Borgia - Menu

"We arrived at Restaurant Borgia in Viana about 3 PM which is the usual time for lunch in Spain. It was enthusiastically recommended by the owner of our hotel in Lagaurdia. Viana is a few kilometers north of Logrono on the road to Pamplona. It is a small medieval town and the Restaurant looks very ordinary from the street. Inside is a modern avante garde decor and a first rate restaurant. This is a family owned and run small establishment. A restaurant like this isn’t expected to produce the same quality food as restaurants like Akelare and Arzak in San Sebastian. In this instance we benefitted from a fortunate communications error. Our waiter spoke little or no English. We showed him a printed phrase in Spanish that was intending to ask him to identify the chef’s specialties on the menu. He misunderstood and thought we were asking him to “bring on the chef’s specialty dishes.” He turned on his heel and disappeared into the kitchen. What a wonderful mistake that was! From that point on we were treated to a parade of dishes and wines that were all among the best we’ve had at Arzak, Akelare, El Bulli, Michel Guerard, or any other top drawer restaurants we've patronized. He never asked us to make a menu or wine selection and we didn’t care. Our bill was about $150 U.S. and it was a bargain. The first (cold Tomates Confiteds) course was a half a fresh peeled and seeded tomato accompanied with grilled corn kernels and a delicious sauce that contained bits of shellfish (hard to imagine but truly great to eat). Our second course was a light and wonderful soup (Sopas de Cebolla). A rather small soup bowl was placed in front of each of us containing a raw egg yolk and a piece of toasted bun. Then we were served a tureen of very hot broth (onion based). The hot broth was ladled into the bowls. The idea was to break the egg yolk and let it cook a bit in the hot broth (yummy). The third course was a beautiful plate with 3 baby artichokes (alcachofes) fresh from the garden and served hot in an olive oil vinagrette with a slice of fresh foie gras and amazingly delicious and wild fresh mushrooms. The main course was a rack of baby lamb served in a wonderful Rioja red wine sauce and accompanied with grilled red and green peppers cut into half inch squares. The lamb was like white veal in color and delicious. The wine was a red Rioja reserva from the Ondarra Bodega which is located about a quarter mile from the restaurant. It was one of the best Spanish wines we’ve ever tasted. Dessert consisted of fresh figs sitting on a bed of fresh local cheese blended with whipped cream and topped with a fresh blackberry sauce. Like all of the other courses dessert was delicious. We were treated to a dessert wine (Pedro Ximenez NEO). We so enjoyed the meal that we asked to take a picture of the waiter and kitchen staff. They posed graciously and were flattered that we liked the food so much (we told them that we’d previously visited the great restaurants in San Sebastian and considered their food to be on par). They loved the flattery and presented us with a gift bottle of locally made dessert wine to enjoy when we return to Texas. This was one of our best dining experiences ever, and a truly great meal."