Mountain of Chocolate in Barcelona

In Sant Losep market I mentioned previously (Mercat de Sant Josep), they also have many varieties: from chocolate rose to sliver-looking small heart, etc. Even after traveling France and Italy for months, I was surprisingly impressed by the presentation of mountain of varies chocolate in a market. The price is not market, they cost 60 euro per kg. Is it because the tourist location or good quality? Maybe both?

gelato presentation

Also the gelato! Some nice stores have artfully carved fruit sculpture right beside the gelato flavor. Also the gelatos are nicely layered like a mountain. Those extra touches bring the art of the food to another level.

Sweets! And Design!- part 1

I did not try many sweets in Barcelona this time. Actually I have to admit that I do not have a sweet tooth. When saw those sugar-coded candy, I am loosing my appetite.


But I do love and appreciate beautifully made and presented desserts. As a designer, I am paying attention to color, form and composition all the time, including for desserts. I love those hand-made chocolate square with small red balls on top, which reminds me fish roe on sushi.
The other my favorite one is the mousse cake (top left pic): Asymmetrical shape reminds me Gaudi’s works, interesting shape and bring color contrast. I bet it must taste great too!

Last Tapas in Barcelona

For my last night in Barcelona, my friend is so nice to organize a dinner tapas with other friends in a traditional popular Tapas restaurant.

We arrived there past 8:30pm, and it was fully packed. Looking through the window display, I thought it could be a very nice good quality dinner. But unfortunately, the food quality was not that amazing. The octopus came with nice spice on top. But too bad, the octopus itself is either over cooked or not fresh. It had a mushy taste that I hate about the non-fresh seafood.

The only interesting thing we ordered is the cheese plate. I forget the name but my friend said it is very traditional (see pic in the middle). They are slightly golden yellow tint and do not have strong flavor, like hardy tofu. I really enjoyed it..

That night was a disappointment for me, although everyone else said they enjoyed the food. Maybe I am asking too much?

Snail Take-out!

When visiting Barcelona, no one will miss Gaudi's Sagrada Familia (Sacred Family) Church. One beautiful sunny day, I was on my way to visit the church but get distracted by the local food place, which just opened its door at 11am. I am not sure what to call them, but those kinds are everywhere. They sell cooked food ready for take-out and sometimes wines at the other side of the store. The one I went to, they are roasting chicken also. That is how they attracted me into the place.

There are many foods, which look well prepared and have lots of varieties from meat to vegetable. I tried codfish with pin nuts and raisin on top. The cod is very tender but the dish is bit too oily.

I was surprised to see snails in Barcelona (did not know Spanish eat snails too). Different than the ones I had in France (which is mainly cooked with garlic and parsley), snails are cooked in a strong tasty tomato sauce. The snails are smaller than those I had in France. Maybe they are different kinds. But the weird thing is that the snails are not tightly in the shell; instead, you can even see their little head and mouth. As if when the snails are taking afternoon stroll, the chef just freeze that moments.

They are very tasty with the sauce. I only eat the top part of the snail meat, that means I discard the later part of the snail because sometimes they can full of eggs and tasty sandy. But one friend says you can eat the whole thing. Well, that is my personal preference. I was slowly picking snails with my hand in the park right in front of the Sagrada Familia church when everyone else is lining up to see the monuments. Oh, well, I am not in a hurry, it is called vacation!
I think the snail is one of the coolest animal, not only they are tasty, but they can also self-reproduce and freeze in winter then revival in spring.

“Most snails are hermaphrodites. This means that they are both male and female. All hermaphroditic snails can lay eggs. They can "mate" with themselves and thus only one can reproduce in an aquarium or pond.”

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090104133148AAZTAJ5

I have a snail pet at home, since it is self-reproduce, hopefully one day I can have an army of snails for…

Black Cuttlefish ink with Rice

Since I did not get a chance to try black pasta in Italy, when I saw they have black rice in Barcelona, I was so excited. At least, I get to try the cuttlefish ink. It is commonly used in Spanish coastal area. That is why you can see Black Rice on the menu everywhere in Barcelona.
I went to a small place near the famous street La Rambla, where it sells many typical Catalana foods, but nothing fancy. I could go to more fancy traditional restaurant to try it, maybe will be more amazing. But that was at 16pm, most restaurant is closed- that was a late lunch.

The plate looks a bit scary to try, but actually it is very tasty. For sure they know what they are doing. The cuttlefish ink brings a lot of sea taste to the rice. As for the shrimp and mussel, they are fresh but nothing special. It is all about the black ink!

I want to buy some black ink back home. But they say those sold in supermarket are really fresh, therefore, not very good. According to the Internet, just remove small black sack and then squish them to get the ink. I should try it one day…

Restaurant Taktika Berri in Barcelona

My friend told me to meet there at 20pm at Taktika Berri for dinner, but the restaurant is not open till 20:30pm. I thought that maybe he did not know. But in fact he had very good reason.
At 20 pm there were no people outside that restaurant, except me. Around 20:15pm, people started to line up outside the door. When they opened the door at 20:30pm, everyone rushed into the restaurant to get a good seat, like a flock of sardines. The restaurant is packed within 2 seconds.

Why do they need to do that? It is a traditional Basque restaurant place, which have both sit-down and bar area. They prepared lot of tapas with toothpick at the bar. You can pick whatever you want to eat and leave the toothpick on your plate. They will calculate how much you need to pay based on how many toothpicks you have. The concept is called pintxos, which is from basque, the owners are from san sebastian.

Simple concept and works very well. The food quality is very good. There are at least10 varieties. I love those salted fish with grilled pepper. The blood sausage (see pic top left) is also very good. The most impressive one is the cod fish (see 2nd pic top left). It was so tender that melt in my mouth. When the waiter brought out new plate of cod, they were picked up in few seconds.
We were lucky to get there early so we got a very good seat, right beside the bar. If not you have to stand eating or lean forward to get food when they are brought out. Act Fast!!! Or there will be no food left! And no one is too polite; it was like a food war!

My friend also told that it is ok to throw used napkins on the floor. Actually it is easier for them to clean, rather than left them on the bar. I was looking around and it is true. Everyone else is doing that!

Percebe - Seafood delicacy

The most interesting food I discovered in Barcelona is called: Percebe vivo cantabrico. “Percebe” is the name of the seafood; In English they are called gooseneck barnacles. “vivo cantabrico” means it is alive and was caught in the sea cantabrico area.

“The resemblance of this barnacle's fleshy stalk to a goose's neck gave rise in ancient times to the notion that geese, or at least certain seagoing species of wild goose, literally grew from the barnacle. Most notably, the wild Barnacle Goose (Branta leucopsis), whose eggs and young were rarely seen by humans because it breeds in the remote Arctic , got its popular name because it was imagined to grow from gooseneck barnacles.”

My friend called it “elephant feet”. One friend asked me if I ever tried that. The next day I run to the market and found them with other clams in the fish market. They do look like elephant feet, but a mini version.

With gesture communication, the merchant told me to put them in boiling water for few minutes then open and eat the middle tender part. Since they are almost 30 euro a kg, I only bought a few for a taste. When you buy them they are alive, like the clams, so the dark long part feels tough but squishy. After they are cooked, there is little delicate meat when you open it from the red top. I tried it with nothing added; just want to know what is their natural flavor. The meat is tender like clam meat, but have a very strong interesting flora fragrance. If I had more time, I would discover other methods to cook them, oh well, leave it for the next time.

There is a very interesting article about Canada exporting percebe to Spain:

http://www.billcasselman.com/words_of_the_world/percebe.htm

Barcelona Market - part 3 Fish

Barcelona Market- part 2 Sweets

Barcelona Market - part 1 Fruit

I went to one of the best-know market: Mercat de Sant Josep, near the famous street La Rambla. It is an impressive market where you can find almost everything: fruit, dessert, fish, vegetables and small restaurants. Since it is located near La Rambla, it is filled with tourists and things are very pricy. You can find all kinds of exotic fruit there. They also make variety of fresh fruit juice with ice for 1 euro a plastic cup, just like in Thailand. Of course the presentation of products are very impressive. I wish I could dive into those fruit mountains!

But be aware that merchants give you the good fruit. I bought some strawberry because I saw they are very ripe. But when I buy it, the merchants do not let me to choose from the beautiful pile. (Of course, they do not want to re-do the pile after every customer). Some of the strawberries I got are good; some are barely ripe. I felt being cheated!

Barcelona self-pick seafood restaurant

The first night in Barcelona, a Spanish friend took me to a self-pick typical seafood restaurant. That experience gave me a big welcome as a food traveler.

As he was telling us that most people go to have dinner starting at 9pm, because we want to avoid crowd, we went there at 8pm. Actually, we went there 15 minutes before 8pm, the restaurant has not yet open to the public.

This is how it works: pick the fresh seafood that you want, they cook for you right away, you wait till they call a code, you pick up the cooked food from the kitchen window.

That night we picked 7 kinds of seafood for 4 people with a bottle of cheap white wine (more like champagne, a bubbly white wine). Each person paid 17 Euros, which is really cheap for the quality of seafood in Europe. My favorite one is the razor clam (see up right pic). In Toronto China town I sometimes see them too but not as big as those in Barcelona. In the restaurant, they cooked with a special green sauce, which gave a very unique flavor to the chewy clam flesh. The dish is so simple yet amazing because they are alive right before cooking. They have to be alive.

In the restaurant they sell those tiny whole fish, which I saw them often in Italy. They are deep fried like calamari. Depends on how small the fishes are, some ones with big head can taste very fishy. I normally eat the whole fish, but sometimes when it is too strong, I left the head alone on the plate.

If you ever visit Barcelona, you have to try those restaurants. They are so good that the next day I want to go there for lunch again. But they only open from 8pm everyday and some hours in the Saturday afternoon. I guess people normally do not eat seafood for lunch???