The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
Ramblin' on La Rambla
Sometimes the message comes from understanding what's in a picture and why it got there. Other times, the message is best conveyed just by being immersed in the images. Barcelona -- at least today -- was an immersion sort of day.
We took the (very clean, very cheap, very crowded) Metro from our hotel to La Rambla, the main pedestrian street in the old part of town. This is really Tourist Central of Barcelona although today we heard very few words of English in the streets. The crowd seemed to be mostly locals.
We fought our way through the crowds at La Boqueria, still one of Europe's great markets. What a feast for the senses this place is! The colors, the shapes, the smells -- fruits and fish I'd never seen before and eye-popping presentations. There were even a few places to sit down, have a bite to eat and perhaps a cold beer.
To the dismay of many of the vendors, La Boqueria may have become a tourist attraction ("Tourists don't buy anything. They just take pictures."), but it is still very much a working market and an experience not to miss.
Lunch was tapas and a beer along La Rambla. We had looked at some of the places around the edge of the market but they were either full or didn't have anything on their tapas menu that attracted Margene. So we went out to La Rambla and picked the first likely spot we found. Sometime it's just location and serendipity.
Margene had her heart set on a combination of eggs, potatoes and ham we had on our first trip to Spain a few years ago and we found it at Taller de Tapas. In Spanish it's called something like huevos estrellados con jamon y plis-plas patatas. In Catalan, the local language, I couldn't even begin to pronounce it. Margene had the version with Iberico ham, I tried the version with chorizo. Hers was the prettier presentation but both were just what we needed, rather like a late breakfast. We also went for their suggestion of the local bread with a light tomato spread. It was rather like a bruschetta pomodoro where they put the tomatoes on, then decided to take them off before serving!
Another pass through La Boqueria to pick up some goodies for the room, a stop down the street for coffee and pastry and we'd put in our three hours for the day! So it was back on the Metro and home to relax.
About four blocks away we finally found the restaurant that had eluded us on our first night in town. Like many in Barcelona, it was small and fairly simple, but the people were friendly, the prices were good and the food, for the most part, was tasty. Margene started with calamari rings. A nice presentation but rather tough. I went for goat cheese and roasted peppers rolled in eggplant and served in an amazing tomato sauce. Yummy!
Round two was their version of Huevos estrallados along with an order of Iberico ham. Their presentation left something to be desired but Margene liked that she got a runny yolk this time. The price was much lower than we saw at lunch, though, likely due to location and a smaller portion of ham on the estrallados. Mid-quality Iberico ham runs about $50 a pound!
© 2013 Restaurant Doctor
[