Best of Barcelona Eats: Tapas
Of course one of the must-dos in Spain is trying out tapas. Over the last 10 years, tapas have moved from trendy to mainstream outside of Spain, so much so that I've heard "dim sum" referred to as "Chinese tapas." Hmm...
In our short 2.5 days in Barcelona, we were able to try a few different tapas restaurants. Here are my favorite dishes.
My most striking memory of all is eating the tomato bread at Piscolabis, at Rambla Catalunya 27. This was the first time I had tomato bread, which I learned is basically tomato rubbed on bread, then drizzled with olive oil. And Piscolabis's was the best. The tomato was like essence of tomato, and because the bread was so porous lots of big tomato chunks could get stuck in the crevices.
We were hanging out at Piscolabis because the wait at Ciudad Condal (across the street at Rambla Catalunya 18) was an hour long. The value here was excellent, as we paid the same as we did at Piscolabis but for double the food. Among the highlights was the fried anchovies. Completely lacking in fishy flavor, very tender and juicy, they were also not greasy at all.
Every restaurant had patatas bravas, fried potatoes with hot sauce and mayonnaise. My favorite were the ones from Bar Celta Puperia, at Calle de la Merce 16. This hole-in-the-wall with the most basic decor and limited menu, must also be in Lonely Planet because I saw quite a few tourists and at least one LP book on a table. Nonetheless, this is a worthy stop on your tapas tour as the patatas bravas were the most golden brown (I like the extra crunch), and the hot sauce was the most tangy and savory. (One of our group was quasi-vegan, so we always ordered at least one patatas bravas sin mayonesa, hence this picture.)
Taller de Tapas was the fanciest tapas restaurant we went to, and now that I'm researching where it is, it looks like it's a small chain, so click here for locations. All of the food here was pretty good, with a highlight being the tortilla patatas with chorizo. Instead of being firm and solid, this was actually a bit runny inside. The liquidy yolks and sharp chorizo were pleasantly unctuous (but probably too much if you're not sharing with 5 others).
One of my favorite tapas at every restaurant were the roasted little peppers. Pictured here is our serving from Ciudad Condal, but they are truly ubiquitous. Each one is bite-sized, yet bursting with flavor with just a little oil and coarse salt. They were also one of the few green vegetables that were available, so quite welcome just to have a change of pace.
