Spanish and Sunny Side Up

By Eve Zibart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 26, 2004

Spanish cuisine is one of the Rodney Dangerfields of the restaurant world. It doesn't get the respect it deserves, and its deceptive plainness is one of the reasons.

These days, when nearly all the trendy foods are spicy, layered, towered, dual-sauced and disguised, the unshowiness of a traditional Spanish kitchen like Rockville's Sol de Espana can be misread as unsophisticated or amateurish. But simple cooking is harder than it seems: It requires a much greater faith in the integrity of its ingredients and a careful sense of timing, because there are a lot fewer ways to cover up a mistake. Or an old mussel.

(While calling it "traditional" might seem unnecessary, we emphasize the term because so much has been written in recent years about the neo-Catalan deconstructionism made famous by cult chef Ferran Adria at Barcelona's El Bulli and locally by Jose Andres at Cafe Atlantico's Minibar. Visually stunning and intellectually challenging, it is an almost complete departure, a sort of cultural phenomenon, with roots in indigenous Basque as well as Spanish. If one could order paella at El Bulli, it would probably look more like a Gaudi mural than a pan stew. Sol de Espana specializes in food from the southern province of Andalucia, which was heavily influenced by centuries of Moorish occupation.)

"Fresh" and "fish" ought to be synonymous, and at Sol de Espai??a, although the menu lists veal chops, duck, leg of lamb and pork roast, seafood is clearly king. Shrimp, scallops, whitefish, shellfish, sardines -- and extravagant combinations thereof -- frequently come with the simplest sauce, a delicate blend of minced parsley, onions and white wine. A recent special of fresh baby scallops in the shell was perfect, the flesh sweet, plump and with a blush of the tender muscle intact; a stronger broth would have obscured them. A cazuela de mariscos, a bowl of steamed fish and shellfish crowned with a small half-lobster tail, was in a broth nearly as delicate but with a smart little octane punch-up of brandy.

For more robust fish, the kitchen turns to only slightly more obtrusive elements: red and green sweet peppers (with the tuna, for instance), tomatoes, olives and capers (halibut) and modest dashes of red wine vinegar and crushed red pepper on the rockfish. Not even the garlic in the sauteed shrimp flashes a warning sign.

Chef-owner Joaquin Serrano is a longtime fixture in Montgomery County, starting with the much-beloved Andalucia restaurant in the Twinbrook area and later at Andalucia's sibling in Bethesda. (Sol de Espana was originally called El Sol de Andalucia, but was changed to avoid confusion with the original restaurant, which is still operated by his ex-wife.) He's a small, enthusiastic host, sunny as the title; the open-armed, "it's all delicious" sort who circulates among his customers as if they were personal guests. (The fact that his name is a kind of ham is too delicious.) But with fewer than 50 seats, the place seems to "breathe" in rhythm with his personality, expanding when he's on the premises -- almost constantly on weekends, less exhaustively early in the week -- and shrinking a little when he's not.

And it must be said that the cooking is not always as deft in his absences, either, which points up the importance of timing: A minute or two, even a turn too high on the burner, is the difference between calamari and a chew toy. At one midweek dinner, the artichokes sauteed with sherry and a little ham hadn't been trimmed sufficiently or cooked quite enough. Pollo riojana, boneless chicken breast pan-stewed with onions, sweet peppers and tomatoes, was pretty but bland. A dish of garlic-sauteed shrimp came out tough, as did the hake, although its court of surrounding shellfish were fine. The same presentation on a Saturday night, however, this time featuring grouper, was much more carefully tended, the fish easing apart in glistening sections. Three fresh baby sardines, described as "fried" but really pan-grilled, were rich, crunchy and just oily. Grilled calamari was charcoal-scarred and sturdy but tender.

(These almost unadorned seafoods, blessedly left to their own saline resources, cry out for a squeeze of lemon, and only sometimes does it appear. In fact, the salt cellar on the table could easily be replaced with a bowl of wedges, though in a pinch there is the vinegar. It's another instance of how Spanish cuisine can be either Moor, or less.)

Paella is, not surprisingly, very popular here, and it's another good presentation. The rice is firm but fully cooked, the shellfish fine and generous, and the chicken moist, though one night the pork was as tough as reheated leftovers. (This is the paella valenciana; Sol de Espana also offers an all-seafood version and a vegetarian recipe.) This is the one recipe that flirts with a bit too much salt, since the shellfish add their juices, but it's marginal.

There are a few disappointments. The bread is only fair, and the salsa verde is close to being the only green thing on the menu. The wine list is intriguing, heavy on South American bottles, but perhaps between wanting to limit the prices and having to deal with Montgomery County's famously erratic wholesale system, there are few real treasures there. And a sensible caution about salt is fine, but potatoes are one of those foods that don't boil up with much interest without it.

On the other hand, that overall simplicity has another virtue, especially for those who have felt uncomfortable in the Spice Age: It's pretty easy for even sensitive digestions to get away with food here -- and especially if you have paella, you may be getting away with a doggy box. At $16 or $17 a person, that deserves a little respect.