So, I’ll start with the “And Then Some” first…
Potato chips cooked in olive oil infused with the flavor of jamón serrano, large olives stuffed with gundilla peppers (Basque), hand cut jamón serrano, and a couple of nice glasses of a new wine for me – 100% Syrah from Yecla (in the Levant). No, I didn’t have dinner at a cool tapas bar in the city. This is what I bought at the store and prepared at my hotel!
The last few days have been jam-packed and it really is just the beginning. I arrived on Saturday evening and settled in. On Sunday morning I toured the National Museum of Catalan Art (MNAC). Early that afternoon I met Ryan Opaz from Catavino (check out this site – it really is awesome!). I have to honestly tell you that I could not have asked for a better seven hours – yes, SEVEN HOURS! We started our tapas crawl at a little tapas bar (Neyras
) on Via Laietana. Here we had a really nice “house” cava with some pan con tomaté (bread with tomato), white asparagus with jamón, navajas (razor clams) – these were AWESOME! – and sepia a la plancha (grilled sepia – kind of a large squid). WOW! What a start; and I do mean “start”.
Next, we stepped next door to the wine shop that Neyras owns (and Ryan helped out with) to peruse their selection of Spanish wines. To our surprise the girl who was working at the shop that day turned out to be an incredible and charming hostess! She opened for us a very cool red wine from Penedés as well as a Malbec from Argentina (oh, did I mention that our “hostess” is from Argentina). Both of these wines were absolutely fantastic! We spent quite a bit of time there chatting with her and looking at their impressive wine selection and then moved on to our next stop (recommended by her) – Bastaix (a new wine and tapas bar that opened a month or so ago). Here we had a couple more incredible tapas – boquerones (white anchovies), fava beans with mint and jamón iberico, and potato with mushrooms – and more great wine (a white from Montsant and a red from Portugal).
After some time here we headed down to the port and then off to our next stop up the Rambla de Catalunya – Piscolabis. This was a cute little (well, not so little) tapas bar that had the most incredible butifarra stuffed with foie gras on toast. Of course a couple more drinks were had and then we had to part ways. I must say that I could probably have spent seven more hours with Ryan – he was a tremendous host and a lot of fun to be around! As a matter of fact, Jamie and I will be meeting up with he and his wife, Gabriella, for dinner on their rooftop with a view of Montserrat in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned!
Finally, please check out the trip pics so far (click on the link on the left under Bodega Is On The Road) for up to date pictures of the trip, including a stop today at the Boqueria Market (I’ll be back there tomorrow and will write more later). All the best from Barcelona!
Life is short. Drink great wine!
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So pleased you had a good time with Ryan, Rick. Barcelona has an ample amount of delicious foodie jaunts, and it's only a question of knowing where to go