Terrace Days

Summer in Barcelona cries out for late dinners on candlelit terraces, with the murmur of city life subdued by crumbling church walls and leafy trellises. Just you and a boy you know (or maybe don't know) gazing soulfully into each other's eyes over some terribly well roasted lamb or a succulent lobster claw while a gentle breeze ruffles your hair. Maybe you're sipping a rioja or maybe a chilled verdejo because it's hot and you can't possibly imagine it getting any hotter. Maybe you order a golden crema catalana to share and feed each other as a prelude to the not-quite-direct walk home and whatever comes next.

Oh, if only it could be so. The unfortunate reality of Barcelona terrace dining is a little less romantic. Most neighbourhood restaurants do with a few tables on the nearest street corner where one battles both street noise and fumes and many of the restaurants in Barcelona's prettiest squares merit little more than a scornful saunter by or, on a truly beautiful day, an overpriced cocktail.

There are a handful of gems, however. This is my short list:

Agua (Passeig Maritim 30 (Barceloneta), 93 225 1272) - By far my favourite, Agua's beachside terrace is romanticly lit, prettily turned out, well (if not quite cheaply) priced and complemented by a very competently prepared menu with a focus on seafood, as the name suggests. I urge you to reserve ahead--at least a few days beforehand for a decent time (i.e. 10pm or later).

Merendero de la Mari (Plaza Pau Vila 1 (Old Port), 93 221 3141) - It's by far the best of the tourist filled seafood restaurants lining the Palau de Mar, I say without having tried any of the others. I base my assertion wholly on the fact that the clientele during most of the year is Catalan in high numbers, with entire families often enjoying Sunday lunch port-side. Because of the enormous size of the terrace (a corner of which is pictured above), you can usually get a spot even if you don't have a reservation, particularly if you're prepared to wait a little. Get the parillada (mixed seafood grill) and the squid ink paella to share.

La Candela (Plaza de Sant Pere (Born), 93 310 6242) - La Candela has a pretty good "market" menu that leans to the modern, but the best reason to go are the candle lit tables in Plaza de Sant Pere, overlooked by the Sant Pere Church and a series of charming Born walk ups. [P.S. See update in Losses post.]

Café de l'Academia (Plaza Sant Just (Gotico), 93 319 8253) - L'Academia is an old Barrio Gotico stalwart, serving traditional Catalan cuisine to well heeled Catalans and tourists alike. There are a few umbrella shaded tables in the atmospheric Plaza Sant Just, just outside.

La Cafeteria (Plaza Virreina 2 (Gracia), 93 416 0457) - La Cafeteria has an enviable location on the leafy Plaza Virreina--once described to me as the most adult of Gracia's plazas, presumably due to the absence of hordes of drunk revellers sitting on the ground in the middle of the square as is wont to happen in the Plaza del Sol and Plaza Rius y Taulet. La Cafeteria serves minimal food, but its sandwiches are first rate. Try the warm pork loin with goat cheese and green pepper. (The same sandwiches are served in an equally pleasant ambience and less daytime sun at Tierra on the other side of the square.)

Cafe Salambó (C/ Torrijos 51 (Gracia), 93 218 6966) - On the pedestrian Calle Torrijos, just a stone's throw away from Plaza Virreina and next door to the indie Verdi Cinema, Cafe Salambo serves good salads, a varied selection of well prepared mains and yummy desserts. While the few tables that hug its wall may not make the grandest of terraces, they are a fantastic vantage point on Gracia's parade of life.

El Jardí (C/ Hospital 56 (Raval), 93 329 1550) - In the dusty courtyard of the Antic Hospital de la Santa Creu, El Jardi is a charming escape from the bustle of the Raval. It has a small menu, but the salads are outstanding and the pastas and desserts are yum-a-licious. They also make a mean sangria. Stay away from boring basics like patatas bravas and tortilla here and you won't go wrong. (What makes me love it more is that in the fall and winter months they bring out blankets that you can snuggle into to withstand the cold. And, yes, I know that this doesn't concern you now.)

Ra (Plaza Gardunya 3 (Raval), 93 301 4163) - I have yet to try one of Ra's famous breakfasts (of the American variety, a rarity in Barcelona), but I can attest to a pretty decent and well priced (prix fixe) menu for lunch. While the rear of the Boqueria overlooking a parking location may not give Ra the most picturesque view of Barcelona, the happy decor, relaxed crowd and tasty selection of "international" food make up for it.

A few on Rambla Catalunya (Eixample) - Rambla Catalunya is a long leafy oasis of cafes of varying quality and price. My favourite time to go is at 5pm during the school year when the terraces fill with parents and grandparents, kids in tow, taking a break on the way home. I also love 6pm on weekends, when the clientele appears to be exclusively made up of well coifed Catalan ladies and gentlemen, most of them 70 and up, sipping orxata or tonic water. In terms of food, Ciudad Condal (Rambla Catalunya 18, 93 318 1997) and Taller de Tapas (Rambla Catalunya 49-51; also try the location at Plaza Sant Josep Oriol 8 (Gotico); www.tallerdetapas.com) offer the best quality; both serve tapas. Forn de Sant Jaume (Rambla Catalunya 50) has excellent Catalan pastry treats: try the cocas, buñuelos or chuchos with coffee or thick hot chocolate.

And some on Calle Enric Granados (Eixample) - The partly pedestrianized Calle Enric Granados, a few blocks over from Rambla Catalunya, also deserves honourable mention. There, Embat, Origens, Habaluc and El Trobador provide decent food on subdued, comfortable terraces. If you're early, pause in the pretty, gated university garden at the bottom of the street--be warned, though; neighbourhood cats tend to see its gravel paths more as litter boxes than walkways.

A postscript (August 26, 2008): In recent days, I've been enjoying the outdoor tables at Bar Lobo in the Plaza de los Gatos (c/ Pintor Fortuny 3, 93 481 5346) in the Raval. I don't actually think the plaza is called Plaza de los Gatos, everyone just refers to it as such because of the large cat mural on the wall of one of the buildings abutting the plaza. Bar Lobo has pretty wooden tables under a long canopy, with fresh white table cloths and pots of rosemary and thyme for adornment. For some reason, it makes me think of Provence. The food, if a bit on the pricey side for tapas, is very good.

My Obsession with Octopus Continues

Despite a summer bout of procrastination that has been making my head spin, I recently managed to write about something that really matters: my love affair with the octopus, torrid and tempestuous as always and very much alive in the lazy days of summer. Here is a link to Calidoscopio (an on-line Spanish cultural review that has been kind enough to let me write in English and wise enough not to bother with a translation into Spanish): www.calidoscopio.net/2008/06Julio-Agosto/Miscelanea03.html.

Dipping into White Beans

I have always loved dips: guacamole, hummus, babaganoush, tzatziki, taramasolata, raita, olive tapenade, black bean, artichoke, roasted red pepper, spinach (my mother's). A veritable pageant of freshly melding colour and flavour.

I have taken many a dip from stumbling beginnings to pinnacles of perfection...if only to later use it wantonly in antipasto platters.

The one that has always eluded me, however, is the white bean. I kept trying to coax it out of its shell for years, with little success. I persisted because I could see its potential. But, despite Herculean efforts, things always turned out deathly dull with the same ineluctable end: awkward efforts to eat through as much of the bowl as possible after everything else has disappeared and the resigned scraping of the remains into the garbage after all the guests have left.

But something happened in Barcelona. Maybe I changed. Maybe he did. Maybe both. It doesn't really matter. What's important is that we finally, finally, finally connected. The white bean has landed, it has blossomed and it is living the prime of its beany life. Both of us are smitten.

Here is what I can tell you about the how:

1 cup of canned white beans (rinsed)
1-2 tablespoons of minced fresh dill (or basil)
1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon of freshly grated lemon zest
half a medium clove of garlic, finely grated or crushed
1 tablespoon of olive oil
a splash of cold water to loosen a little if necessary (no more than a tablespoon or so)
sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper to taste (I used about 1/2 a teaspoon of the former and 1/4 of the latter)

Mash everything together with a potato masher or fork. (Don't mix in a food processor as it'll ruin the texture--you want it to be mashed to the point where it holds together, but with a few pieces of bean still discernible.)

The perfect summer tickle, particularly delicious paired with crisp steamed green beans or on olive oil slathered crostini.

What to Do with a Box of Pringles in Barcelona

A year ago this week, I arrived in Barcelona with a suitcase of my favourite shoes, a smattering of essential cooking utensils and an inflatable mattress. It was raining oppressively and Barcelona, at first sight, looked wilted and unkempt from the window of the cab. I undressed to my underwear in the hotel room, took a box of Pringles from the mini-bar, sat on the narrow single bed, ate the Pringles and cried.

I didn't return to Pringles until a few evenings ago. I was walking with a Colombian boy along the beach. We had a bottle of wine and a blanket, a backpack with books and sweaters. We splurged on the Pringles at the last minute. We ate some of them under the trees in Poble Nou park, while watching a kids' birthday party. Then, as the sun was setting, we took the rest to the rocks by the shore where we remained sitting into the night.

Port in Porto

There are many lovely things about Portugal. The ubiquity of port wine is one and the fact that many bodegas in Porto will give you a free tasting (Croft and Noval among them) is another.

A type of port that is rarely available in Canada and that I first came to try at Noval in Porto is a white. Unlike ruby or tawny ports, which are typically served as digestifs (though tawny, technically, can be served as an aperitif as well), white port is usually served chilled as a delicious and relatively inexpensive aperitif. It varies in sweetness: a regular white is the driest, a fine white is sweet, and a lagrima is sweeter still. The LCBO in Ontario appears to stock a few brands of fine white, though I expect that you might have to hunt for them.

When we checked into the stately Pestana Palace Hotel, overlooking the Duoro River in Porto, the staff served us a fantastically refreshing mixture of white port (approx. 1 part) and tonic (approx. 2 to 3 parts)--over ice and garnished with a lemon slice. Search the LCBOs, find the white port and make this your new summer drink.

Octopus in Portugal

It happened quite unex-pectedly, my last meeting with the octopus. It wasn't carefully planned and carelessly executed like the char grilled fiasco of last year. In fact, but for a gnawing hunger and a missing guidebook which might have led us to pre-tried options, we would never have settled for Cafe Paris in Sintra (Portugal). I mean, can you really expect an authentic Portuguese experience in an ostensibly overpriced restaurant named for a French city, particularly when it sits directly in front of one of the main attractions in town? Common sense dictates that you cannot. As it happens, however, common sense is a gift I lack.

Lucky for me. Cafe Paris serves a sublime grilled octopus. Certainly the best octopus I have ever had--and I am slightly obsessed with octopus so you can trust me on this. So redolent of perfection is it that it may well pave the way to heaven. Just one tentacle would certainly tempt St. Peter to open the pearly gates.

The octopus was just one of the highlights of a Portuguese trip filled with fantastic food and nightly Euro 2008 soccer. Other outstanding meals were had at the atmospheric Oliviers in Lisbon (a set menu of 9 excellent appetizers, of which the truffled tagliatelle and octopus carpaccio were the sensous stars, and a delicious but superfluous black pork main, all accompanied by an excellent bottle of Duas Quintas, a great Duoro red) and at the tiny Boquim do Mouraira in Evora (the owner of the bar, which seats no more than 10, himself whipped up a stack of tender grilled lamp chops, freshly fried potato chips and a delicious salad as he watched the Spain/Greece game and we sipped some tasty house red).

I must warn you, though, the Michelin starred Eleven in Lisbon was overpriced (expected) and unimpressive (unexpected) as well as over-salted (common in Portugal, but unacceptable at a restaurant of this level). Worse yet, the Pousada Solar da Rede in the Duoro Valley, while a stunning place to stay for the night, served some of the worst food we had on the trip (I suspect some of it pulled directly out of the freezer) and at a shameful price given the disastrous quality.

Last Meals

I've been contending with lascivious Spanish aristocrats, long lost Brazilians and male bunny boilers lately. It doesn't leave a girl much time for blogging, I must say.

In the midst of this fantastic soap opera, though, I've been contemplating the imagined last meals of famous chefs. Not out of the blue, mind you. Such morbid thoughts rarely occur to me if I'm left to my own devices. In this case, I was helped along by an article in El Pais. It came out a while ago, but it's been skulking around my head refusing to leave like a good fake news article should.

Sea urchins are big for chefs, apparently. Sushi in various outlandish guises. Much complication and a few nods to the simpler things: radishes with olive oil and salt, for example. (Let me just say that you read it here first: the Return of the Radish (November 2007).) Meals at home with family and friends, more attractive if at least one of your homes is on the Amalfi Coast. Micromanagement: half wanted to cook for themselves. And most of all, gluttony: not a single chef limited himself to one dish, not even to two. Why would he and why would anyone for a last meal? I think condemned men should followed the lead here and take greater liberties in placing their orders.

As for my imagined final meal, I'd want it to be as much about memory as about food: the chicken soup my mother would cook when I was sick, the perogies my grandmother used to make, the bacon heavy scrambled eggs that are part of my dad's limited repertoire and now only make the rarest of appearances due to my mother's cholesterol related fears, my other grandmother's nalesniki for dessert. I'd wash it down with some Catalan cava (sparkling wine) in celebration of this part of my life. I would probably be very very sick at some point, but you know, with the last meal and all, that probably wouldn't be my greatest concern.