Monday, September 19, 2005

Shopping: La Antoja


Found a new gourmet foodstuffs store yesterday afternoon, while I was walking through Lavapies. The tagline for La Antojá translates as "caprices of the palate," and that's pretty much what you get: all those things that the Spanish consider delicacies. Walnuts in honey; artisanal jams; smoked red peppers; and—of course—white asparagus.

(Speaking of which, I once got slammed on a foodie website for an article I wrote in which I referred to white asparagus as "repellently flaccid." To each his own.)

But back to those caprices of the palate: with the exception of Italian pastas and French foie gras, most everything at La Antojá comes from Spain, and most everything comes packaged in pretty little jars and tins. The red-haired owner Belinda was fretting about the unpredictable weather (she couldn't decide if it was time to take down the ice cream freezer), but was helpful nonetheless, steering me away from a bottle of Somontano ("too expensive," she said) and toward a very-attractively labeled Azul y Garanza, from Navarra.

La Antojá is located on c/Argumosa, 26, in Madrid.

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