You've probably noticed by now how much I like food. To stare at food, to talk about it, to take pictures of it before I eat it, to take pictures of my empty plate because it's pretty... you get the idea.
Barcelona has some nice food. Since our evening meals were organised in advance with the group, we only got to choose a couple of the meals we had, and I do think we could have done better. Not that the food wasn't good, it just wasn't as typical as it could have been.
First things first: tapas! Lots of little plates of mysterious things to be passed around and shared.
Before:
After:
Notice how much Sangria is left? That's because they gave us one litre per person. One litre of red wine with fruit. Come on, we're French, we must keep our dignity!
Parmesan!!
Yum!
Yuck. Least favourite food moment.
My favourite food moment was our saturday lunchtime visit to La Boqueria, an inside market in the old town that sells fresh foods and tapas. If you're lucky you'll get to sit on a tiny stool and eat mysterious things while crowds of people walk by behind you and stare at your food. To place your order, simply point towards whatever looks safest. The friendly lady will chuck it onto a plate and stick it in the microwave for you. 30 seconds later, voilà:
Slices of bread with sausage, onions and green pepper, the round balls are a mix of cheese and porc meat (I think), more green pepper which we got for free (maybe they were trying to get rid of it). There was loads of seafood but I didn't love the idea of putting a cute baby octopus in my mouth, so I gave that a miss.
I didn't give this a miss though.
After a healthy (what? Fruit is healthy!) lunch, we went on a crazy food shopping spree:
Dried sausage: check!
One million different types of Turron: check!
What I didn't buy:
Sorry for jumping from sweet to savoury all the time, I hope you're not feeling nauseous.
Spices
Shrooms!
There was a lovely little cupcake shop right next to the hotel. I haven't got a better picture so you can't tell from here but the inside was really nicely decorated. A pastel festival.
Mango on the left, oreo on the right. I can honestly say this is the best cupcake I have ever had.
The Spanish seem to be liking the cupcake/tea shop/brunch on sundays trend, these little shops were everywhere:
They are also very good at ice cream. Mojito ice cream, personalized popsicles, you name it! This popsicle was all ready and I got to chose what kind of chocolate I wanted on it. Such a good idea. Can you guess what flavour it was? (I seem to be developing a liking for this fruit)
I wasn't taken by their bakeries though. I don't know if you can tell but everything in there was HUGE. and GREASY. Glucose overdose.
This place reminded me of Fortnum and Mason, one of my favourite shops on earth (hmmm this post is making me hungry!!). I'm particularly intrigued by this, which I just found on their website.
There's a definite shortage of Union Jacks and marzipan but they still look pretty good to me.
This is more like it!
Even the window display was Fortnum & Masony. So pretty.
Have you got room for one last meal?
Gaspacho!
Salmon! (not mine, the gaspacho was enough for me given the size of my dessert)
Fruit on a skewer with Crema Catalana and melted chocolate.
right, I'm starving!
Hasta mañana conejos!
