From today's NY Times (and I am green with envy, all you New Yorkers out there!):

Flavors of Spain, Wholesale to Retail
By FLORENCE FABRICANT

Despaña Brand Foods, a sausage maker and wholesaler of Spanish imports in Jackson Heights, Queens, has renovated its storefront and opened for retail customers. "People kept coming by and asking us to sell our products," said Angelica Intriago, who owns the shop with her husband, Marco Intriago. The shelves are crammed with Spanish cheeses, rices, olive oils, vinegars, anchovies, piquillo peppers, spices, squid ink, dozens of kinds of olives, their own chorizo and morcilla (blood sausage) and other products, all at reasonable prices. Aged manchego is $8.50 a pound. An 8-ounce jar of piquillo peppers is $4.50. Imported serrano ham is $11 a pound and marcona almonds, raw or fried, are $6.50 a pound. Worth trying are the unusual naturally sweet Montegrato Pedro Ximenez sherry vinegars, $12 for 750 milliliters of the 16-year-old variety. The shop also sells paella pans. It is at 86-17 Northern Boulevard, and has food tastings on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Food tastings all day every Saturday!! Oh man, that would be worth finding a cheap flight out east. If I lived in NY, I would be hanging out there all the time! Somebody go and tell us about it.

If I weren't moving to Spain on Monday, I'd be running there right now! I wish I'd known about it when I taught ESL in that neighborhood!

Melinda
(about to leave New York!)

Taravb,

When you visit your parents drop by Gainesville for a visit, there is now a spanish Market called La Aurora. It has EVERYTHING! I go every Saturday and get my fix. The only thing they do not have is the Asturian mantequilla and La Casera, but they are working on La Casera. But they have Jamon serrano, chorizos Palacios, Queso Manchego ($8.95 for a Lb round). All imported from España!
Ciao

And to add insult to injury, in under two weeks we are moving to central IOWA!!! At least here in Minneapolis there were a few ways to track down good Spanish foods (I have manchego from Whole Foods in my fridge right now, and can find a couple of other tasty things at gourmet shops)! AARGH!

See...you people who live in NYC are SOOOOO LUCKY!!! From today's New York Times:

June 4, 2003
New Tapas Menu Sets Off the Fireworks
By WILLIAM GRIMES


WHEN chefs become stars, diners have a right to develop suspicions. Will the demands of fame hurt the restaurant that put the chef on the map in the first place? Can anyone satisfy the demands of television and run a kitchen at the same time? Bobby Flay, the chef and a partner in Mesa Grill and Bolo, may be a notch below "bam" on the celebrity scale, but he is getting there. He has the cookbooks and the line of sauces and spice rubs. He has a series, "Food Nation," on the Food Network. Near-electrocution while competing on "Iron Chef" solidified his reputation as New York's Derek Jeter of the kitchen — brash and charismatic.

By rights, Mr. Flay's restaurants should be putting out minimum effort while collecting maximum profits. But they aren't. Mesa Grill, when I reviewed it three years ago, showed no signs of flagging. And Bolo is an even more pleasant surprise. Over the years, on chance visits, I detected signs of slippage and laziness at the restaurant, which opened a decade ago and is now well into middle age. It seemed a little tired. But on recent visits, I discovered a newly energized Bolo. The Spanish-influenced menu has been updated, with a new tapas menu added on. The wine list has been improved and more tightly focused. The dining room team now acts as if it has a winner on its hands, which it does.

The new tapas menu shows Mr. Flay at his best. It forces him to work in miniature, a format that shows off his talent for expressing simple flavors clearly, with precise seasoning. Sour orange dressing and small orange segments cut the unctuousness and salt in marinated white anchovies, making a perfect marriage of fruit with fish. A chunk of seared duck liver gets treated as a serious cut of meat, with a sweet-sharp jolt of sherry vinegar tempered by honey and black pepper. Shrimp, simply grilled, are paired with a small rice cake, creamy inside and fragrant with saffron. The presentation is attractive, too. The tapas come four at a time, in square white ceramic bowls arranged as if they were part of a Japanese bento box.

Appetizers on the new menu seem like a midway stage between tapas and entree, a little larger and just a little more complex and flamboyant, but still recognizably part of the same family. Mr. Flay has built a career on big bold flavors and lots of spice, but he is judicious and, in his own way, restrained. A light rice-flour batter makes a crisp but nearly transparent wrapping for tender rings of squid, whose natural sweetness shines through. A few dots of anchovy vinaigrette and a drizzle or two of bright-green parsley pesto do the rest. Crunchy, sharp-tasting green-onion croutons, likewise, add an ingenious finishing touch to a potent brew of steamed baby clams and saffron-tomato broth.

Again and again, Mr. Flay orchestrates his flavors masterfully, playing the rich syrupy sweetness of a yellow-pepper romesco sauce to offset the pungency of grilled manchego cheese. A scattering of baby arugula adds a layer of spice and earth. Salmon tartare, a dish that has been around the block more than a few times, comes alive at Bolo with red-pepper pesto and a smooth chickpea polenta cake. Likewise the smoked paprika French fries that accompany a roasted fish of the day in a simple but effective sherry-tarragon sauce.

Many chefs have come to grief speeding merrily down the unmarked roads of fusion cuisine. Mr. Flay has managed to develop distinctive dishes that draw on Spanish flavors and spices in a disciplined way. A fruity Rioja glaze makes perfect sense for grilled tuna, as does the aged sherry that infuses a morel vinaigrette with a deep, nutty flavor. Characteristically, Mr. Flay pairs a polenta cake with green peas and mint, a way of freshening the dish with spring garden flavors wrapped in a bland, soothing package. The humble fig in Mr. Flay's hands becomes an opulent sauce that doubles the richness of the walnut romesco stuffing in an entree of pork tenderloin. A garlicky potato gratin makes this dish one of the true heavyweights on the menu, along with a fiercely concentrated squid-ink risotto packed with prawn and lobster meat, surrounded by a pungent green-onion vinaigrette.

The wine list provides support to the whole enterprise. Bolo is small, but it goes all-out to offer good sherries in the relevant styles, with an admirable commitment to the full-bodied olorosos and to out-of-the-way dessert wines from Málaga and Tarragona. Tapas without sherry is unthinkable, of course. But Bolo also has chosen the rest of its list shrewdly, highlighting the major regions and producers like Vega Sicilia, Abadía Retuerta and Daphne Glorian.

As a final homage to Spain, Mr. Flay delivers what may be the finest cheesecake known to humankind, an impressively dense product made with (admittedly Italian) robiola cheese that has been suffused with sherry and scorched on top, like a crème brûlée. Juicy chunks of macerated fruit and a scoop of tart citrus granita refresh the palate, making possible yet another onslaught on the cheesecake itself. Frozen coffee soufflé, a semifreddo in texture, also leans toward Italy. Topped with a mocha-latte "crust" or foam, and sprinkled throughout with bits of anise toffee, it tastes like a big frozen espresso with sambuca.

Bolo sparkles with bright ideas like that. When he's on, Mr. Flay brings color, life and creativity to every dish he touches, and at Bolo these days he is definitely on. The restaurant looks like a glorified cafe and feels like a chummy saloon. The food says it's more than that. Moving into its second decade, Bolo has rediscovered its youth, and, improbably, become fresher and more vibrant than the day it opened.

Bolo
***

23 East 22nd Street; (212) 228-2200.

ATMOSPHERE Modernized, reinterpreted Spanish cuisine served in a brightly decorated tavernlike dining room.

SOUND LEVEL Medium.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Anchovies in sour orange; shrimp and saffron rice cake; steamed clams in saffron-tomato broth; squid-ink risotto with lobster and prawns; pork tenderloin with walnut romesco; robiola-sherry cheesecake.

SERVICE Relaxed, friendly, attentive.

WINE LIST A well-edited list of 150 wines, with about 25 sherries and dessert wines.

HOURS Lunch, Monday through Friday, noon to 2:30. Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 5:30 to 10 p.m.; Friday through Sunday, 5:30 to 11 p.m.

PRICE RANGE Lunch, tapas, four for $15; appetizers, $7 to $11; entrees, $13 to $18.50; desserts, $9. Dinner, tapas, four for $15; appetizers, $8 to $13.50; entrees, $27.50 to $31; desserts, $9.

CREDIT CARDS All major cards.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS No steps to dining room; restrooms are on dining level.

WHAT THE STARS MEAN:

(None)|Poor to satisfactory
*|Good
**|Very good
***|Excellent
****|Extraordinary

Ratings reflect the reviewer's reaction to food, ambience and service, with price taken into consideration. Menu listings and prices are subject to change.

Wow! I've got to try "the finest cheesecake in humankind."! My sympathies to you, taravb. As a native Iowan, I can understand your fear of finding nothing of interest to eat there. However, Iowa City has a great co-op. If you are moving to Des Moines or Ames you can probably find something similar. However, your best bet is probably tienda.com! Thank goodness for the internet.

My condolences on Iowa too. Being a native Minnesotan, I understand how tough it can be leaving such a lush, green paradise and moving to...well...Iowa. Iowa, which stands for I Owe the World an Apology. Good luck, and too bad we won't get to meet in August when I'm back that way. I was looking forward to a trip to La Bodega!

AH, the Minnesota-Iowa rivalry rears its ugly head yet again (is this a Paul Bunyan's ax thing or is that some other rivalry). Anyone willing to call Minnesota a lush green paradise and then run Iowa down in the same breath is ... well beyond contempt!! What next, Indiana-Kentucky or city vs. country (wait a minute isn't that what this post is all about?). I'd trade either of you for the wonderful midwest any day of the week. Just come and enjoy beautiful rundown Bucharest and even Des Moines looks good! Three more weeks until I move to Spain, can't wait!

Cali, I think you should pass up La Bodega for the hip new Solera! I want to go, but won't have a chance before we move. It's supposed to be very good--and I know josie (from the board) wants to go too! I wish I could join you--but Iowa beckons, with its gloriously flat and unchanging farmland. Whee!