Nibbles & Shenanigans

A guy can only have so many brownies every now and then right? Specially of you try to keep being as healthy as you can!.
So this time was the turn for the next batch of chocolate goodness:
First off, I went to this small very quiet and quaint bakery/coffee shop/patisserie called Banette located here in the Los Palos Grandes zone in Caracas. The place was, as I said, very quiet and i got my order right away, no hassle, no queues. The only thing was that the lady at the counter gave me the wrong receipt. Still, nothing that can't be too complicated to fix. I went over the counter again and got the right one. I ordered a small coffee, a Cachito de Jamon (a ham cachito, which is a salty baked dough filled with bits of ham) and of course the brownie.

My order with the wrong receipt:

I haven't seen these here very often even though i was told that they were common!

Cheers!

I went a while ago to the opening of this new hotel in town called the Pestana Caracas, which is located right around the corner where i live here (or very close you might say) and what with being the new offering in the city as far as "boutique" hotels are concerned, i thought it was only natural for me to go there.
The Pestana is located at the 1st Ave. of Santa Edivigis, a nice and safe neighborhood here, and it has 18 floors and a rooftop pool and a bar/lounge on that very same floor. There are 2 towers and one is fully completed and the other one is still in construction.
Of course, i took a whole bunch of pictures that night:

The pool: (sorry if it's too dark but that's the best shot i could get with the lighting at night)

The Restaurant:

The lounge/bar:

A view form the rooftop:

Since I love chocolate, and i love brownies, I decided to get into this hunt for the perfect brownie here in the city, just to see what the city has to offer.
When i mean the "perfect brownie" is of course, the one I will like the best. I like my brownies to have a crust on top, to be soft and mushy at the center and to have not too many nuts, whatever they may be (walnuts, nuts, cashews, almonds, hazelnuts, etc). I also like them to be chewy and not insanely sweet. I also like the chocolate used in them to be of quality.

So I started off at some of the closest and allegedly best patisseries:
Fisrt it was the St. Honoré, in the Chacao district:

There was a very annoying queue inside that was very long and there were other queues that were for something else but i didn't know what they were for, there were no signals within sight to know for sure.
 I had to ask which one was the one for desserts and they pointed me to one of them, very condescendingly to boot. After i made it to the top of the queue, they told me i was at the wrong one, and pointed me to the other one.
 After all this very annoying waste of time, i finally got to the brownie i wanted:
Very crappy presentation, a cardboard plate and some not too clean napkins. And a plastic spoon. I hate them.
The sweet was ok in sugars, and it didn't taste quirky in any way. But there was no crust and the cake was too dry and not chocolate-y enough for me. It had a fresh half of a nut on to as you can see. All in all, i wasn't a fan. And of course the service was  dismal.

After that, I went to another one, called Maison Plaza (a sort of café, with a restaurant on the side) , which i have been there before and i like: a view of the fountain

When i got there (no queues), i asked for a brownie and the new lady there didn't know what i was saying, I sais again: a brownie, made of chocolate. And she said: chocolate? and i replied Yes, made with chocolate. So she went and got me this:
Yes, you noticed, it's a chocolate Fondant, NOT a Brownie. But this fondant (served inside a panetonne paper cup) looked better than the brownie that was showcased and it was more expensive too, but they charged it to me as a brownie, so needless to say, i was only too happy to try this one out instead of the other one. I asked for a bottle of water to tame my guilt as well.
Presentation was way better, with a real plate, with a logo of the place and Clean napkins. I had a very nice table all to myself. Didn't even mind the plastic spoon. A closer look:
It was wonderful! Chocolate was of top quality, soft, creamy and sweet but not too much and the cake part was just perfect, it had lots of moisture but it was firm.
That's all for now, but i promise to be on the lookout for some more brownie madness.
Until next time!

Here are some pictures I took at the Altamira square some days ago, everything seemed to be blooming that day.

A couple of weeks ago, i went to this place called "El Budare de La Castellana" here in Caracas city, Budare is the name for a metal cooking plate that's usually used to heat the Arepas (a corn meal patty, used as bread) , and La Castellana is a zone in Caracas.
They usually have a wide variety of typical venezuelan dishes and I was in the mood for something along those lines.
Instead of having the usual Arepa (of which I will talk some more in a future post) or the very tasty and favorite of mine Cachapa (see one of my first posts on the blog here), I decided to take on  Venezuela's National Dish: The Pabellón Criollo.
I asked around what Pabellón stands for and some people told me is a rather large gathering and some other people told me it was something else and so on. What it has to do with the name of the dish i still don't exactly know. The Criollo part means that it's of Creole origin.
Apparently, the dish was invented a long time ago by an unnamed cook, and nobody knows for sure who it was or exctly when , but the thing took off as it popularity grew and grew over the 19th and 20th centuries when it became the National dish of the country.
Some people say that it represents the different race varieties of Venezuela's people: the very white of the rice for the white people, the very black of the black beans for the people with african ancestry and the very brown of the shredded meat for the mestizos or creole people, along with the true local people, the amerindians. I don't really like the way some people talk about this, but here in Venezuela the race issue is not so intense as a topic as in some other parts of the globe, for example, here when someone says "mi negrita" (my little black one -female-) as a literal translation it doesn't sound too well, but eher it means that the person who says it loves the other one and loves the fact that she's black, and the phrase itself is a token of close connection between the two of them. In the US, if you say that and you're white you are a big bigot. As simple as that.
For the venezuelans, the white must be of an immaculate white, even its preparation involves other ingredients that may tint it like red bellpeppers but the result must be a clean white, and the grains must be shiny and separated, not like a lump of rice. The meat must be soft and very fragant and the black beans must be very soft but still firm, a little sugary but not so much.
Some people here like to eat it with "baranda" which is the name they use to call the fried ripe plantains that go around the plate sometimes.
Of course, there are local variations depending on the state or region you're in. In the andean region for example, where i used to live for a long time, they like to use "tostones" instead of the ripe yellow plantains. Tostones are re-fried green plantains.
Some other people like to use fish instead of the  cow meat,  or some other  meat like a capibara meat.  A capibara is  a HUGE rodent  that tastes like salty  pork. 
Some people like to use sunny side up fried eggs or some slices of avocado, and some white cheese, like the one i ate.
Here are some pictures: This first one is the putside of the restaurant "El Budare de la Castellana"

This second one is a close up of the Pabellón Criollo as it was served to me:
So what do you think? It was very tasty to me.

With a tag line that said: only the best!, this event took place this Saturday afternoon from 3pm to 10pm (and a little later) at the Tamanaco Intercontinental Hotel here in Caracas. It was put together by Mancha de Vino Producciones (Wine Stain Productions!) with wine advocate and author Vladimir Viloria in charge of the whole thing.

There were over 20 Distributors of spirits and olive oil there that day, inlcuding: Sudamericana de Licores, Hormann Durr, ALNOVA, Francisco Dorta Dist., Locodeli, AltaCava, Di-Masi, Wine Tech Bacco, ASKAR Corp, Licores Mundiales, and  many others.

We had wines from Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela (of course) etc.

So what did i try?

I made a list: chilean Sena, chilean Caliterra Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva, chilean Arboleda Carbernet Sauvignon, argentinan  Kaiken Ultra,  spanish MC Marques de Caceres, portugal´s Vintage 2003 Barros, and Barros Tawny 20 years old, Hesperade do Peso Alentejo 2003, argentinan Primus Merlot, Dona Paula Malbec, spanish rioja Luis Alegre Rosado, chilean Don Melchor 2004, italian prosecco Carpene Malvolti, another prosecco i don't remember the name of, it came in a golden bottle (see the picture i took and please tell me if you know of it), Masi Costasera Amarone, Miguel Torres Sta. Digna Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 Reserva, Altavista Premium Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, and its own Malbec 2006, france's Fortin Plaisance St. Emillion, one bubbly spanish Vilarnau, one Medoc wine i forgot its name, one Grand Siecle, a Pinot Grigio Santa Margherita, spanish Gaudium, one Clos de Chateau and my favorite: Pommard Clos des Epenots Pinot Noir.

We had some olive oils as well, one of notice called Hacienda La Laguna extra Virgin Olive Oil.

That's it! it was quite a bunch but i had a blast.

Here we go:

The hotel:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The live band:

The unnamed Prosecco:

Friends having lots of fun:

One of the highlights:

 

 

 

 

Another favorite:

The difference between a Vintage Port (on the left) and a 20 year Port (on the right):

 

Lovely Belkis, who was a sea of information! Thanks a lot:

 

 

Professional Sommelier and Engineer Mireya Matos and former Wines teacher of mine.

 

My Favorite of the night:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another highlight: Grand Siecle, how can a champagne be so good?

 

 

 

 

Cheers! ...indeed.

 

I went to this Art Show the a few days ago and it took place here in Caracas, over at the Chacao Cultural Center, a place that looked undone, but i guess it´s just me...since it was built 3 years ago or so. I guess it was too avant garde for me.

Here are some of the pictures i took of the event, I thought it was strange, and specially the fact that without Fast Food, the artist wouldn´t have had the chance or the inspiration to do such a show and it certainly was a with certain social bite against it, but it relished in the pop culture that it gives us all.

 

The building itself: well, at least the entrance...