Saturday, December 06, 2008

5J Jamón Ibérico from Mesón Cinco Jotas

Jamón ibérico

Cool. It was with sheer luck that we stumbled into this place, needing to plop ourselves down at a tapas bar after a long afternoon of walking around. Only later did was realize that this was actually a chain of places across Spain that specialized in 5J-branded Iberian ham. It was impressively smoky and rich without being excessively salty nor fatty, and pairing well with some Catalan toast here in Barcelona. That portion above ("1/2R," whatever that means) wasn't cheap though at €17.30 (US$22).

Gambas al ajillo y Morcilla de Burgos

We grabbed a few other things that we saw behind the glass casing, including some delightfully tender gambas al ajillo as well as what I initially thought was eggplant but turned out to be blood pudding. The latter was much better than it sounded: it tasted more of rice and spices rather than blood, thus reminding me a bit of haggis. I'll easily go for that again.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

dude, i really hope you enjoyed that ham... don't forget to take some of it with you, when you leave spain! it's a really great present for family and friends!

greets from germany!

Anonymous said...

Yes my friend without knowing it, you've been eating the 'top de la crème' among the salted ham in the world... - I know it sounds like a very typical North American sentence...-
This specific ham has been 'cured' for more than 24 months and the pork is an endemic pork from Spain (Sus Scrofa Mediterraneus). When you eat something you don't know about, Be curious and have a look around at http://www.ibergour.co.uk/en/jamon/jamon_pata_negra.html (I have NO stocks of that company, but this is the only source I found Wikipedialike!-.
Cheers! ;-)
Pepe Luis

(^-_-^) said...

ION Orchard's 360 market sells jamon iberico de bellota. I was very surprised.