Saturday, January 13, 2007

Barcelona


A small note of caution. I usually use the built in spell checker to correct my typing errors. But because I´m logged in from Spain on a Spanish machine the spell checker, thinking that I´m typing Spanish, highlites every word, so I´m having to rely on proof reading. So der.

Some time ago Ben (that´s Jan's eldest son), booked us into an Egyptian restaurant for arguably the worst meal that any of us had ever eaten. I remind him from time to time, it keeps him on his toes. Anyway last night, ever the thoughtful host, he had booked us into an Italian restaurant. It was an excellent choice and they were offering something very different. Da Greco, Paseo de Gracia, 116, 08008 Barcelona 93 218 65 50 is a stylish and very busy restaurant. The food was excellent with some nice twists but what was new and interesting was that a small plate of what anybody ordered was, additionally, brought to the table for the others to sample. It was such a simple and inexpensive idea that offers diners the opportunity to sample more of the menu. Highly recommended.


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We love Barcelona. As long as you take sensible anti theft measures it´s a wonderful place. Lively, vibrant (if that isn´t the same thing) and always full of surprises. It helps enormously that we have Ben and Paula to show us around because we see and experience so much more. Particularly when it comes to two of our favourite pastimes, eating and shopping. I don´t suppose you´d ever noticed that? This afternoon we got both, in one hit. Diagonal Mar is a huge shopping centre where the boulevard Diagonal hits the sea. Being a modern (yeah right - Ed.) man I don´t mind shopping. Being a (fat - Ed.) modern man I love eating and Barcelona is the place to eat. There´s so much choice of every nationality and from every area of Spain. One little thing to get used to is that dining out starts much, much later than we are used to. For instance, because we had a late breakfast, we didn´t decide to eat something until about 16.00, so we ate outside on the roof terrace of the shopping centre. The place was buzzing and all the retaurants were busy. We ate at Sagardi Euskal Taberna, Avda Diagonal 3, 08019, 93 356 04 76. This place specialises in food from the Basque country, pintxos (tapas) being their speciality. Very good it was too. You choose your pintxos from the bar and, as everyone has a toothpick holding the delicasy to the bread beneath, they just count up the sticks at the end. On top of that, the waiters come round separately offering you hot dishes which are impossible to refuse. If Jan and I had been on our own we´d never have come across this place and missed out on this delight. Excellent.

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