The restaurant, Merendero de la Mari, was close to the wharf and the weather was perfect: not too hot, not too cold, with a small breeze. With that kind of climate, it's almost sacrilege to eat inside so of course we ate outside. I had missed lunch since I was on a plane half the day (quick connection in Heathrow) and airlines never serve food anymore on short trips but I wasn't too hungry because when I arrived at the hotel from Barcelona airport, I was welcomed with this thoughtful presentation from our events management company - do they know me well or what?
I did refrain from scarfing down all of the cookies and actually only ate one. And when we got to the restaurant, I opted for seafood because it was lighter and I preferred not eating a big, heavy dinner so late at night. Plus, it's Barcelona, so of course I'm going to have seafood.
Shrimp Catalan |
On our last night in Barcelona, my colleagues and I went to Las Ramblas, a busy shopping and dining district of Barcelona. And in keeping with local fare, we went to a tapas bar. I've had tapas before but not at a tapas buffet so that was kind of fun. They didn't have food labels on anything so you had to take your chances on what you were selecting. I guessed wrong on a couple of items (a breaded scallop-shaped tapas was not actually a scallop but filled with something cheesy-seafoody) but for the most part, enjoyed sampling the little plates. The restaurant charged 1.80 euros per stick (see how each tapas has a stick in it?) and as we ate and emptied the sticks, we put the used sticks in a round metal container at our table and when we were finished, our waiter counted up the sticks in front of us and prepared our bill accordingly. Think of it as the Spanish version of dim sum but instead of stamps on your bill as you selected dim sum plates from the carts, it was sticks that tallied up your meal cost.
The tapas buffet |
I really, really want to get to Spain sometime!!
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