Second Visit for CalÇots

I returned to Cal Ganxo  with the family for one last calÇotada. This time we were seated in the main part of the masía. It was dark and sparsely lit by candles, natural light steaming through the windows, and distantly spaced light fixtures. This old stone farm house dates back to the 18th century. The masía has the most enormous ceiling timbers I have ever seen in my life. I didn't snap too many pictures, but I did go without my phone camera off course to look at the other parts of the restaurant when I went to the ladies room.  Did regret that, but who takes their phone to the WC? The other exterior photos in this post are of the countryside leading to Masmolets.

Fins ara!

Calçots at Cal Ganxo

We have finally found a restaurant with a superb calçotada menu at Cal Ganxo in Masmolets down in Valls, about an hour away from Barcelona. The food and restaurant setting is worth the drive to Valls, capital of calçot farming in Catalonia. Cal Ganxo has only one menu. There is no first or second course to chose from on the menu list. No amics, all the food course selections have been made for you and this makes getting served incredibly fast and efficiently by a pleasant waitstaff. 

The table is set with wine and water, and as soon as you sit down the waiter swiftly comes and sets a terracotta roof tile down on the table with newspaper wrapped grilled calçots. The best part of this menu is their all-you-can-calçots option. We had three teulas and I say this with slight embarrassment at how much we ate. But these giant, tender green onions and the romesco sauce (you can purchase it online) were so irresistible. The waitstaff will keep serving you teulas de calçots as long as you have room in your stomach. The romesco sauce is so delectable, that it makes it difficult to stop eating! Everything here is homemade and this is precisely what sets Cal Ganxo apart from the many other restaurants I have eaten at. They can afford to make homemade romesco sauce and crema catalana because of their fixed menu.

This restaurant is now our official calçotada restaurant to visit every year before it closes at the end of April. The restaurant service is great, there is ample parking space (even helicopters land there), and their calçots and romesco sauce are worth the drive for a mouth-watering experience.

                                                                       Adeu!!

p.s. This is a very Catalan region. I spoke in Spanish to some local towns people and they responded in Catalan. I immediately got the gist and responded in my American accented Catalan.

Calçots stacked on a grill before they get roasted.

Thin tree branches used for grilling.  Once these are done, the entire grill is replaced with the grill in the photo above.

He's the calçotero in charge of grill.

That's my Ace on the left talking to another calçotero.

Porrò de vi.

Our first teula de calçots.

Homemade romesco sauce.

Ace with charred peelings on his plate and dipping a calçot in romesco sauce.

Hot coals in an earthenware dish maintaining the grilled meat warm.

Carxofes, morcilla i faves (artichokes, morcilla and beans).

Allioli (garlic, egg and olive oil) sauce.

That's my man with a glass of cava in hand.

The calçotada menu includes: calçots, grilled meats, wine, water, cava, crema catalana, and coffee.

Crema Catalana (similar to crème brûlée).

Oranges are a typicalyl serviced, aside with crema Catalana, at a calçotada.

Interior shot of ceiling beams.

I loved the idea of a hand sink inside the restaurant to wash blackened hands from peeling the roasted onions.

Ace having his usual cigarette after eating.

The branches used for roasting calçots.

Olive tree lining the driveway.

Had to photograph this village road next to the restaurant.

A guide to help first time calçot eaters.

Calçots From laTerra Ferma

Long have I waited to eat calçots. Panic was beginning to set that this was the last weekend of Abril and I was going to miss out on eating these delicious onions. The period of calçotades begins on January 31 in Valls and ends in April. So understandably, I was worried I wouldn't find were to buy calçots and get my calçot fix.

An American could easily confuse calçots in the supermarket for leeks. Calçots are grown regionally in Valls, a small town in Tarragona, where it is said a peasant started the tradition of eating calçots by charring them over a barbecue and peeling the outer burnt layers. The peasant sought to salvage the onions instead of starving and throwing them away. The tender part of the barbecued onion is then dipped in salvitxada and held above your mouth. You lower the calçot covered in romesco sauce into your mouth and slowly eat away at the calçot as you would a piece of licorice or french fry, only in reverse position.

The best setting for experiencing a calçotada is at a masia owned by a Tarragonan friend and barbecuing outdoors. We had a friend whose family owned a masia out in the back country in Tarragona where we got to pull out the calçots directly from the earth, grilling them on the barbecue, and dipping them in the best homemade salvitxada I have ever provat.

Here is what you do if you don't have a friend with a masia or do not feel like going to a restaurant and opening your mouth like jaws in front of patrons staring at you as you swallow calçots. Resort to using your broiler i ja està! Calçots a la broiler! I tried it this weekend and they turned out tan deliciós, que bo.

I shopped for my calçots at my online provider for fruita y verdura ecològica, all fruits and vegetables include dirt and critters. The calçots  mysteriously appeared as a seasonal item to purchase in late April, hmm.

Err, my romesco sauce was not homemade

But it was prepared with artisanal methods

Washed and stripped

El resultat