Memento

I´m still drawing at a clipping pace, but you´ll be glad to know that so far I´m meeting all deadlines bang on the head. The drawings you see are for the July/August number of Club de Gourmets.
Still, yesterday I was persuaded to go out for lunch. Our friend, Mr.Zagat,or the Artist formerly known as Edu, has recommended yet another winner, Memento.
I was going to start off by saying how annoying I find so many restaurants, but then I decided that it wouldn´t do justice to the place. It´s so good that it would still shine in a city full of Michelin stars.
I loved our lunch so much that I can´t wait to return. Apparently, they change the shortish menu all the time, so I´m thinking I´ll be there next week, before the salmon tartare of my dreams goes out of my life forever.
What I liked best is that all the dishes were the platonic ideal versions of stuff we´ve had before.
Take J. When he asked for gazpacho, I almost shook my head. Gazpacho? When he could have had mussels with chistorra, or a polpetti salad? In a place that advertises New California cuisine? Where the chef is from Wisconsin?But he was right,too. The gazpacho was the best I´ve had in a long long time.
The menu is full of surprises, but they are good. You may ask for the sauteed porcini with poached egg, as I did, only find out once it´s before you that it´s basically a spinach salad. In which the leaves are tiny. Which has been dressed in the kitchen, so that even though it sits prettily on your plate, you´re not left with a splodge on top and dry leaves beneath. And there were crunchy bacon bits all the way down! And this was just the bonus. The actual mushrooms and the egg were to die for, too. I´m telling you, this place is amazing. I could go on and on, but I won´t because I still have lots to do, and I daresay you can do without incoherent and babbly descriptions of tender pork stew, buttery mashed potatoes (mashed potatoes!!!in the country where the side dishes don´t exist!) or crumbly meringue with berries, or I could really go on but I won´t.
Let me just say this, to top it off. The menu was very well written. This may sound like faint praise, but I promise you, menus bring out my inner proof reader, which, combined with my outer pedant, and the fact that I´m usually hungry, make me a monster. And there was a single line to make me scoff. Not one. Bliss.
Memento. C/ Caracas 1. 91 448 99 58