Spanish food

Hi Everyone, It’s been a long time since I made the last entry. Since then, I have been to Barcelona, “una magica ciudad”.
After I left Brussels in May, I stayed at my friend house, a friend of my Newcastle days.
We had a barbecue party at his place. We had Mojito, the mixture of gin, mint leaves, citrus fruit and sugar. We had a great fun.





Today, I want to talk about tapas. When I had been to a bar with Nuno three years ago, he refused to have some tapas, there saying “Those greasy tapas”. We joked about a couple of times. I should say that there are a bunch of bars where they serve greasy and oily stuff. But it depends on where you eat. If you have greasy and oily tapas, it is your own fault. You have to find a good restaurant or bar by walking around. If you are lucky, you have very good food in your first day. It does not promise you that you will get a good food again next day.

So, here I introduce a restaurant in Barcelona.



La Pulperia: Consell de Cento 329, Barcelona (tel:934 875 398) 5 minutes walk from Casa Mila and Casa Batllo. As the name suggested, their speciality is “Pulpo”, octopus.

When you look at the building, you may not be convinced. But it is a restaurant where they serve delicious tapas.
Here are some tips to find a good restaurant in the Iberian Peninsula. First you observe customers. When you go to eat out at lunch time, check where Spanish businessmen and business women go to eat for lunch. These people have some extra money to spend. Yet, they want to have some reasonable menu. Let’s say 10-15 euro. But if you are skimpy, wanting to spend only 8-9 euro, you have work hard! Spend more time to walk around.
But how do I recognize those businessmen and women? Good question. You look how people are dressed. You are looking for well-dressed single men and women between 28 and 35 years old.

Secondly, you go inside to check some tapas on a counter. Moreover, you check food which customers are having. If it looks good, you ask for a table. If it looks horrible, you just run off. One anther thing, please do not be fooled by a board of pictures that many “tourist” restaurant have. They all look horrible, aren’t they? If a restaurant has such pictures at entrance, you are almost sure that food is not good.

I believe you are already hungry. I introduce some of typical tapas.

“Calamares a la romana”: Battered and Fried squid. Don’t ask me why they say “Roman style” It doesn’t look greasy at all, does it?



“Chorizo Galiega”: Galician spicy sausage. “Spicy” in term of Iberian people. It is not as spicy as Mexican or Thai food.


“Croquetas”: I love croquetas. If you go to an ordinary bar at every corner of the city, you go ones from a frozen package. I don’t think this one in the picture is one of them. Because they were so good.



“Enpanada Gallega” Galician pie. Filling is either tuna fish or meat. I had one with tuna.





“Ensaladilla Rusa”: Russian salad, type of mashed potato salad. Again, don’t ask me why it is called “Russian”



“Patatas Bravas”: Fried potato with mayonnaise sauce and spicy red sauce.



“Pulpo a'feira” or “Pulpo a la Gallega”: This is the specialty of this restaurant. Horrible every-corner bar would serve ones from a frozen package or boiled days ago. The reason that I chose this restaurant is that I saw they boil octopus in front of customers. It was convincing. It was very soft and tender.



Tortilla de Patatas: A famous omlettos. I personally prefer one with fried potato but not boiled one. The one with fried potato is much tastier. What do you say David?