The Basque Market

*A lunchtime review is a shorter review, less indepth on the flavors and service, but rather we focus on whether or not this restaurant would be a good place to grab a bite to eat, and enjoy some repose from a busy day.*

Market

The Basque Market is situated in Boise's historic basque block, surrounded by large urban fixtures, restaurants, and a museum, this "block" holds some of our favorite restaurants in Boise. With one of the largest basque communities in the United States, there is sure to be at least a few tasty restaurants. The market itself has a constant selection of various basque specialties, especially meats, and cheeses. Most of which are imported. They also have a wide variety of tinned fish, sauces, wine, and other various basque treats. On top of that they have freshly made olive spread, paella, and other dips/spreads that are ready to be taken home. 

Food 

The Basque Market isn't a typical restaurant, although they do cater much larger portions; the menu in the actual restaurant is "pinxtos" style, which is Basque for Tapas. These smaller plates are all priced below $10 and are great to share, or just enjoy by yourself. We would consider it as more of snacking rather a full meal. With that being said, we were hungry, and we ordered a lot. We started with their 3 for $6 plate of different basque legumes; this has no set menu, and changes quite a bit. We enjoyed this, but it was very small, stuff like a single olive or date. We also split a sandwich and some croquettes (panko crusted bechamel bites). The sandwhich was on a baguette and had chorizo and piquillo pepper cheese spread; once again it was smaller, but still very good. The ingredients were high quality, and well proportioned. The croquettes are usually my favorite basque dish, they were filled with peppers and were as good as usual. With a rotation of daily flavors, there is are a lot of different flavors to experiment and try. We then had some sheephearders bread, which was very simple, but good. Seared in a spanish olive oil, this bread goes against the previous theme, it was a very generous piece. 

Tinned Fish

Although not everyones forte, we decided that it was necessary to try, we got chopped squid in a tomato sauce, sardines in olive oil, and whole squids in ink sauce. Our least favorite we the sardines, they were nicely sized but seemed like a lower quality than the other two tinned fish, the sunflower oil also seemed of lower quality than it should've been. Our next favorite were the whole squids in ink, these were petite squids with the tentacles and head together. These seemed to be of the highest quality out of the all the tinned fish, they were had the consistency that would be expected with squid, soft and really smooth, the flavor of the individual squid was very good, but different. The ink was almost sweet, with a salty sea finish at the end, it was heavy and would be delicious on a starch like pasta or bread. Our favorite was the chopped squid in ink sauce, although the quality of the squid itself was lower than the previous squid, the tomato sauce it was in was a zesty, peppery blend of the flavor of the squid and the sauces ingredient.

Value

We thought the value was very fair, although the portions were modest, so were the prices.  The most expensive part of our meal was the tinned fish. 

What we ordered 

• 3-$6 rotating menu

• Chorizo with piquillo pepper cheese spread sandwich

• Pepper and chorizo Croquettes

• Conservas de Cambados whole squids in Ink

• Bogar sardines in spicy sunflower oil

• Bogar squid in tomato and ink sauce.

*A note from the editor*

Although I am not basque, Henry, my co-editor, is. "Growing up basque in Boise, the Basque Market supplied some of the staples in my family and I's cuisine." says Henry. With such a close connection to the heritage and culture of The Basque Market, we knew we had to review it.