Barcelona food tour

In looking around for things to do in Barcelona, I came across the Aborigens Barcelona site .  They offer culinary tours of Barcelona and environs, and get rave reviews on Tripadvisor.  The cost was quite high, particularly for a private tour -- which I thought would be best for us considering that we would be dragging the kids with us -- but how many times do you get an opportunity to do something like this?  If you're going to drop some serious coin on eating, I actually think I might prefer this to going to a starred restaurant.  Anyway, we met our guide Alex for the next four and a half hours at the Galvany market.  He gave us some background on the impressive building, 

showed us how the fishmongers held central places in the market,

and they we got right into tasting charcuterie

I really liked the chorizo made from Bellota ham, and a pasty red sausage that I have forgotten the name of!  Next it was off to a salted cod specialist, where we tasted Esqueixada. 

 The salted cod guy very delicatly nudged together spoons of re-hydrated cod, olives, peppers and onions and offered them to us to taste.  The consistency was not terribly appetizing, but I think Chloe, mom and I were all surprised by how delicious it was.  I can't think of very many fish dishes that survive the drying and rehydration process tasting good at the end except for this one.  I guess the whole salted-cod thing is a very Catalan dish, and has been for a long time.  While we were waiting in line, the patisserie next door received a huge delivery of croissants, pain au chocolat and muffins, which was met with wide eyes by Zoe and Alex.  This did not go unnoticed by the delivery guy, who very kindly offered a muffin to Zoe, and then to Alex.  Next, on to taste some local fruits and vegetables, including an excellent semi-local pear.  The vendor threw in some absolutely fantastic cepe mushroom filled marinated eggplants.

From here, it was off to a cafe for coffees and hot chocolates, and on to one of the main events:  Ham.  A long time ago, a Spanish friend of ours introduced us to Pata Negra and in the intervening years we have continued to spend too much money on it. The place he took us to was a temple of Jamon and cheese.  They had at least four legs up for carving, and two carvers working non stop.

We tasted pork loin, as well as Iberico Bellota from the shoulder and leg.  It was all good, but the Bellota leg was amazing.  I bought a small pack, but at 200 euros a kilo, could not really afford much.  I didn't realise that there was such difference in taste between leg and shoulder:  like two entirely different kinds of ham.  There was also a cheese tasting, but after la France I found them not terribly exciting.

Loin:

Leg

from Foreground to back: Loin, Shoulder, Leg

Next, another highlight of the tour:  The chocolate place !  Alex asked us if we had heard of el Bulli (yes!) and told us that one of the former pastry chefs had opened a chocolate shop which happened to be just up to the road.  We started with some of the best chocolate truffles I have ever tasted:  They had a crunchy almond crust and vanilla or chocolate filling.  Some looked likes eggs, but the "yolk" was actually passion fruit.  Finally, some small molded chocolates with pop rocks!  Some of the most amazing desserts that I have had, without question.

Next stop, a Bodega for anchovies and Vermouth.  I'm not usually a big fan of either, but both were excellent.  I guess he usually takes people to a Bodega called Quimet, just up the road, which we had coincidentally tried to go to the day before, but it was closed.  

Last stop was back to Mercat de la Llibertat, where we had been to a day earlier to shop for provisions.  Here, Alex told us that you could walk a few feet over to one of the excellent seafood vendors, buy what you like, then take it back over to the mini restaurant and have them cook it for you.  This was a concept that I willa dmit had me almost jum,ping up and down with excitement, as the fishmonger measured out a bag full of fresh cockles.  

From here the plates arrived quickly and with much excitement:  chickpeas with blood sausage.  Cockles

Fried squid

 

Sausage with deep fried artichokes (artichokes are in season)

Tripe

So amazing.  The only thing I didn't really like was the tripe, but that's because I don't like the texture.  The taste was fine.  So, in summary, if you find yourself in Barcelona, do the food tour!  You could possibly piece it together yourself, but it is so much nicer being shown around and being told the history and details from an expert.

A ride, Park Guell and the aquarium

I went for an ill-advised morning ride (still feeling sick) up the hill

And then we all went to the Park Guell.  I guess they have started regulating entrance, so had to wait for a while for tickets as well as for a time slot.  It was worth the not very long wait.

We had lunch waiting for our 13:00 entry slot:  tortilla sammiches!

Next, back to the apartment (found on Homelidays.com, which was HUGE and really cool.  I guess it belongs to a professor of Asian studies, and is in the Gracia neighborhood) for regrouping before heading down to the Harbor on the metro and on to the aquarium.  There, another line awaited us!  They charge admission based on hieght, which is bizarre.  If you're going to scale price to a physical attribute, why not to something less arbitrary like weight or volume?  Anyway, I was not expecting the crowds that we have been experiencing at the end of December -- pretty different form Florence in December.  The kids loved the aquarium, but I have to say that it was not quite as good as the Monterey Bay Aquarium or even the Cal Academy of Sciences.  They did have penguins though, which neither of the other two have!  

Next, a quick snack, and then a walk to the Metro station again (Zoe was really excited about the Metro)

Carcassonnee to Barcelona

Carcassonne

We toured the town and Castle today.  I think this is probably one of the bext times of year to come to Carcasonne, as rthe streets and castle were pretty empty.  Even though it has a decidedly "touristy" feel to it, it's a pretty cool place.  First, breakfast:

Apparently, architects used to have even more things to worry about than they do today:  they even had to design in treachery-mitigation!

But I managed to displease ZZN

Then dinner at l'Escargot

Road trip!

First stop:  Montpellier.  Ever since our first trip here, I've been wanting to visit again and to show it to mom.  After parking in the terrifyingly narrow underground lot, we had a lovely meal at Didaskali, then walked out to the arcade for some pictures

Next, off to Carcassonne.  I've wanted to go there for a long time, but it's always been a little to far away.  We parked in the Hotel lot, and after a little confusion at check in, dragged our bags to the family suite and had dinner

A ride to the park

with the choppah!

Dinner out!

Mom watched the kids while Chloe and I went out to Ciao a te, which was fabulous, as usual.  We started with the zucchini parmiggiano, followed by the cepe ravioli with meatballs (me) and schrimp scampi (chloe), and finally a tiramisu.  Still one of my favorite restaurants.  

THANKS MOM!!

Abalone

Abalone was a favorite of my dad.  When I was a kid, I took a skin diving lesson at Cal.  The instructor was pretty bad, and I was not a very good student, so I never figured out how to equalize the pressure in my eardrums.  Instead, I would just dive as far down as I could go until the pain in my ears became unbearable and I would turn around.  This was all done in a deep pool at a Cal gym, but at the end of the course we took a trip up past Fort Ross to go skin diving in a marine preserve.  The instructor also mentioned that outside of the preserve, we would be able to dive for abalone as well.  This fact excited my dad enough that he agreed to drive myself and another few kids up to the dive site.  The first step was wetsuit rental, where I suffered my first embarrassment of the trip.  Despite being the same height that I am now,  I weighed roughly 125 pounds (56kg).  This meant that none of the wetsuits that were available fit me very well.  None except the ladies models, that is.  So I ended up with one of those, much to my chagrin.  The morning of the dive, we left very early (my memory is that its was still dark out), and drove up the coast.  There was a thick fog covering the entire area, but some excited looking instructors:  they were at least going to get some abalone out of this deal!  I donned my ladies wetsuit, and then slowly slid into the ridiculously cold water.  I distinctly remember my boob flap filling with water and sloshing around comically.  Once out on the water and acclimated to the cold, I started feeling pretty bad.  It was something about the motion of the kelp moving with the swell, and pretty soon I was feeling sick.  I started paddling back in, but it was too late and puked into the sea.  My dive partner shrieked and tried to paddle away as quickly as possible, but it was no good, and he was soon engulfed in the orange effluvia.  Interestingly, whereas pre-blow I didn't see many fish, soon we were surrounded by schools of fish to enjoy.  After this, I felt a lot better, but because of the ear pain issue came back to the shore sans abalone.  One of the instructors friends took pity on the skinny, vomit coated kid returning empty handed to his disappointed dad and gave me an abalone, which made both of our days.


Anyway, Chloe bought an abalone at the market today, and after discovering that it was still alive, we decided to slice it up into sashimi and sushi!  I did not remember how Kenji used to process the thing, so I had to google how to remove all the disgusting sacs of random bile and excrement.  Zoe was not impressed with the look of it at first, stating that "It did not look delicious", but by the end was inhaling slices of abalone as fast as I could cut them.  We also made abalone sushi, all of which was excellent