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| The performance in front of the Cathedral |
The fact is, Barcelona is more of a tourist city than Madrid. Every corner you turn in Barcelona there is someone doing a performance, a concert, playing something. At one point, we stumbled upon a performance of an orchestra (!) in front of the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia, probably playing some traditional style of music from the region, because there were circles of elderly people dancing. It was so amazing! And then we walked ten steps far from them and there were two guys doing break dancing to the sound of "tchetchereretche" - to those who don't know what this means, it's the incredibly catchy brazilian song "Balada Boa" that has been played all over Europe. Five steps, there were two guys playing Spanish guitars in a small alley... oh I wish I had seen more Spanish guitar players... regret number one. Barcelona also had some tourist traps. For example, the prices in the menu will not always be the price you pay. If you are sitting outside, you will pay 10% more of the price that is written on the menu. Obviously, no one will tell you that until you actually ask. Being the amazing tourists we were, we only found out about it on the last meal we had (of course). Other than that, it is an incredible city. The works of Gaudí are insanely beautiful, and even more impressive when compared to their surroundings, which are not plain at all. Here are some of them: the Casa Batlló, Sagrada Família and La Pedrera
Aside from the beautiful architecture, Barcelona also has amazing food. I mean, amazing ham. I mean, AMAZING jamón!!!!!!!!!!! I can't even explain how much I love the Spanish jamón ibérico. I made a point of eating it every single day for at least one of my meals. The result was I didn't eat a lot of paella (regret number 2). But it doesn't matter, I wouldn't have done it any differently. The Spanish know what they are doing. They classify their pigs for what they EAT. I'm dead serious. Depending on what the pig eats, the ham is more or less expensive, because it tastes different. How hardcore is that?!
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| yumyumyum |
Instead of eating it at restaurants, where you pay 15€ for a plate of jamón that is not even the best one, we found a small shop close to the hotel where we could buy 100grams for around 7€. A hundred grams of ham is a LOT of ham. It was great! Needless to say, we were at the shop a lot, even if we just spent 3 days there. One night, we bought a baguette at the baker, then we bought the jamón, some fancy cheese and a bottle of wine at the shop, and then went to a supermarket and bought arugula and tomatoes. BAM! Budget fancy dinner for less than 20€!
"Los Caracoles", however, is no place for budgeting. One of the oldest and most famous restaurants in town, it is quite hidden in one of the perpendicular streets from the famous Ramblas. On the outside, it is just a simple, small old-looking little door. When you get in, you go through a bar - at least we did because we went to dinner super early and it had no lines - and then through the kitchen (!) to get to your tables. The restaurant must have three floors of seating, which was a huge surprise. Considering the amount of people they had waiting at the bar when we left, I would suggest making reservations.
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| Snails |
We started with caracoles (snails), because we had never tried it and we were curious. I have to say, they were good, but nothing special. They came in a brown, earthy sauce with a little bit of parsley. It wasn't what we were expecting... very plain. Funny fact: they served it with two breads, in the shape of a snail! AH - another tip about Spain: they put bread on your table, but don't be fooled: you pay for it (only if you eat it). Yes, they bring to your table even if you don't order it. Yes, in every single restaurant they make you pay for it. So, if you don't want to pay, you can't touch it. This system seems very unfair to me. I mean, you just brought me bread, unexpectedly, didn't say anything about why is it there and then left. How do you expect me not to eat it?! It's bread! Either make it free or don't bring it without me ordering it. Or, at least, tell me I'm gonna pay for it! As I said, we were the perfect tourists.
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| Snail-shaped bread |
For our main plate, we ordered the seafood paella. We had been having long discussions about paella the whole time we were there, because the paellas we saw seemed very different from what we had eaten in Brazil or the States. The rice wasn't bright yellow, but brownish. It looked more like a risotto than like a paella, because there was a lot of sauce. Still, we were in Spain, and we wanted to try it to see why it was so different. And we weren't disappointed.
It had mussels, shrimp, crayfish, and i'm gonna say calamari too... and some other seafood that I did not identify, but tasted good. The plate was delicious, but very different from the paellas I have eaten. My conclusion was that probably there is another part of Spain that makes paellas differently, and that's where we got it from. Nonetheless, we were happy with the meal we had and ready for dessert! I was, anyway. I chose what they call crema catalana, a dessert that resembles the French crème brulée. Since the last one is my favorite dessert ever, I had absolutely no problem enjoying the catalan cream. It was very rich, with a soft, full texture under the crispy sugary crust. Yum...
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| Crema Catalana |
We had a great night and a delightful meal. The only downside of the whole night was the waiters, a little bit. Maybe I have a weird age complex, but I feel that because we are young, at times we don't get the best treatment in restaurants - especially more expensive ones. I find it very annoying, since to me the quality of the service should always be better than the quality of the food. To me, service changes everything. If you are at a restaurant and the service is amazing, you just want to love everything about your time there. At "Los Caracoles", they were not very friendly during the night and took a while to clean dirty plates. Until then I was not that bothered. But when the waiter came to give us the check, he very "kindly" pointed out that the price did not include the tip. That was just plain rude. Yes, I know it only includes the 10% you make from every single table. If I were to give you a tip, you just lost half of it right there. It was really a shame, because we having such a pleasant night.
And it was our last one in Barcelona, too. Then we headed to Madrid, where the food was cheaper, as was the beer and we were WAY more prepared for the tourist traps. We had a great time, even though it was freezing cold. Since it was the end of our trip, we were on a tight budget, and did not eat out that much. We found a place called "Museo del Jamón", where the glass of beer was 70 cents (!!!!!!) and a jamón sandwich was 1€ (!!!!!!). Granted, the "sandwich" was more like one slice of ham inside of plain bread. Still, it was one euro. Again, it became our favorite place to go to (I wasn't joking when I said I made a point of eating jamón every single day.) They have restaurants all over the city, which was even better. We would just wish for it to appear and there it was:
Look for it if you're there! It's not hard to find at all.
Oh, Spain, you treated me well, even with your little traps to trick me into spending more money with you. Hope to see you soon!
City: Barcelona, Spain
Restaurant: Los Caracoles
Food: Great
Service: Average
Price: €€€
