Food in Barcelona

One thing that I love about Barcelona is how easy it is to get good food. You can go into almost any place and find something yummy. Sometimes, you don’t know what you’re ordering, so you get something weird, like the time I went to a restaurant an ordered vacío, which the waiter told me was an Argentinean dish, so I thought, “Mmm. Beef.” It basically looked like a long piece of tail – it was yummy, but weird. I ended up looking it up on-line, and the website said that it was actually a cut of loin, but cooked with a big piece of fat on it to give it flavor, and that Americans would probably find it weird, but tasty. Yep, it was weird but tasty.

This week, I had some great dining experiences, mostly because there were visitors here from the U.S., and so I could go out to dinner with people who could afford it – i.e., not students. My brother’s co-worker Jim and his wife have been here this week, and on Monday we went to Café Salambó in my neighborhood. I had heard good things about it from some of the books I have, and it always looks festive, but damn, was it good. I had this lentil soup with some sort of meat in it for starters, but the best thing was this duck in a wine reduction sauce which was incredibly good. My books had said that Café Salambó was known for it’s hamburgers, so Cami had one, and it looked amazing (I didn’t want to taste it because I was just finally getting over my sickness). She said it had some sort of flavoring that she’d never had before, but that it was pretty incredible. Jim had bacallaó, salt cod, which in the past I haven’t liked, but again, it looked incredible on these flat beans. The desserts were also amazingly good. The whole dinner took 2.5 hours, another great thing about dining in Spain – no one is rushing you out. I can’t wait to go back there.

On Tuesday, Marcus and Kristen invited Patricia, who was visiting from LA, and me to their apartment for dinner. Now, first of all, the Wilson’s apartment is seriously beautiful. It’s much bigger than mine (which makes complete sense since there’s 4 of them), but it’s really quite glamorous, with nice furniture, beautiful floors and rugs, and double-paned windows so that you can’t hear anything from the outside. In the back is an office that overlooks gardens from the other buildings. Marcus made a great combo Spanish-American meal. It had all the ingredients that you’d expect from Spain, but done in an American way – pork, artichokes, potatoes, salad. The Wilsons have brought all these things from the U.S., like ranch dressing. I cannot believe how much I miss ranch dressing. It was fun.

After we watched Tommy Boy, which I have to explain. In the airport as we were leaving for Spain, someone made some casual comment about Tommy Boy (the movie starring Chris Farley). I said that I hadn’t seen it, and the looks on everyone’s faces (and we’re talking maybe 8-10 people) was like I’d never seen Star Wars or something. People could not believe that I hadn’t seen it. So it’s been this running thing for the whole trip. The Wilsons brought it, of course, because it seems that everything in life can be related to Tommy Boy. So on Tuesday, I finally saw it. Um . . . it’s not the greatest movie ever, and my life wouldn’t have been seriously damaged by not seeing it, but it was a fun movie. It was particularly funny because every Wilson knew every line, and they could barely contain themselves. It was a sweet movie, and it’s a real shame that Farley died young because he was a pretty unusual comedian.

Anyway, the next day, Wednesday, I met Patricia and a woman visiting from San Diego named Karla, for dinner at another amazing restaurant called Silenus in the El Raval District. Again, a fabulous restaurant, this time offering la comida de mercado, which can be very loosely translated as food from whatever is in the markets that day. So everything is fresh and very seasonal. My first course was a pasta dish that when it came looked like nothing. Some very wide flat noodles in some oil with olives and some sort of green on top. It was so simple, and yet amazingly flavorful. Part of the reason was the olive oil, which makes anything taste good, and the olive oil in Spain is fantastic. But there was something about the pasta itself: it was clearly made in-house that day. And combining all this with greens, which were uncooked salad greens really, the whole thing was refreshing and tasty. Then, my second course was the most amazing lamb and olive cannelloni, which again seems really simple, but it were so incredibly good. There was some raisins in there too, I think, because there was something sweet in it. It was tremendous. I had dessert, but I can’t remember what. I think the cannelloni filled my taste-buds so I don’t remember what I had after.

Then last night, I met Jim and Cami again for a late night snack. They had seen a flamenco show. I had gone with some students to see 300.

A 300 aside. That movie was much, much better than I expected. It’s completely intense, and also completely over-the-top, but some of the scenes are so beautiful, you can’t believe it’s a movie. Jim was telling me that most of what we’re seeing is really just CGI, so they have so much control over the shots. There’s a scene with Persian ships being destroyed by a hurricane that is one of the most beautiful shots I’ve seen in a movie. It looks like a painting. And then there is an extended scene in slo-mo of Leonidis killing a lot of people that is absolutely gorgeous. I freely admit that there’s something wrong with a movie that makes war look beautiful, but nonetheless it is a beautiful looking movie. (I could have, however, have done without the scenes of gross men licking beautiful woman. Just once, I’d like to see a movie with a gross woman sexually degrading a beautiful man – just for parity’s sake.)

In any event, Jim, Cami, and I walked around El Raval a bit, and found this random cerveceria where we had great beer, tapas, and conversation. It’s just great. You can go in any place and get something good to eat.