Description
I guess an authentically great Basque restaurant like they have in Boise, Idaho and Bakersfield, California would be too much to hope for. A place where even the humble red bean soup--fortified with a powerful lamb stock--is so delicious you could eat it forever. Instead, we have a cooking school version of Basque food. Even though the baccalao-stuffed pimentos and the crispy roast chicken are admirable, too many of the more ambitious dishes fall flat, like merluza, a tepid fish stew that seems more concerned with the preening beauty of its ingredients than with delivering lusty Basque flavors.
