Barcelona

[Wilfrid]

Then lunch at Tapas 24, the kind of place that doesn’t just fry shrimp precisely but throws a couple of crisp baby squid on top.

 

[GerryOlds2TheReturnofGerry]

Tapies and Tapas would make a great first date.

I feel compelled to remind you that Besta and Gresca are right around the corner from each other and their small plates formats make it easy (preferable, even) to hit them both in one night. Also, a year later and I'm still thinking about a roasted onion stuffed with octopus from Agreste de Fabio & Roser. (I also think about Casa Maians. Can you tell I'm ready for a return trip?)

Edited September 10 by GerryOlds2TheReturnofGerry

[Wilfrid]

Products from this place are unbelievably good. More to follow.

https://carnisseriacodina.cat

[Wilfrid]

Meanwhile, speaking of good shit. Dulce Catalunya.

 

[Wilfrid]

3 hours ago, GerryOlds2TheReturnofGerry said:

Tapies and Tapas would make a great first date.

I feel compelled to remind you that Besta and Gresca are right around the corner from each other and their small plates formats make it easy (preferable, even) to hit them both in one night. Also, a year later and I'm still thinking about a roasted onion stuffed with octopus from Agreste de Fabio & Roser. (I also think about Casa Maians. Can you tell I'm ready for a return trip?)

Thanks always. I unwittingly ran into National Catalonia Day tomorrow, so I am readjusting my plans around closures. Gresca is tempting.

[Wilfrid]

Unbelievable luck.

This evening was supposed to be old school tapas, pulpo and bunuelos, in the very few central places that still serve them. Closed, either just for Tuesday or for the holiday tomorrow, or swarmed with tourists.

I kept walking by a wine bar called Bodega 8. So what? I eventually gave up and walked in.

Old building, modern circular bar. No tourists (obviously I don’t count). Friendly neighborhood (mostly)  bar scene where I could converse in what I call Spanish.

Food and wine, amazing. Link above to a family xarcuteria. I have been eating fuet for years, but this rich stuff with creamy fat was unbelievable. After digesting all this from me, the family member brought me a complimentary plate of longaniza and what she decided to call “bacon.”

All amazing so I knew the tabla of cheeses would be great too. I asked the guy behind the bar to choose the last of several wines and it was a meaty, local Pla de Bages.

What a great place. I didn’t pay attention to the check but I guess around $40.

And inspired by a maybe 4 year old boy sitting at the bar (civilization) I had started with a big plate of xips. Not pictured!

[Wilfrid]

I had no idea I was going to be here for National Catalonia Day, celebrated of course by independence demonstrations and terrifying towers of children (see below).

Some inconveniences with preferred bars closing but the museums on my list (Palau Martorell and Picasso) were open. I headed down to Barceloneta as the beach would not be closed. Happily, Bar Leo, the tiny neighborhood joint with Flamenco posters everywhere, was open and slammed with happy locals. Cold beer, hot bunuelos, not a tourist in sight (I don’t count).

[Wilfrid]

At Palau Martorell a couple of floors of Geisha/Samurai stuff, but in the basement an extensive collection of informal photos of Picasso by an American photographer Edward Quinn.

At Museu Picasso the current exposition all about Fernande Olivier, model and muse to the whole Bateau Lavoir crowd, a painter herself and a memoirist (that book should be at my library for me when I get home). Conveniently, you can buy a ticket for just the exposition, skipping the 15e for the great but very familiar main collection.

The nude Fernande by Picasso.

[Wilfrid]

Messy evening because not sure what was open. I tried Signature Cocktail Bar at the Meridien and although a faceless modern hotel bar (full of Anglo business people), the martinis were excellent).

I like to visit Els 4Gats for a cava because it’s there. This time I went beyond the 9e oyster and cava deal (which is crazy, of course) and ate some embutidos and a messy veal cheek sandwich. The veal was nicely cooked, could have used more salt, and it was served on one of those cardboard crumbly rolls I recall from British fish’n’chip restaurants.

Now on a terrace in George Orwell Plaça eating a very good tapa of fricando from the randomly chosen PaloSanto. Sadly they were out of xips.

[Wilfrid]

And finished with cheese at the vinoteca near my hotel. I didn’t come close to finishing and the leftovers are now in my wardrobe. Fortunately, the leftovers aren’t stinky.

[Wilfrid]

Thief of apples cider, served of course over a slice of orange. Relaxing in Poble Sec after a few hours at Fundació Miro.

Maybe rain on the way.

[Wilfrid]

On 11/9/2023 at 8:56 PM, Sneakeater said:

Wait are those prices at Hisop REAL?

Going tonight. The current menu has a 9 course tasting…with wine pairings…for 120e (90e without).

I will go by the carte as usual because I would rather have cheese than several desserts.

[Wilfrid]

The road to Hisop always leads through Ideal Cocktail Bar, bow ties and old school.

[Wilfrid]

It’s an old school thing, isn’t it, to fill a martini glass to the brim and beyond so that the bartender can’t move it without spilling and mopping and the only way to start drinking is to go face down in it.

A tradition happily declining in these days of coupes. At least the brimful glasses here don’t hold half a bottle of gin.

That was the problem at Maria’s Mont Blanc. Luis was proudly skilled at filling the glasses, but they were like fish bowls. Two and you might fall over (my solution, switch to pilsener).

[Wilfrid]

It’s astonishing to think I have been visiting Hisop for 18 or 19 years. It still looks brand new and nothing ever changes. Except the availability of cheese; they were getting badly kept, runny stuff so they have suspended the cheese course until October.

Amuses: a diced shrimp thing, then a sliver of raw fish over the same fish tempura.

Veal tongue with very mild summer truffles.

John Dory “en espeto.” Google couldn’t help with that; apparently it means crisping the protein on one side (skin side in this case) while barely touching the other. So I cook salmon “en espeto,” who knew?

Super crisp skin on the cochinillo too, dabbed with a shrimp and wasabi garnish. 

One negative is that, other than cava, they have never served BTG, so I had a half bottle that went well with one of my dishes. No problem serving me a glass of cognac.

Then I went back to the hotel and ate the cheese in the wardrobe.
 

 

[Wilfrid]

For some reason I had never been to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Raval. Maybe it’s not quite as big as the Design Museum, but big it is. Just one of the current shows features 13 installations by different artists. Set aside a couple of hours at least.

Then a more compact but very good exhibit of Jeff Wall’s huge and mysterious photos at Palau de la Virreina.

A few pintxos with a great funky cider at Irati because it’s late for lunch and I anticipate, if not a heavy, then a rich and challenging dinner at La Sosenga.

Hot art below by Sinead Spelman (MACBA), then Jeff Wall.

[Wilfrid]

The great Boadas was closed Tuesday and Wednesday for Catalonia Day and last night’s logistics sent me to Ideal Cocktail Bar.

Finally made it tonight. Martinez. Hanky Panky (yes of course it looks the same).

[Wilfrid]

I never imagined La Sosenga would be the knockout meal of the trip, but what a finale. It’s not as elegant and relaxed as Hisop and does not have quite the ingredients. But it has invention (rooted in old tradition like the much-missed Ateneu Gastronomic with its re-creations of medieval Catalunyan cuisine).

Also the two women running FOH still are just adorable, I remember them so well.

This is a reservations place and fills up fast. I got away with a walk-in as the doors opened last time. This was a reservation at the bar and the bar is not super-comfortable; go with someone recommended.

From the verbal specials, two skewers of anchovies that announce the meal; curled and pickly, joined by a good olive, smeared with balancing cheese (and something; I’m trying) paste and capped with a spicy pedron pepper.

Then a dish close to what I ate last time here. Very thinly sliced and cooked pork belly with tiny pieces of that pepper and little globes of full-flavored eggplant sauce.

The meat entrees here are deeply invested in cuts cooked forever until they surrender. No grilled or roast meats here. Last time it was a sponge-soft piece of beef with orange slices (must be on the tasting because it was still going out). I ate pig’s feet, but entirely divested of bone and gristle and shaped into a kind of cutlet, then bathed in a thick chocolate and ginger sauce. Nothing sweet going on here; wonderful.

Oh, and tart chewy downhome spinach on the side. And shards of Jerusalem artichoke.

I have avoided dessert throughout this trip, but I trusted the fresh figs with two kinds of nuts and a creamy Catalan mato cheese sauce and delicious.

I am not saying fly to Barcelona for this but if you are here it should be high on your list.

 

[Wilfrid]

I don’t want to go home. But I want to be in Harlem. ☹️

[Orik]

I found a recipe for roast cat in a 1490s Barcelona cookbook, made me think someone should put together a brief history of cat consumption in Europe.

 

[GerryOlds2TheReturnofGerry]

Looking at the pricing on La Sosenga's website...is it really 24.50 or 30 euro for those entire menus?

[Wilfrid]

It is startling, isn’t it? The 24.50e is partly explained by it being a lunch menu (1-4pm). I had not noticed the 30e. 

But look at the carte prices. My full-size entree was only 18e.

I will check my totals at Hisop and La S. and post; I really wasn’t focused on how much I was spending for obvious reasons.

To add to this, of course, you’re not paying tax and a 20% tip on top. 
 

 

[Wilfrid]

11 hours ago, Orik said:

I found a recipe for roast cat in a 1490s Barcelona cookbook, made me think someone should put together a brief history of cat consumption in Europe.

 

I didn’t see it on the menu at Ateneu Gastronomic, which recreated medieval Barcelona dishes, but that is where I ate raw horse.

[Orik]

15 hours ago, Wilfrid said:

I didn’t see it on the menu at Ateneu Gastronomic, which recreated medieval Barcelona dishes, but that is where I ate raw horse.

The other pre-Columbian cuisine. 

A Spanish idiom from that era - dar gato por liebre. 

[Wilfrid]

How I got home. Restaurant Alas in T1. Flight was fine, then no gate and the forever immigration line. Home in time for beers at Harlem Public and up today in time for the African American Day parade. Hit a wall after that.