction.  Both delicious, especially the mushrooms.  I could have eaten a few of those,

My favorite dinner buddy!

The now in season White asparagus

Cordero lechal D.O. Castilla - Suckling Lamb

Kokotxas de merluza rebozadas o al pil-pil

Everything thqt we had was delicious but I was most fascinated by my dish Kokotxas pil-pil, which is made with only 3 ingredients.  Cod cheeks, olive oil and garlic.  First they cook is slowly over a low fire, then they begin to swirl the dish for a long time which forces the gelatin in the cod cheeks to come out, creating this white sauce almost like a creme sauce.  It's an amazing thing.  Eating it your mouth becomes sticky with the collagen from the cod and the fish is super tender.  It's an amazing thing.  

We had some little apple turnover like things with vanilla ice cream with raspberry sauce that was great but we dove into so quickly that I forgot to get a photo of it.  A really good meal for 104 euros.