Barcelona: the Round-Up II

Here's the next instalment on Barcelona, only my favourite city in Spain! A town that is so vibrant and rich in culture, you can't help but notice their complete obsession with what they eat. Definitely my kind of place! Judging by all the butts on seats (wherever we went), you wouldn't even know Spain was suffering from an economic downturn. I guess a 'man's gotta eat'! Today I'm sharing with you 2 more places in my little black Barcelona book ;)

La Cuina d'en Garriga

Carrer Consell de Cent 308, 08007 Barcelona

After a heady day of seeing Gaudi's architecture (I've dubbed Barcelona "Gaudi's City") and starved for some tucker, we dropped into La Cuina d'en Garriga. This dinky place is situated very close to Casa Batlló on the gigantic avenue Passeig de Gràcia. Top tip: one of my favourite shops is also on Gràcia, Vinçon - perfect if you're looking for some quirky designer homewares/pressies (beware of an Ikea-like effect, you won't walk out empty handed!).

Mirror mirror on the wall: I like the effect of the white marker for the menu. If I could read Catalan that would be even better!!

Garriga is a Catalan municipality in Barcelona, so we would be eating local cuisine today. Inside, you are met with a wall to wall of gourmet foods, and of course the requisite leg of jamon displayed proudly on its stand. There's a nice selection for the epicurious (olive oils and the like) which would make perfect foodie souvenirs. The homewares displayed in the back are all for sale too! 

The back half of the space has been fitted out like a French styled bistro with an extra homely feel. With it's red chequered napkin squares and spacious wooden tables, you feel like you've been momentarily transported into an old fashioned country house 

Being accustomed to the international hoards (i.e. us) we were offered menus in English on little clipboards. This is just a sampler of what we ordered:

Selection of 3 tapas: sobrassada with honey, potato with black sausage and foie gras mi-cuit on toast. The tapas were decidedly meaty but super tasty. The foie gras was sooo rich (i.e. fatty), as you'd expect! The sobrassada (some sort of sausage I presume) had a great flavour in the marinade/sauce. A great way to get you started

La Hamburguesa Ibérica: with a blended patty of sirloin beef and Iberian pork. Looks can be deceiving actually. Under all those layers of fat (from the extra ham) and cheese the patty was undercooked, rare. Not a good look!

Catch of the Day: oven roasted fish with ribbons of vegetables, pesto and egg plant purée. This dish was certainly tasty although having the whopping big backbone left in the fish detracted a little from it. Read on for a much better version!

My requisite interiors shot: I love the atmosphere in this place, perfectly cosy. You can see the attention for detail, even in the Xmas decos!

Resturante DHUB

Carrer de Montcada 12, 08003 Barcelona

I don't know about you but I'm a big fan of museum/gallery cafés. The MCA in Sydney has just opened a rooftop café which has a lovely terrace lending views of Sydney Harbour in all its splendour. If you want cheap and cheerful, this is a great place to start ;) This one in Barça is part of Disseny Hub Barcelona, something of a cultural museum like the V&A in ye olde London. The restaurant/café was kind of eerily deserted when we arrived, granted it was very late in the afternoon (even by Spanish standards) and we had to wait a while before one of the 2 staff noticed us. Of course our lack of Catalan was a kicker here. Totally lost in translation but we bluffed our way through and I ended up with a delicious hot meal :D 

The plain minimalist interior is completely overshadowed by the stone walled courtyard, on which it opens out to. I can imagine enjoying a few cold ones here in the summer haha Photo: Restaurantes.com

My fabuloso grilled fish with aioli, grilled veggies (zucchini and capsicum) with a balsamic reduction. This dish was definitely a pleasant surprise. I was a bit apprehensive after ordering 'fish' I had no idea what the dish actually was. But hey we got through! The fish was delicious and succulent and the balsamic + aioli struck a perfect balance in the dish. What a win!

And there we are, one city in Spain down, many more to go! Hope you'll stay tuned :) Thanks for reading! xGourmand