Barcelona

Barcelona is such a vibrant, bright and bold city!

From Las Ramblas:

To Gaudi's architecture: 

 

Park Guell and Casa Milà

And last but not least, who can possibly forget Sagrada Familia? 

Another popular tourist destination is La Boquiera off Las Ramblas (the main street in Barcelona). Apparently the public market (Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria) has been around since 1217 and it's quite a sight to behold.  

La Boquiera

 

So many choices and so colourful!

Paella €10

The bowls of fruit were 2 for 1 (end of day sale at 2pm)

That sounds weird at first, but Spaniards operate on a different schedule than the rest of the world. Business hours in Spain start from 9am until 2pm and 5-8pm with a break from 2-5pm for the afternoon siesta! Trust me, in the heat, they definitely need their siesta time. 

We were exploring La Boqueria and we wandered past a few restaurants with their massive paella pans (paellera) and we couldn't resist buying two servings of their aromatic seafood paella. The paella looked so bright and colourful with the slightly orange saffron rice, green peas, pink shrimp, black mussels and purple octopuses and it was pretty tasty.  

And for dessert, we had a colourful assortment of fruits! Red dragonfruit, kiwi, coconut, grapes, watermelon, apples and pineapple - and they were all sweet and juicy!

On our way to my favourite European clothing store, Desigual, we saw a Tapas restaurant. We figured we could try a few tapas as a mid afternoon snack...and it turned into a full lunch. 

Sagardi

http://www.sagardi.com/

 

It seemed like the options were endless! Unfortunately, we had to keep asking the servers behind the counter about the tapas because there weren't any descriptions. 

 

Top to bottom:

1) Salmon with capers and cream cheese on a piece of toast

2) Tuna with fried onions on toast

3) Fried potato pancake and mayonnaise on toast

4) Mysterious purple tapa

Some croquette tapas

The total bill came up to €19.80 which is not bad considering how many tapas we ate. They calculated the total bill based on the number of toothpicks left on your plate (which is a pretty snazzy way of keeping track but obviously not as cool as Conveyor Belt Sushi). 

Casa Culleretes

http://www.culleretes.com/

The second oldest restaurant in Spain!

Wild Boar Game Stew

I'd say I can be a pretty adventurous eater: I love trying new dishes and meats, but at the same time, I know what I like and don't like. This stew was really good! The boar was a little tougher than pork, but it was perfectly complemented with the sauce and mushrooms. It probably would have been even better with white rice (that's the Asian in me).

Seafood Paella

A huge helping of the paella

The paella was creamier than the paella from La Boqueria (which probably dried out a bit since it was on display all day) and there was more sauce, vegetables and seafood in this paella. I liked that they added some chicken and pork to give the paella more hearty elements and make it more full-bodied. 

Considering the whole pan was considered one portion of food - it was little wonder why this place was so popular! Good food for good prices for sure!

Lastly, we finished with the traditional Catalan dessert:

Crema catalana

It was different from crème brûlée in that it wasn't as sweet and it used a type of un-sweetened and flavoured custard. I wasn't too sure what to think of this dessert...I'm so used to sweet creme brulees with their crackling caramelized layer that this seemed very foreign to me.

Conclusion: I LOVED Barcelona! It's such a lively, dynamic and colourful city. The Spanish really know how to live it up and enjoy themselves. And of course, who can forget the history? Spanish history is so fascinating from the ancient Roman ruins to the Conquistadors and the Imperial Age of Spain - there's so much going on!