A Surprisingly Good Lunch

After wandering around El Born for a few hours, we decided that since it was close to 2 pm, we'd better have some lunch soon.

We happened upon Morelia and their outdoor tables and the girls decided they liked it. So we sat down and ordered the Menu del Dia - an amazing deal at 12 euros. This included a starter, an entree, a drink and coffee or ice-cream. Our best lunch of the trip.

We had a fabulous arugula salad and an empanada with jamon y queso that was so good that we had to order a second one immediately. Then we had linguine in tomato sauce and a curry chicken risotto. Both were excellent. This was surprising to me - no research, just wandered into this place and the food was not only a good deal, but extremely well-prepared.

I couldn't recommend this more, plus the kids got to run around the square for a couple of hours. Because that's how long the meal took. Do not try to eat in a hurry in Spain (or in most of Europe actually).

Chocolate Museum

Most people wouldn't bypass the Picasso Museum just because of a short line and head to the Chocolate Museum instead. But that's just what we did today. We can always go to the Picasso Museum in Malaga next week ;)

The Chocolate Museum was small but cute. The entry ticket was a nice bar of dark chocolate. Inside it was very cool (to preserve the chocolate), which was a nice respite from the heat outside.

There was an interactive display about the history of chocolate, as well as the process from cacao bean to finished product. The main displays were from their Easter chocolate contest, with some very complex pieces.I really liked this Gaudi lizard in white chocolate.And I thought the Tin Tin scene was very realistic. Other highlights were Ben Hur, Star Trek, various religious figures and Homer Simpson. Yes, chocolate seems to be an equal opportunity medium!

The museum also offers chocolate-making workshops for kids, but alas, they were all booked up for the day.

Espadrilles everywhere

The nice Scot who checked us into our apartment made it a point to tell me that women's shoes were an excellent buy in Barcelona. I wonder how he knew...

We went to a famous espadrille shop today, making espadrilles by hand since 1902. La Manual Alpargatera is a crowded little place with rather unprepossessing window displays. Inside is a nice selection of espadrilles in different heel heights and designs. Apparently they also make custom orders. It was cute to see the old ladies hopping on the ladder to get different sizes from the big wall of espadrilles. My lady kept speaking Spanish to me, I think I understood most of what she was talking about - ah, the international language of shoes.

Three pairs - a very successful outing. No, clearly they weren't all for me :)

Churros and Chocolate

Churros are not a Catalan specialty, and are supposed to be better down south in Andalucia. However, I read a blog recommendation for a churros place in Barcelona that was supposed to be up to Andalucian standards. This became a bit of a quest for us, especially since the first two times we went by the place, it was tragically closed - with no posted hours.

But when it comes to food, I am nothing if not persistent. Today - success!Xurreria (Banys Nous, 8) is a single little storefront that specializes in churros and other fried goodies. We went in and ordered 3 orders (100g per order at 1 euro each) - we had to wait for 5 mins as a fresh batch was fried up. They were placed in a paper bag, weighed and about a tablespoon of sugar was added to the bag and it was shaken up.

We then went a few doors down the street to La Granja (Banys Nous, 4), a milk bar and ordered our xocolata and suisa (a Barcelona chocolate that's less thick but smothered in an enormous mound of whipped cream). We brought our churros out and began consuming them at a very rapid pace, pausing only to dip them in the viscous hot chocolate.

The 3 orders disappeared very quickly. So I ran back to Xurreria and bought 2 more orders. This seemed to be very amusing for the little old man - you'd think this happened fairly often!

Finally, we had our churros and chocolate. Lots of it. Yum!

Overeating again....

We headed out to dinner at the relatively early hour of 8 pm and only had a few minutes wait for four seats at the counter at Tapaç24. And we all had stools at the bar right away! This was where we had tried to go two nights earlier.By now, we've figured out the kind of classic tapas that we like. So we had a number of the same things we had last night at Inopia. The standouts here were the patatas bravas covered with scrambled eggs and jamon - yum! The Bikini sandwich was fancier here - ham, cheese and truffles (of course the kids preferred the simpler version from Inopia). But the croquettes were good, as were the Bombes de Barcelona (meat and potatoes, breaded and fried).The girls pronounced the prawns as being better tonight. Oddly enough, when we ordered, the waiter said the prawns hadn't been delivered yet and we would have to wait. The same thing happened last night at Inopia - apparently, all the prawns get delivered to tapas bars around 8:30 pm?! Then the waiter returned later to tell us that they were now available to be ordered.
The service was good and our waiter was very nice to the girls, who tried almost everything we ordered, which made me happy! Finally, a great dessert - chocolate mousse-like pudding, served with olive oil, sea salt and crackers. Sweet and savoury - it was strangely addicting (reminds me of Sketch's soft serve vanilla ice cream with olive oil and sea salt).Another great meal and we rolled back to the apartment, happy and satisfied.

Gaudi, Gaudi, Gaudi

We spent a good part of the day at Parc Guell, a park designed by Gaudi in the hills of Barcelona, which also featured a Gaudi museum in the house in which he used to live. It was a nice day and the park was pretty crowded.Older daughter really like the lizard fountain. Younger daughter just liked all the mosaics in general.

After lunch we split up. Hubby and girls went to CosmoCaixa, the Science museum while I went shopping. This happens a lot (see earlier Paris blog). It keeps everyone happy!

La Boqueria Market

I awoke before the rest of the family this morning and headed out to La Boqueria, a famous market here in Barcelona. I enjoy markets a lot. After our Provence trip two years ago, I really enjoy country markets more, but La Boqueria was still fun.
I wandered up and down the aisles for a while - what struck me the most was the sheer variety and quality of the seafood. It was incredibly fresh - there was no smell at all, and there were many odd-looking things that I didn't recognize.Unfortunately, I wasn't really cooking at our apartment in BCN so didn't need any of the fresh things. The produce was nice and I bought some cherries and bananas. The meats looked good but the hanging hams were truly impressive.
I had breakfast at a small but very famous tapas place called Pinotxo Bar. I actually walked past it a few times and on the third pass, saw one seat open on the side. So I sat myself down, ordered what my neighbor was eating and a capuccino. It turned out to be a Spanish omelette (tortilla) with aubergine and another with potatoes and onion. Served with the traditional BCN accompaniment of toasted bread rubbed with fresh tomato and drizzled with olive oil. It was an excellent breakfast! I did notice a few plates of squid going past, accompanied by glasses of beer - 9 am seemed a little early for that...
I deigned to bring my family back a few pastries for their breakfast - they just don't know what they missed ;)

Best Tapas Ever!

After a full day of sightseeing with stops at the Cathedral and the Barcelona History Museum, we were determined to go to dinner a little earlier than the past two nights. So we headed out at 7:30 pm to a restaurant called Inopia. It's a modern tapas place that was opened by Alberto Adrià, the brother of Ferran Adria of El Bulli fame (where Alberto is also the pastry chef). It's been written up in all sorts of publications and was featured in an episode of "Spain On the Road Again" where Gwyneth Paltrow proclaimed it BTE (Best Tapas Ever!)

We got there about 7:45 pm and there was a short wait. You can see my name first on the board! Of course, when we went inside, I realized that there was really only one table in this place. That's the table that Mario and Gwyneth ate at. The rest of the place is jam packed with stools, shallow counters and a big bar.

When we were led in, the greeter told me there were enough places for us, but not enough chairs yet. This turned out to be a strategy they employed. People would be led in and given some counter space - then you wait to swipe chairs when others left, so there was a constant shortage, but the newcomers were the ones who suffered until they figured out the swiping tactic. You'd think they'd just order 6 more stools and be done with it!

So the girls got stools within 5 mins or so, and it was another 10 mins before Sean swiped one for me. He stood the whole meal, but that was out of choice.

We ordered a ton of stuff. The menu was largely indecipherable (download it from their website if you don't believe me!) and our waiter didn't have a huge command of English. But we muddled through. And pointed a few times.

We had the following (in no particular order):

• Patatas Bravas - fried potatoes served with aioli and a little hot sauce, these were outstanding. A specialty of the house.
• Fried Prawns - interesting preparation, they were fried in their shells, I didn't quite get the point of this dish, although the prawns were very fresh so ultimately tasty.
• White Asparagus with vinegar and mustard - this dish was good but not other-worldly. It was the most pricey dish at 13 euros.
• Chicharricos - this dish was a total mistake. We thought it was a chorizo-like sausage. It turned out to be fried pork rinds. Only dish we didn't finish.
• Olive sampler - loved the arbequinas and the aragon negras.
• Pimiento del Padron - this turned out to be small roasted peppers that were spectacular, and I don't like peppers as a rule.
• Croquettes - potato and jamon (ham) fried up, nothing could screw this up. We ate two servings but each serving was really small...really....
• Bikinis - this is the Barcelona slang for ham and cheese toasted mini sandwiches, sliced into triangles. I could eat this every day. We had to get another order for the girls. Later, we tried to get a third order, but they were sold out. SOLD OUT! Of a dish that consists of cheese, ham and white bread!
• "Chicken Dippers" - this is what our waiter called this dish. It was basically strips of white meat fried with what seemed like a coating of potato chips. It was excellent!
• Chicken Kebab - considering this dish is just chicken on a skewer, it was very good.
• La Bomba - "potato with meat inside" is how our waiter described it. We went with it. It was good - a giant meat-filled croquette.
• Anchovy olives - again our waiter practically insisted we get this - 2 little white anchovy-wrapped olives. Not something I'd normally go for, but really not bad.
• Rabbit Ribs - yes, we did get this. Blame the waiter. It was a little like frog's legs - very small. And fried. It was good but alas, the girls were squeamish about eating Thumper and Sean didn't care for it. I ate it all.
• Torta Canarejal - we saw this pictured on a poster hanging up. We thought it was a dessert like a giant cream-filled choux pastry. Insead, it was a giant torta of creamy soft cheese, served with crispy rounds of bread. Not what we expected but good nonetheless. The couple next to us loved theirs so much that the gal was practically scraping all the cheese bits off the rind.
• Pineapple served with lime shavings and molasses - I don't usually like pineapple but this dish was seriously good. The little bits of lime did it for me.

OK, I think that was it. There was a lot of food and most of it was inspired. All told, our bill was quite low, but from what I can decipher, we weren't charged for a few dishes. No wonder, I could barely keep track of everything!

I predict this will prove to be our best meal in Barcelona.

Happy Pills

In keeping with our candy-heavy trip, we went to a cute little candy shop called Happy Pills today. It's a very narrow little storefront on Avinguda del Portal de l'Angel, so it would be easy to miss. The space is efficiently filled with bins of many kinds of gummies, mini chocolates and lots of other unrecognizable sweets. But their specialty is the presentation - you pick your candy of choice and it's packaged up like medicine. With cute stickers.

We got many kinds of gummies (love the extraordinary choices available here!) including happy face gummies, gummy tarantulas, butterflies and lips (two kinds of lips were available - regular and Rolling Stone with tongue sticking out). The chilli pepper shaped gummy was actually really spicy and peppery - I had to spit it out :( Everything else was great.

Thai Food in Barcelona

My pre-trip plan for dining at popular restaurants had been to try and go early (8 pm) to beat the local crowds who dine closer to 10 pm. Of course, this strategy didn't really work yesterday since we were on the bike tour til 8 pm, stopped for a fortifying post-ride gelato and needed a little horizontal rest on a couch afterwards.

So it was just after 10 pm by the time we headed down the street to a well-reviewed tapas bar near our apartment. And it was packed. With people standing around outside the front, all milling about. It didn't look promising.

We saw another restaurant down the street and wandered over to check it out. It turned out to be a Thai restaurant, called Thai Garden, with a very persuasive Thai lady out front who talked us into dining there.

The food was all pretty good - I asked her to make sure it was authentic. The restaurant was gorgeous inside, much higher end than it had seemed from the outside. And it was pretty full with locals. The prices were definitely high - the most egregious was 4 euro 30 cents for a serving of jasmine rice. You could buy multiple sacks of rice at that price in Thailand!

It turned out to be a very enjoyable meal. I think one of our family goals may be to try a Thai restaurant in all the big cities we visit!

Biking through Barcelona

In a flash of brilliance last month, I decided that on our first day in Barcelona, we were going to do a family bike tour since all four of us have now had extensive bike riding experience. So after an all-too-short rest in the afternoon, we readied ourselves for the 4:30 pm tour.

It turns out that there are 3 or 4 different companies that offer bike tours here - we ended up picking Barcelona Ciclo Tour, primarily because they departed from Plaza Catalunya, which was right next to our apartment.

Fortunately, they had a bike just my younger daughter's size (8 yr old) so we were all set. We were on a tour with 12 others, 8 of whom were American. The tour was billed as being appropriate for all ages. I have to admit that my little one was quite wiped by the end (there was a bit of an uphill stretch) - but overall, she did wonderfully well.

We rode all around Barcelona, spending a good part of the time on pedestrian-only streets. We biked for about 90 minutes, then stopped at a beachside cafe for a drink and a rest. Then biked on for another hour or so - it was great way to get an overview of the city, since we went by all the major sights. It was also relaxing. Well, it was until we spent a few miles on congested city streets in the evening rush hour. Then it wasn't quite so relaxing for a while trying to keep track of the kids.

I highly recommend this as a great way for a quick overview of the city. It also helps to burn off all those tapas and fried dishes that you'll be eating...

I love Papabubble!

After a morning of wandering around Barcelona, we headed to Papabubble, an artisan candy store that we had read about a few months ago. It was rather an unprepossessing storefront and if we hadn't been on a quest, I don't know that we would have stopped in.








But it was wonderful inside. Two employees were pulling a long mass of candy, white in the middle, green on the outside. We saw an order form with a hand drawn picture that showed the picture on the candy to say "Silvia & Carlos". It was a personalized wedding order. We watched them pull the candy, cut it off into long cylindrical sticks, roll them to cool off and then cut them into little individual hard candies. It was so much fun AND we got to have a sample as well - the writing on the candy was teeny but clear. I wish all the best for Silvia & Carlos with their clever candy choice.







After we watched them make candy for a while, it was hard to choose which flavors to buy - so we bought a few mixed bags. My favorite so far has been passionfruit, but many of the other flavors were excellent as well. And you can recognize the flavor quite easily - they use high quality ingredients.
We left with a bulging bag of candy and have since tried a number of other flavors. All in the name of tasting for this blog obviously! I want to go back tomorrow...

Greetings from Barcelona

We finally arrived at our apartment in Barcelona around 9:15 pm, to be met by a very nice man from Friendly Rentals, who checked us in and showed us around. We're in a lovely 2 bedroom place on the fourth floor of a grand old building. Our location cannot be beat - we are about 30 yards off Plaza Catalunya, the main square in Barcelona, right on Passeig de Gracia, a large tree-lined boulevard. With great shopping, I'm told. All in all, a perfect location for me.

The apartment is exactly like the description and photos - which is always a relief. Although I have to admit that all my rentals have turned out very well. You can take a look at it here.

We wandered outside about 10 pm to find some dinner and ended up at a rather touristy tapas bar across the street called Txapela, which served 51 different kinds of tapas (not including their desserts and daily specials). We had 17 little plates of the savory course and 2 for dessert. Considering we were all tired and jet-lagged, this turned out to be a great meal. My kids now like tapas rather a lot :) Our strategy was first to get 1 piece of lots of things, and then to re-order the ones we liked. It worked out very well!