Spain: Barcelona

The last four days of our Spain trip were spent in Barcelona. Boyfriend and I stayed in Sute Hostel. It’s a great hostel, if you ask me, for the price we paid-free wifi, free coffee/tea, free kitchen, friendly owner. It’s a bit of the city centre but by adding the transport to the hostel fee, it was still cheaper than getting a room in the city centre. Our friends spend their nights in another hostel called Mambo Tango, which is quite famous.

First day, after checking in and resting, we headed to the city centre and their market. Yes, La Boqueira Market. And boyfriend and I decided to have our most expensive lunch throughout our trip, 26 euros for lunch. But they were superbly good. Recommended by books like Lonely Planet and webs like trip advisor, this might seem like a tourist trap, but it was not. Pinotxo (pronounced as pinotcho) really serve good food. Good is an understatement. Heavenly I should say. Their ingredients were fresh and the staffs were friendly and helpful. Here is what 26 euros got us!

The friendly owner-some customers even asked for his signature

Bar style eating

Cod fish

The classic one: Baby squids with beans in some black sauce

Beef cheek stew which melts in your mouth

After lunch, boyfriend got us walking from the La Rambla to the Barcelona FC’s Stadium, Camp Nou. We ended up walking about 1 hour to a football stadium! I couldn’t believe I did that for football! But no, I’m no big fan for football. However, the stadium is very impressive according to boyfriend. The ones they have in London is considered miniature if compared to Barca’s stadium. After that, it was another long walk back to the Placa de Espanya for the musical fountains. The fountain supposed to go high and low with music background and with colorful lighting in it. But since the sun sets very late, we couldn’t see much of the lightings show. It is definitely a waste. After the fountain, we walked back to Mambo Tango’s direction for dinner in this restaurant. There’s really nothing to complain about the food and it’s sad that I couldn’t remember the name!

Black and brown rice with chicken in creamy sauce

Chicken with mozzarella pie with salad

In Barcelona, Sandeman’s do not have their team running around. But we were lucky to find this company called RunnerBeans that gives the Old City Tour and Gaudi’s Tour. We decided to go for the Gaudi’s one first and took the Old City Tour the next day. Gaudi is a modern architect in his era, designing buildings that are not quite fit into the buildings of the era. I thought that his works are buildings like they were from fairy tales, no perfect shapes. This includes the Sagrada Familia which is still incomplete even after almost 85 years after Gaudi’s death. For lunch, we went to Parc Guell, a park filled with Gaudi’s work, for a picnic. There were a lot of buskers and maybe illegal traders around. And they have special communication tools among them that will alert each other to run for their lives if there are any checks going around. These people are actually all over the place in Spain.

For the two nights we were in Barcelona, we ate in a restaurant called Ikaro, near our hostel. Generally, the food near our hostel was cheaper compare to the city centre like La Rambla and Barri Gothic. Ikaro has a lot of Chinese (maybe they are Taiwanese) waiters and waitresses. And they have English menu, which make ordering easy as we don’t speak Spanish nor Catalan. Anyway, for a small restaurant/tapas bar like this, they served thumbs up food. That’s why boyfriend and I went back for a second time before we left Barcelona.

Fried Calamaries, croquettes and Russian Salad

Grilled pork with eggs and salad (feta cheese)

Tortilla Espanyol with baguettes with home-made tomato puree

Beef steak with cheese-creamed wedges and salad

Cheeseburger

Did I mention Spanish serves great coffee?

  From Tripadvisor, I came across this tapas bar called Maitea Taberna. Like any heavily recommended eateries, their staff can speak fluent English. But, since the bar was filled with locals, we decided to give it a try. In Barcelona, a must eat thing is called pintxos (pronounced pinchos). It is tapas, served on a piece of sliced baguette, held with a toothpick. So you can choose between cold (on the counter) or hot (brought around by the serving staff right from the kitchen). Maitea Taberna charged 1.50 euros per pintxos. So this is how it works. You take as many food as you want/can eat and at the end, if you didn’t order any mains, the toothpicks will be counted and priced. Yes, they do work according to honest system. If you wanna cheat by hiding some toothpick, you are welcomed. But, I will not feel right to do that. Haha. Anyway, here’s the food!

Maitea Taberna

Arrays of pintxos

Some of our cold pintxos

Hot pintxos

Boyfriend and I actually went to Maitea Taberna for twice, but with one attempt fail. We went on a Sunday, without realising that they were closed! However, we found this hidden gem in one of the neighbourhood near Maitea Taberna, which serves yummy ice-cream!

Brina serves good ice-creams

 And for the fail attempt, we replaced our dinner with a 3-course dinner for 10 euros in Happy Grill and Bar. This was the place where we decided that we missed rice a lot and ordered a plate of fried rice. Paella fried rice to be exact. Taste was okay but texture wise was weird. For mains, we had a steak and a cheeseburger. In Barcelona, don’t expect succulent, thick slab of beef when you order steak. Our steaks, for twice, were a thinly sliced beef grilled to dryness. But it is of a perfect dryness that gives the beef’s fragrance, but dryness that was not too dry that you will choke! And for dessert, we had this apple-crumble thing which taste awesome!

Happy Bar and Grill makes us happy

"Chao fan" Spanish style

Cheeseburger, again

Apple crumble thing dessert

They sell pintxos too

As the last stop in Spain, I told myself I had to have one thing to bring everything to an end. Haha, emo! Yes, I was missing the sinful breakfast from Madrid, the Chocolat con churros. And when I wished hard enough, the breakfast cafe next to our hostel sells it. Aww~~lady luck is treating me well! Okay don’t need to explain much about this sinful breakfast as the picture tells it all. Deep fried longish doughnut dunked in a cup of thick, hot chocolate. Perfect breakfast!

The perfect and sinful breakfast

So, this sums up all my Spain gastronomic experience, both good and bad. I still love Spain no matter what, the land of sun, sea and beaches with good food!