#2718 eating in Barcelona

My theme for the next couple of posts will be the food we had while we were on vacation. I will start with the meals we had in my beloved Barcelona. In my humble opinion, Spanish food is often overlooked on the gastronomic scene. I guess it is not as accessible as pasta and pizza, maybe. Spanish food is not tacos and enchiladas. In my childhood memories of Spanish food, it is delicious roasted chicken, paella, tortilla de patatas, sausages, bread, croquetas, canalones, and soup. I can't forget breaded pork, either! Mmmm...

When I asked MT what he would most like to do in Barcelona, his first response was that he wanted to eat tapas. Tapas are small plate foods, kind of like appetizers, but you can make a meal of them if you pick the right things. When he said tapas, I immediately thought of the cafe Els 4 Gats in the Gothic Quarter, so that is where we went on our first afternoon in the city.

First of all, the cafe itself is awesome. It opened in 1897 and was known as a literary cafe where writers and artists would gather. Pablo Picasso drew the art for the cover of the menu, for goodness sake! I get a thrill thinking that I am sitting in a place where Picasso and other greats used to sit.

I picked a couple of things that I had to have: patatas bravas and pan con tomate. Patatas bravas are small chunks of potato that are best when they are slightly crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside. The most important element of the dish is the bravas sauce, a slightly spicy tomato-based sauce. Typically, a whisp of garlic mayonnaise is also strewn across the top of the potatoes. It's kind of like the most delicious fry sauce you can ever imagine, if it's done right. 

Els 4 Gats serves their bravas sauce on the side for dipping. There was no sauce left when we were done. I barely restrained myself from licking the bowl. MT thought the potatoes were delicious.

Pan con tomate is exactly what it sounds like it is: toasted bread smeared with a clove of garlic, then smeared with a tomato, and drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with a bit of salt. This is comfort food to me!

We had draft beers to drink, and the server brought out a bowl of green olives. I don't care for olives, but MT seemed to like them. You might be wondering what is on his plate. He got toast with smoked salmon. I don't think of it as a tapas dish, but he likes smoked salmon, so he ordered it. Funny story: You can see there is a yellowish/white substance under the salmon. MT thought it was shredded cheese and he kept asking me what kind of cheese he was eating. Finally, I took a little bite and declared that it wasn't cheese at all, but thinly sliced peppers. It made him feel better because he thought it was pretty gross cheese.  LOL

We ordered another thing, too, that I didn't take a photo of because I was so anxious to dig into it. It was sobrasada sausage on toasted bread with manchego cheese. That was actually our favorite thing. I really like it, but I didn't know if MT would be into it because he had the salmon, but he liked the sausage better than the salmon. Sobrasada is kind of a spreadable sausage and it has such a good flavor. Our dish had the toasted bread, the sobrasada, the cheese, and a wee drizzle of honey across the top, so you got all the flavor points: crunchy, salty, meaty, creamy, and sweet. Yum. 

When we went to lunch the next day with my cousin and her family, my main dish was canalones. 

The picture does not do justice to how delicious this dish is. The bechamel sauce is so rich and creamy, perfectly toasted. Underneath the sauce is a pasta-like or maybe crepe-like wrapper for finely chopped meat - my mom usually uses chicken and maybe a little ham. The whole bite is so delicate and mouth-watering. I'm embarrassed that I don't even have the right words to describe this dish. I have never attempted to make canalones myself. My grandmother's canalones were ridiculously good. My mom's canalones are a the stuff of dreams. I don't think a trip to Barcelona is complete without canalones. I don't know if I will ever try to make canalones because I don't know if I could do them justice. 

I will say that MT had paella mixta that he shared with Eric, my cousin's partner. Mixta means that it was a mix of chicken and seafood. I didn't take a photo of the paella. I don't know why. Probably because I was chatting with Sonia and drooling over my own plate of canalone deliciousness.

On our final morning, I ate an ensaimada that I'd purchased the day before from a nice little cafe called El Fornet. 

I actually had a goal to have an ensaimada every day I was in Barcelona, but this is the only one I had. Side note: I stopped at a little market near the hotel to get some Cacaolat, but they only had the giant bottle, and as much as I like it, I decided against the big bottle. Again, why did I deprive myself of this treat? Childhood memories were within my reach. <sigh> Since it was a day old, the pastry was a little crunchy around the edges, but the middle was delectable. I gave MT a bite, and then he decided that we should go back to El Fornet so he could get one of his own. This was after we'd had the complementary breakfast at the hotel, and I'd eaten my slightly crunchy pasty, but I will not turn down the opportunity to go out and about. When I got to El Fornet, I decided not to get another ensaimada (a major regret!) although I did have an excellent cup of coffee. MT got a pastry with some sort of crema. He loved it.

Why did we eat at the hotel?!? El Fornet was RIGHT THERE!! Argh!!! I'll do better next time.

After we checked out of the hotel and boarded the ship, we went back out into the city for a farewell lunch at  the Barceloneta. It is the area by the beach and is where the most fresh seafood can be had. We had an epic lunch! For the starter, I had a plate of ham and MT had fish soup.

That's not just any ham, mind you. That is jamon iberico. The pigs that produces that ham only eat, like, truffles or something. It's just out-of-this-world delicious. Looking at the photo kind of makes me laugh because although I did allow MT to have some of the jamon, I mostly ate it all myself. 

For MT's main, he had the seafood platter. It was a little overwhelming, but he was up to the task.

This is absolutely one of my favorite photos!

I had calamari a la romana. They were fine, but I've had better. 

For dessert, we had something that took me right back to my childhood:

Crocanti! It is chocolate ice cream surrounded by vanilla ice cream surrounded by a thin chocolate coating covered with candied almonds, nestled in a cloud of whipped cream, then drizzled in chocolate. It looks like there is an extra sploosh of whipped cream on the side there. I smiled the whole time I ate this dessert (which we shared, by the way.) 

Yes, we had a big lunch that day, but we walked and walked and walked. What I learned on the trip is that when you walk a gazillion steps every day, you can pretty much eat what you want and be okay. I only gained one pound on the trip. YAY!

I wish we had spent an extra day, to be honest. We got to spend our time in a great part of the city, but there is so much more to do there. MT really enjoyed eating, sight-seeing, and hanging out with my family in Barcelona, and he told me that he would like to go back and spend more time there. His exact words after our first afternoon there was, "Okay, I get it. I get why you love it so much. It's an amazing place." 

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