Around the World – Fuerteventura, Spain (May 2015)

The last couple of weeks were a bit slow on posts, but that was mainly due to holidays. We went to Fuerteventura; so,😎🌴, loads of ☀️.🍷, 🍻, and 🍴of course.

Fuerteventura is one of the Spanish Canary Islands; an archipelago approx. 100km off the Atlantic coast of Morocco. With a goat population that exceeds humans (apparently also in the tourist season), Fuerteventura’s local cuisine showcases goat products.

Mostly roasts and stews, like this cabrita al forno I had at Restaurante Casa Santa Maria in Betancuria. An oven roasted leg of goat with loads of garlic and rosemary served with a thyme/red wine sauce, herby potato gratin and braised chicory with mushrooms, garlic, and bacon. This specific one was delicious, but for me, it was okay to just give the goat a try a couple of times and then move on to other types of meat…

A local specialty is a lovely cheese from the indigenous Majorero goats, queso majorero, that has a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status. It is a firm, pale white cheese with a milky, nutty flavor. The matured cheese gets an olive oil coating with either added gofio (a local flour made from roasted grains) or pimento (smoked paprika) for added flavoring. It was served to us as an amuse with some olives or with dulce de membrillo, a slab of quince jelly which combined well with the nuttiness of the cheese. There is a small local museum, Museo del Queso Majorero, dedicated to these cheeses near Antigua.

In Fuerteventura, there are loads of fresh fish around, but the range of the Canarian tapas was not so appealing compared to mainland Spain (we may have been spoiled by Andalusia’s fantastic tapas twice last year 😇). Besides cooking at home a couple of times, we tried some other more contemporary Spanish food in Corralejo (we liked El Olivo Gastrobar), but also found some great Italian restaurants, like the harborside Taverna Fogalera and L’Oca Blanca just off the main street. L’Oca Blanca was the highlight: amazing freshly made Italian food cooked to perfection, good wines, and amicable service. Arguably, the best Italian food we had in quite a while.

@ L’Oca Blanca |Interesting “high-rise” presentation of a Caprese Salad

@ L'Oca Blanca | Gnocchi alla sorrentina is an oven baked gnocchi with a tomato/basil sauce and topped off with loads of mozzarella. Our youngest choose the non-oven version with the traditional tomato sauce (which was delicious), but the one on the photo turned out even better as I opted for bolognese sauce when given the choice. — @ L’Oca Blanca | Gnocchi Alla Sorrentina is oven-baked gnocchi with a tomato/basil sauce and topped off with loads of mozzarella. Our youngest choose the non-oven version with the traditional tomato sauce (which was delicious), but the one on the photo turned out even better as I opted for bolognese sauce when given a choice.

IMG_2678 (1) — @ L’Oca Blanca | Ricotta and spinach filled raviolini with sage and butter sauce, pine nuts and parmesan shavings

@ La Fogalera | Spaghetti with creamy bacon / minced beef sauce

@ La Fogalera | Gnocchi with a herby mushroom sauce

@ El Olivo | Tuna Tataki with wasabi dip, Croquetas de Jamon and Asparagus tempura with romanesco sauce. All washed down with G&Ts (Gin Mare, olive and rosemary)

@ El Olivo | A 300g / 10½oz beef burger with bacon and caramelized red onion rings. The twice cooked chips were amazing. The kids had ordered some pasta from the kid’s menu, and as that were rather small portions, I had to fight them off to preserve a few chips for myself. Holding that huge burger, I failed miserably, so I ordered a separate portion to indulge later on.

We had a somewhat disappointing dinner at Land of Freedom, despite good reviews on TripAdvisor. The concept seemed good: EUR 15 for 5 tapas and 5 wine pairings. However, the tapas “themes” were set, and all had a couple of tapas that we didn’t want. Some of the wine pairings you could get for EUR 4-5 a bottle in the local supermarkets (although at that price level it was to be expected). It seemed that we could not order tapas separately, so we ordered some à la carte portions of pasta instead.

Before the food came, they put an entire range of dried herbs on the table. That was a first… and not a very encouraging sign. In the end, we didn’t need the herbs, but the pasta was nothing special. They did manage to get my spaghetti carbonara’s consistency closely resemble scrambled eggs. Luckily, we returned to L’Oca Blanca the next evening to experience how it is supposed to be made…

The worst restaurant experience was the garlic bread at La Factoria: it was made with a halved, undercooked bake-off bun from the supermarket and it had a spread that seemed to have been made with margarine rather than butter… I must admit though that they served very good thin crust pizzas.