Food, Glorious Food – Barcelona Edition

I figured I might as well keep the food posting going by kicking off my Barcelona posts where the Nice posts ended – food and alcohol.

Once again, we were very very spoiled on this front. The croissants in Barcelona have left a little to be desired, thus further supporting my theory about French bakers being uniquely endowed with the croissant gene, but other items made up for the lack of buttery, flaky goodness in the croissant department. Such as the trays of thinly sliced pork products that seem to appear with delightful frequency.

Our lunches in Barcelona tended more towards the “grab and go” end, but the dinners really stood out. For example, Cal Pep is a fantastic (tiny) tapas place where you go, wait in line for 30-40 minutes (don’t worry – you get to drink wine while waiting), then sit at the bar while cute Spanish men bring you food and more wine. People eat late in Spain, so we figured “when in Rome” and showed up a little after 9, sitting down to eat at around 9:45. We ordered a bottle of wine, which we finished, only to have the waiter spontaneously pour us more.

Followed by two brim-ful glasses of Cava. We thought the waiter thought we were cute/charming until the two British guys sitting next to us told us that they had gotten multiple glasses of free booze on their last visit. We still think there was some eye flirting going on on the part of the waiter. At any rate, we shut the place down around midnight.

A second culinary highlight happened on our final night in Barcelona. We went to a friend-recommended place slightly off the beaten path (getting away from ALL the tourists was not the worst thing in the world). It was called Imprevist, and we decided to take the decision-making out of our evening and order the tasting menu, with the option of wine tasting. Ho. Ly. Cow. We were served EIGHT small plates, each one accompanied by a different type of wine. We had a lovely waitress who spoke just enough English to give us a basic idea of the kinds of wine we were downing. She seemed to get a kick out of it, and we definitely did. The only reason we survived was the fact that the meal took about 2.5 hours. And it was GOOD. Check it out.

First dish – butternut squash/bacon/other delicious things soup (plus Cava):

Second dish – cod paste with yummy crunchy things (plus white wine):

Third dish – tiny potatoes with melty cheese and bacon (plus a different white wine):

Fourth dish – foie gras with crunchy bread (plus a third white wine that was a tad too sweet for my taste, but I drank it anyway):

Fifth dish – out of this world ravioli with even further out of this world sauce (plus a slightly strange dark rose wine):

Sixth dish – cod in a creamy sauce that I thought was way too salty, although Traci really enjoyed this one (plus a fourth kind of white wine). You’ll notice I ate this before taking a picture – the wine had kicked in by this point and I was less attentive to the photography:

Seventh dish – lamb, caramelized onions, sauce of some kind. AMAZING. (Plus delish red wine):

Eighth dish – dessert composed of some kind of flan. Not the best I’ve had, but by this point, who really cares? (Plus we finished things off the way we started – Cava):

Other good food was had, but these were definitely the highlights. Drink-wise, I have to point out one more place we went courtesy of Mom and Dad and 30th birthday presents – Cavamar. It’s right off the beach and has really good Cava-sangria, where we went after a slightly terrifying trek through Barcelona on mopeds (more on that later). But for now, I’ll just post a pic of the Cava-sangria. Mmmmmmm!!!