A bit undercooked

Now you may have started to realise and may have not, but I do like eating. To celebrate my birthday yesterday I took Miriam out for dinner at Sikkim, a place we tried three years ago and found the mix of cuisine which supposedly follows the route of Marco Polo to suit us perfectly.

Last night we booked, but on Friday and Saturday they have an odd system where they have two sittings, the first from 8.30 to 11 and then second from 11.15 to 1. I prefer to eat at around 10 when going out, so this didn’t really fit in with my plans for the evening, but we accepted the first sitting and arrived at about 9.

The restaurant is nicely decorated, with rich clothes from the spice route and Buddhas overseeing the diners. My first course was a salad of baby spinach with mint, basil and figs, while Miriam chose what turned out to be a giant spring roll. In fact she’d been looking forward to the starter she had last time, which was a cold Thai coconut soup which was excellent. Unfortuantely although it is listed on their website it was apparently removed from the menu at the beginning of August.

For the main course she decided on seafood brochets, while I was in 2 (or 3 minds) about what to select. One of the dishes was described as tuna tataki and since I’m not really up on Japanese cuisine I asked he to tell me what it was. When the dishes arrived I was a bit aghast. While the waitress had told me about the peppercorns and sesame seeds she’d neglected one important fact; the tuna was raw.

Now I’m not that fussy about food, but one thing I don’t eat is raw fish due to an unfortunate experience in a sushi restaurant while visiting Tokyo many years ago, although I will eat it seared tuna which is quite rare. When we eventually got a waitress over she explained that it wasn’t raw because it had been marinated. I beg to differ, it was raw.

Anyway, I asked them to cook it for me which they did (probably the chief was thinking “philistine”, but I’m in charge here, I am the customer 🙂 ) and it was rather bland but at least cooked. While the dish was being re-engineered for me I tucked into some of the prawns on Miriam’s plate and they were pretty good.

We skipped desert as we were both a bit unhappy with the restaurant, although I think we both had a good time. Time for a drink at l’Acensor (I’m not going to tell you how to get there, it is great because it is largely tourist free) and then home for a glass or two of wine and some music before bed.

Anyway, I have just googled tataki and the two recipes I’ve read state the tuna should be seared! If it had been done like that I’d have been perfectly content. Next restaurant; a return to Cardamon.

Categorised in: barcelona, food, life

This post was written by David