On the Hunt

Gone Hunting

Monday started quietly for the group, but turned into a day for hunting on the streets of Barcelona.  We opted to sleep in and start our morning a little later than normal.  The streets of the city were just waking up as well when Tari, Duane, and Jamie hit the town in search of some basic house hold items.

Kelly stayed behind to work on the blog but put in a simple request for the group to pick up a wash cloth when they ran out to get more kleenex and soda.

Since we were staying across from what looked like a Bed, Bath and Beyond this should have been an easy request.

2 hours, 2 stores, 1 Kids Versace department, 1 oyster bar and 12 floors later they were successful in their hunt.  Who knew finding a washcloth would be such an adventure!
  

Hunt for Bubbles!

We thought it would be fun to start the day with Cava and had the perfect bar in mind...except it was not open on Mondays.  Ok no problem, we will pull out the Googles and find another one close by.  We found another place with a good recommendation....but they open at 5 pm.. it is only 11:30 am. Ok, third time was the charm!  We found one, named Quillo on a quite little side street.

Very nice bar with very modern bathrooms (always a plus in Europe) good cava and good jamon.

  

Of Course Tari is smiling! 
It is sunny and she has Cava!

Don't try this as home... Duane is a trained professional

This was probably some of the best jamon we had in Barcelona!

Not sure what caused the look on Kelly's face but I

am sure it had something to do with whatever Jamie said.

  

 

Bubbles always lead to interesting conversations and smiles.

Park Life

After having our quick snack of bubbles and jamon we paid our tab and started walking to find a cab.  It was finally time to walk around Park Guell.  If you remember, the plan was to do this yesterday however our tickets for entry were for today... so today it is!

We all piled into a cab and off we were!

  

Entering the park is much easier when you are there on the right day!

Once in you can stay as long as you like, but once you leave you cannot go back in.

You never know what will pop out behind a pillar

Walking through the park, the buildings looked like something from a Candy Land Game.  As with the rest of Gaudi's works, the park's design copies themes from nature.  The salamander is the logo of the park and a large mosaic lounges on the stairs. 

                             

The park was originally started to be a neighborhood for the well to do of Barcelona.  Each section you walk through was a certain part of a city block.  For example there was a market area, homes, and a obviously a park.  The picture above was to be the fish market..standing at the beginning of it it looks like you are standing in the pipe of a wave in the ocean.

One never knows what will pop out behind a wall.... in this case it is Kelly waiting in the bathroom line.

  The park part of the park

                         

Mercado de La Boqueria - Hunt for Juan

One of the things we really wanted to make sure we tried to do was wander through the Boqueria located in La Rambla.  The Boqueria is very similar to Pike Market in Seattle, but way bigger and busier.

While the market itself was on the list, we REALLY wanted to see one of the Tapas Bars inside the market named Pinotxo Bar.  This bar has been show cased on several travel shows like Rick Steves, Anthony Bourdain and Samantha Brown.

                                                     

Lucky for us, the hunt for this place was much easier than we expected.  It was right inside the main entrance.  We got even luckier as two seats opened up just as we were walking up to the bar.  With a little maneuvering we were able to add two more seats so our group of 4 fit comfortably.

The man of the hour, the real reason we wanted stop here...JUAN!  Juan is the owner of the Pinxto Bar and is pretty famous for his bar being on those travel shows I mentioned above.  His famous trade mark move is to give two thumbs up to customers and a big smile.  They have also created a book telling the history of Juan and recipes from his bar.

I will admit that Juan is looking older than I expected, but meeting him was great and made the afternoon.

 

Hanging out at the bar was everything we thought it would be and so much fun!  We lucked out and Juan actually waited on us.  He was a friendly and loveable as we expected him to be.  The food was as good as we heard about on TV.  We got there late so somethings were already sold out, but Juan was quick to let us know and told us he would get us "something better".  He never let us down

One of the first things recommended to us was chickpeas.  I will be the first one to admit chickpeas would not be the first thing i chose on a menu.  But they were VERY good!

Mussels with peppers and onions

 

Our final dish was one of those Juan suggested.  It was grilled Turbot fish that was a simple recipe of olive oil and some salt.  The fish was done to perfection and we were close to licking that plate clean.  Tari and Kelly were very proud of the work they did on that poor fish.

Best way to end a meal, cappuccino done by Juan.  It was very good and he can do them in no time at all!

Time to Hunt the Stalls - Who Knows What we will find!

After eating way more than we should, we left Pinxto Bar and Juan so that we could wander the market stalls.

We have been to Europe many times, but the size of the produce always amazes me!  Seriously, look at the picture on the right... those are fresh herbs.  Mostly cilantro and parsley but they are never that large in the States.  That is a lot of herbs... 

                     

Along with fruit and veggies, there were stalls selling farm fresh eggs, saffron, bread etc.  The stall selling the eggs was a pretty darn cute stall.

                      

There were quite a few stalls selling saffron.  With the prices being what they were for it, we had to get some.  Duane ended up getting 25 grams for 80 euro.  I smell Paella Parties in the near future.

Jamon!

Ham, Ham, everywhere!  There was no shortage of stalls selling Jamon or other pork products.

    

  

Pescado!

Another popular item in Spain as well as the market was seafood.  One could find just about any type of seafood from basic fish and shrimp to scallops still in the shell.  Of course there were plenty of stalls selling Baclao, or Cod Fish.

 

 

  

The Cod or Bacleao was displayed fully salted and looked like blanks of siding or shingles stacked up.

Fresh Fruit 

Juice and fresh fruit had several stands as well.  Smoothies are quite popular in Barcelona and it seems that every fruit stand had them available.  They were made with a blend of fruit and yogurt.

 

Walking around the market and trying to shove more food in Jamie's face can make a person work up quite a sweat.  Duane and Kelly decided to refresh themselves with some coconut.

The coconut water inside was pretty good, but there was not a lot in it.  I think the 4 of us all got one suck on the straw and then we were out.

.

    

Kelly also picked up one of the mixed berry smoothies and Tari picked up a container of fresh coconut chunks.  FYI to everyone...if you are eating coconut chunks... don't eat the husk side.

All the snack items we picked up were around 1 to 1.50 euro.  A person could make quite a good meal out of market stall food for not much money.

 

Back on the Hunt for Wine

It was getting close to 5 pm so the original wine bar we had tried to go to in the morning should be getting ready to open.  We bid ado to the market and start making our way back to the Gothic Quarter.

It is funny how the shops look when they are closed.  You can walk up to one and it will have graffiti on the gate and look like it has not been inhabited for years then all of a sudden someone walks up, unlocks the gate and opens the door to a very nice looking establishment and people start pouring in.

 

The wine bar was called Bodega Maestrazgo.  It sold fresh wine and vermouth straight from barrels, but in the back of the shop it was a wine bar with tasting menus and a very knowledgeable and personable sommelier.

We had a plan to have one glass of cava then be on our way so that we could pack before heading out to dinner.. that of course did not happen.  We instead spent about 2 hours there drinking wine and talking with a newly engaged couple from New Jersey and another couple from all places, Seattle!

  

Cava always brings out the smiles.  A great afternoon with great friends does too.

 

Hunt for the Door to Dinner

Before leaving on vacation we had made a reservation for one nice dinner in Barcelona.  The restaurant is named Passadis del Pep and is located down close to the beach area.

We took a cab and got dropped off just short of where the restaurant should be.... looking at our Google map we should have been just a door down from it.  We did not see anything that looked like a restaurant entrance and we had about 10 minutes before the reservation so we started walking the block hunting for the front door.

        

Finally found the restaurant....it was just to the left of where the cabbie dropped us off.  It definitely was not a brightly if at all marked entrance.  Just an open doorway down a long hall to a frosted glass door.

We were one of the first tables for dinner that night and we were seated by the wall of liquor....Jamie was actually right next to the Crown and Jameson.  It was like the restaurant knew us!

They had quite the wall of alcohol, but their wine "list" was just as extensive!  Not sure why anyone would want a mixed drink when the wine list was the size of War and Peace.

Starters

Bread and crudites came out almost immediately.  The crudites came with a nice dipping sauce of garlic, parsley and mayo.  The bread was of course handmade.

 

Jamon and tomato bread were next.  The jamon was probably some of the best we had while in Barcelona.  it melted in your mouth and you could see the oiliness of the meat.

Next Up:  Appetizers

The seafood started with the appetizer.  It was a salmon tar tare receipe that was quite good.  Very light, fresh and delicate in it's flavors.

As we have mentioned before, to get a picture of food, you better act fast.  Here i barely had time to pick up my phone from the table before the hands were reaching. 

The salmon was followed by razor clams.  This was a first for all of us as no one at the table had these previously.  We actually have them in Seattle, we have purchased them but did not know what to actually do with them.  

After eating these simply grilled ones we will need to try this again once home.  The meat in the clam was less chewy than expected and had a good flavor without being overly fishy,

What meal in Spain would be complete without Padron peppers?  These came to us grilled with a slightly charred outside so the smokiness really shown through in the peppers.

Primi Plate

The first plate of the first course was more seafood.  This time an assortment of seafood
Calamari, sardines and fried anchovies, along with small shrimps.  Of course Jamie had to tease Kelly with one of the calamari whose tentacles was just a little to long and creepy looking

After the assortment the next plate was grilled seafood... this time cuttlefish.  Anyone else seeing a theme here with seafood and a grill?

Cuttlefish is not one of my favorite items as normally the texture is a little too chewy and think for me.  I am happy to say that this one was actually pretty good and done in a way that provided the grill flavor without over cooking the fish.

For dinner we started off with a nice white then moved to a red for the main courses.

 

More Shrimps!

In case we had not had enough shrimp during the first couple of courses they brought us two more  One was a plate of grilled langostinos and another was a plate of grilled red shrimp

 

 

From the look on Jamie's face and the sound of slurping shrimp heads coming from across the table, I think everyone was ok with more shrimps

 Time to clean up from the seafood as it is finally time for meat!

Not Fish!  Time for Lamb!

For the last course before dessert we finally moved away from the seafood family and had a leg of lamb and roasted potatoes.  There is a a lot of meat on one small lamb leg!  Others thought is as salty, but Kelly thought it had a nice seasoning.  Jamie swears she cannot taste salt like normal people.

Jameson to go with dessert?  That bottle might actually get them through boating season...maybe

Dessert Time!

Between the 4 of us we got two different desserts.  Jamie and Tari both got the tiramisu while Duane and Kelly both got the apple cake.  Tari said it might not have been as good as what she had in Italy, but it was pretty darn good.

Here's Dewey!

Along with dessert, they also brought out two liquors.  The one in the darker bottle that had a licorice flavor... Tari was the only one who liked it.

The other was more like a grappa but tasted better than grappa.  Having shots of these was probably not the best idea we had that day, but it certainly made the day more fun and caused Dewey to come out!

Yep, this picture was just as frightening in person as it appears on the blog

  

All in all it was a successful day of hunting.  Even if the hunt may have taken us of course a time or two.  The unplanned can sometimes be the best part of a trip.

For now, we pack and get ready to drive across Spain tomorrow.  Hast Luego!