chungking's Profile
Eating report: Madrid y Barcelona
Barcelonian,
Thanks so much for your food recommendations in Barcelona. I went this past September with my boyfriend and Restaurant Sant Joan was the best. We went there twice on our trip and were lucky enough to have their Thursday special which was paella for 6 euros I believe. I only wish they opened for dinner as well. We met the owner Joan and his daughter who made the wonderful desserts. They were both lovely. We basically deferred to their recommendations and were not once disappointed.
I posted my reviews of my favorite Barcelona food picks on the blog link below.
http://youoffendmeyouoffendmyfamily.com/i-left-my-tastebuds-in-barcelona/
Shortlist was restaurant Sant Joan for the Catalan meals, La Pallaresa for the chocolate and churros, and Kiosko Universal (in La Boqueria) for the seafood. Apart from the Kiosko Universal, there's a big bakery in the heart of the La Boqueria (two parallel glass cases filled with goodies) that has a delicious muffin filled with custard and topped with thin slices of baked apple. If you get there first thing in the morning (8am, I think), the muffins come fresh out of the oven. My boyfriend also stopped by Cafe Viena to get the flauta iberico (iberian ham sandwich) hyped by NYT Mark Bittman and found it well, over hyped. Place was crowded even first thing in the weekday morning and not cheap (8 Euros) for a few flimsy pieces of iberico ham slipped into a baguette.
Overall, we wanted the best food for the buck and managed to get to around 8-15 euros per entree at Sant Joan and Kiosko, which in Barcelona was tough to accomplish given the weak US dollar and how much prices were inflated for tourists. Especially coming from Los Angeles where we're spoiled with a range of great food choices from 5 star to hole in the walls, we couldn't justify grossly overpaying for something that would cost us the price of a plane ticket, so we gravitated towards any places that offered soulful, authentic local cuisine which we generally prefer anyways.
