To tapa or not to tapa (5/12-13/2014)

I am not sure I will ever really understand the food culture of Spain.  There is more nuance to it by city, district and village than you can learn in a week or two.  It is made up of the food itself, the preparation, the time of day, the accompanying beverage, the location, your fellow diners, the method of dining (standing up at the bar, sitting inside the restaurant or outdoors), and the hour of your consumption and sometimes there is yelling and angst among the kitchen staff.  Yet that mystery is what makes it so beguiling to me. "Foodie", literally in Webster, is defined as "a person having an enthusiastic interest in the preparation and consumption of good food".  In Spain, it is just the way they eat, no additional "ie" needed to make it a pretentious noun.

Having said that, I always feel like a tourist interloper on the Spanish tapas scene.  Most restaurants in tourist centric areas cater to the masses as you would expect with menus in multiple languages and typical Spanish tapa fare.  We wanted to venture a little further afield for a more authentic experience.
Mike had a place in mind, Ciutata Comtal. (I would give you their web address but they have no website)  A place he had read about that served tapas to the local professional set.

We arrived just as the place was getting really busy.  We stood in the crowded bar contemplating our strategy to obtain a bar table or seat directly at the bar, all were full.  We stalked a couple of ladies who appeared to be paying their bill.  Fortuitous eye contact with a bar waitress cemented our position as next on those two stools.  A local couple in business suits made a beeline for the emptying seats as we stood slightly back, I swiftly acknowledged, Proxima! loosely translated, we are next.  They were gracious and moved on to find another place to sit.

We sat before the grandest display of tapas.  Some I recognized, some I did not.  We were provided a menu and ordered a couple of glasses of wine, then the fun of ordering began.  Our bar waitress was slammed but still very efficient and helpful.  We sat at the bar in wonderment of the various foods, wine and people we saw while sipping our wine and enjoying the delicious mystery dishes we ordered.  The menu was in Catalan and Spanish, no Ingles.  This is what we ordered:

1 copa Tinto casa

2 copa Rosado casa (we shared the second glass, really)

1 timbal del dia

1 gambas al ajillo (muy delicioso)

1 alcachofas

1 patatas bravas

                                                       1 escalivda tebia amb formatge de cabra

 










It was all absolutely delicious and a delightful tapas experience for a tourista.

Our last day in Barcelona we ventured into Barri de Gracia.  An upscale, residential neighborhood to which we had not been before.  We packed the local lunch of a iberica ham bocadillo and headed off to find a ancient, fountained plaza at which we could enjoy a respite during our trek.  The neighborhood was lovely and we happened upon the local mercado, most vendors were already closed for the afternoon siesta period but we wandered through.  We trudged on our quest to find a quaint picnic spot which at every corner seemed elusive.  We were a little lost as we had taken off planning to use a pdf map of this district on our mobile phone but it was almost impossible to read.  Finally, we were just too hungry to wait for the perfect spot. We sat on some steps of an office building near a busy intersection and ate.

We continued forward after lunch, the next block contained a beautiful, sprawling boulevard with benches and trees and a grand fountain.  We cracked up over it.  We found the metro station and headed back to El Raval and our apartment.