Good times

The setting is the classic spanish decorum of hanging ham legs and crushed napkins strewn on the floor. Being American toursist, we were a bit intimidated by so many people speaking both Euaskadi and spanish, but realized this is the only way to experience basque culture. Almost everyone had a wooden block with sheets of Jamon Jabugo on them, so we started off with those. My girlfriend ordered sangria, while, in the midst of my Basque obsession, I went for the Txakoli. The Jamon was like nothing i've had in my young life. The texture, the delicacy, it transcended food. While i was swirling the Jamon in my mouth, the compressed imagery of sweeping hog fields and black berets just overwhelmed me. I almost cried. I recommend the Jamon. Being complete novices, we didn't know what to order next, so we began pointing at dishes that were carried out from the kitchen. Unwittingly, with this sort of random sampling, we were able to take in items we didn't even know existed. We had gindellas (sp?), these fried green chili peppers sprinkled with sea salt. We had skewered bacon with mushrooms. We had the salted cod in tomato sauce. All of it was good, but it's at a place like Bar La Cepa where the confluence of food and people privledge you with a true sense of how the Basque live. The staff at Bar La Cepa, were jovial and warm, despite my digraceful and iredeemable spanish. Pointing and smiling was enough for them. I recommend this place. Good times. We were standing at the bar, so the frenetic action of the bartenders, their manic movments of slicing and pouring and corking, was reaching distance. Their white shirts were soaked!

7 June 2005 | A Yahoo! User

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