Pamplona: a night out with "the girls"

Long-awaited and yet worth the wait, I spent the evening with Martha, Marisa and Julie Saturday night. We came from different points and met at Lillie’s on 17th Street, a new “Irish Victorian” bar. It is named for the famous British actress and renowned beauty Lillie Langtry who was nicknamed the “Jersey Lily.” This is a brand new, gorgeous space where a ton of money was spent to make it look as if it has been there forever. Their tagline is “celebrating friendship the old-fashioned way,” which apparently means drinking beer and watching soccer, seemingly incongruous activities for the feminine-leaning surroundings. But we were four women reunited for a night out, drinking beer and watching the Preakness so maybe they are on to something? I had a tasty Belgian Leffe Blonde. We toasted each other and all agreed that for a variety of individual reasons, we needed this night out and we welcomed the gift of stepping through a very small window into a space away from daily stress.

From Lillie’s we headed north to Pamplona on East 28th Street for modern Spanish bistro fare. From the street there is not much to catch your eye. The narrow front is all glass but it looks dark within. I admit to feeling an awful discouragement when we walked in at 7:15 to a quiet and nearly empty dining room. It was the sinking feeling of a former restauranteur on a deathly slow Saturday night and of a diner fearing she has made a poor choice of restaurant. Fortunately for all concerned, the place was noisy and packed to overflowing by the time we left a couple of hours later.

After a brief discussion of the merits of red vs. white wine and red vs. white Sangria, we ordered a pitcher of white for the table and then chose a selection of tapas and a couple of media raciones (medium plates) to share. Sliced baguette rounds arrived in short order with a dish of delicious garlicky, bright green olive oil. We dove in while debating the merits of Facebook. The initiated (Julie and I) regaled the resistant, non-converted with stories of our Kenyon “friends.”

We had no trouble at all choosing from the small menu – almost everything sounded good – but did struggle to divide some of the small dishes four ways. Marisa gave it a true College try but was just not up to the task. Thankfully Martha was there with her ample tennis muscles that left her able to slice right through the skewers on the pinchos without breaking a sweat! Julie was not asked to do any tasks requiring the use of two hands as she needed to clasp one at the neck of her too-revealing sweater at all times to keep public sightings of “the girls” to a minimum.

In no time the dishes started arriving and there really wasn’t a dud among them. We started with a thick wedge of Tortilla de Patatas with slices of Jamon Serrano. I need to find out how they make this. It is described as a “frittata” on the menu but was so different from one. We also had Buñuelos de Queso, fabulously airy fried little balls of Iberico and Manchego cheese, and Pincho de Datiles, a personal favorite. I had them at a party this week and would eat them constantly if given the chance. Like all of the best food, they are deceivingly simple in terms of ingredients but complex in flavor mixing sweet and salty with textures that are meltingly soft and crispy. We all loved these!

The Pincho de Chorizo y Gambas (chorizio and shrimp served on those pesky skewers)came resting on goat cheese toasts – another great combination of tastes. Bocadillo de Pato was like a grilled Panini filled with braised Duck and creamy chevre. The Gazpacho was a show-stopper and unlike any I’ve ever had. The broth was pale green with puréed avocado. Hidden beneath the surface were the more traditional cubes of cucumber, tomato, etc. and in the center of the bowl was a large dollop of a tangy yogurt sorbet. Yum.

Pulpo was one of the media raciones we ordered. I don’t like pretentious food and foam of any kind tops that list for me. That said, I will let Pamplona off the hook for two reasons. 1.) The chef (Alex Ureña) worked with foam king, Ferran Adria, himself. This is as good excuse as any I suppose but had the dish not been good, that fact alone would not have been enough. That brings me to the second reason. 2.) The dish was delicious with perfectly tender octopus served over a thick bed of lemony and tender potato confit. Yes, there was foam, but it was spring garlic foam that served a real purpose in the dish.

Finally, as we all agreed that we had little experience with Spanish cheese beyond Manchego, we ordered the Plato de Queso. There was one sheep’s and one cow’s milk cheese and two made from goat’s milk. The menu lists them as Mahon, Ahumado de Pria, Murcia al Vino & La Peral but honestly I do not know which was which. All were good but our favorite was the very aged, very moldy blue goat that’s flavor lingered on in the mouth. The cheese came with triangles of dense raisin nut bread and slices of fruit confit – was it apricot? quince?

If this seems like a lot of food, it was. And it wasn’t. We ate and ate but mostly in tastes and mouthfuls. This meant that there was room for dessert. We dipped long fried Churros y Canela in Valrhona chocolate sauce and shared an order of Tarta de Turrón, a chocolate and almond mousse tarte with an unusual consistency that came with creamy chocolate ice cream. The meal ended with two espressos and two cappuccinos and then it was into the night for the walk back to our vehicles further downtown.

Yes, the food at Pamplona was great, but it only enhanced what would already have been a great evening. Conversation flowed comfortably and touched on work, husbands, joys and concerns about our children and a discussion of what we were like at their ages (mostly worse in many ways), College classmate updates and of course, some exposé of former romantic adventures. Twice I laughed uncontrollably until I was near tears. I have to say that, in my world today, that outranks any meal.

http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/restaurants-bars/73685/lillies-union-square-bar-opening
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillie_Langtry
http://www.pamplonanyc.com/