The food in Barcelona.....
Written: May 26 '00 (Updated Jul 28 '00)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Great food
Cons: Difficult menus
|
|
|
| JasonNYCity's Full Review: Barcelona |
I just returned from my 2 week Barcelona vacation a few days ago. I had a great time with the food, and don't see it covered extensively here, so will give it a shot. I did not try ever restaurant or dish, but will talk about the culinary experiences that I did have.
First of all, although I speak some Spanish, I had a hard time with the restaurant menus. The Spanish that I do know is South American, where different words are used, so I was not familiar with words like cacajuetes, guisantes, many of the fish names, the use of macedonia for fruit salad, and don't get me started on chorizo. They also have different dishes there, many of which are Catalan, which I couldn't understand much of. I generally just asked the waiter what something was. We even had a hard time ordering pizza delivery because all the menus we could find were in Catalan.
Another thing is that even when I had an idea what I was ordering, I often got something somewhat different from what I ordered. I had black salami in my vegetable salad, ham in my lasagne, cream sauce in a pork dish, and a lot of anchovies. I am very open about what I eat, so this didn't bother me at all.
The fixed price lunches are great. For upwards of 1000 pesetas ($5.50) you can have a 2 course lunch with bread, dessert and wine. It was a good way to try a variety of the cuisine. You do generally get better food ordering a la cart, so you might want to try that as well, but the desserts tended to be great either way, as many restaurants have bakeries making their desserts for them. Try eating lunch at 1pm so that you avoid the crowds, since Spaniards generally eat at 2pm.
As for Desserts, try churros con chocolate at a sweet shop. I had it at Dulcinea at Via Pertixol 2 just off La Ramble. I did have to wait 10 minutes for the churro delivery, but the arrived warm. On their own neither the churros and the extremely thick hot chocolate thrilled me, but when I dunked the churros in the hot chocolate, it was heaven. I also had many great desserts, including the apple tart at Quatre Gats, and the apple cake at Self Naturalista, and a rasberry chocolate cake at Quinze Nuits. Crema Catalan is also good, as is flan.
Les Quinze Nuits had a good, non expensive a la carte menu. I enjoyed the food including a sampler they call by the name of the restaurant, and meatballs made from sausage (or salami.) They had good sangria and dessert. They did charge us for bread and for butter, but I guess thats to be expected. They have an English menu if you need it. I was eating with a native Spanish speaker (Argentine) who had to look at my English menu for help.
Self Naturalista on Carrer de Santa Anna 11-17 is a vegetarian (not vegan) cafeteria. The selection was very good, and the food was great, especially the apple cake I ate for dessert. I was really impressed with this place, because I didn't expect too much from a cafeteria style restaurant. This place gets very busy, so you might want to go early. Their prices are extremely affordable.
I also ate at Els Quatre Gats at Carrer de Montsio justoff La rambla. The restaurant is beatiful and if you are a party of 1 or 2 you get to sit upstairs and look down on all the action. I had the fixed price lunch., which was 1500 pesetas not including IVA (tax). Wine, water, dessert, bread, and 2 courses was included. Choices for first courses that day were dishes like Zuchini pudding, paella, hot salmon tart, cold cuts (salami and ham) etc. Second courses included merluza (hake), chicken breast with french fries, and that coldcut assortment with escalivada (eggplant and peppers.) Their apple tart was a french style tart, and was excellent. This is a good place to show up early, as it gets packed with both locals and tourists around 2pm.
Also, do not miss tapas. There are many bars (or tascas) where you can see what they are bringing out and just point at what you want. The Basque version comes on tiny toast and is often eaten with sidra (cider) which they pour from high above the glass. Spaniards eat tapas and drink while they socialize in the evening (8pm or so) and have dinner at 10pm or even later.
About la Boqueria, it is a huge market off La Rambla where they sell meats, fish, and produce. I found that in May a lot of fruit wasn't in season even though it looked great, so keep that in mind. The strawberries were good, as were the blood oranges that they call sangria oranges. The bananas, mangoes, and peaches weren't.
The Festival of Saint Ponc was May 11, and was very quaint. I enjoyed seeing all the stalls of candies fruits, herbs, teas, tisanes, candy, honey etc... They even had a black candies fruit, which turned out to be mixed candied fruit in wine. It was delicious, but was a bit strong (and sweet) for me.
I hope to see other people writing epinions about the food of Barcelona, as I couldn't try everything and still make it back on the plane.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
JasonNYCity
|
|
Location: New York City (Queens), NY
Reviews written: 38
Trusted by: 88 members
About Me:
I am no longer on this site, although I am still food obsessed.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.