Tuesday June 23
After a late start and an odd lunch (tapas at el Quim de Boqueria, in the big market, where we ordered by look and ended up eating okay octopus and what turned out to be ensalada cap-i-pota, "head and leg" of pork, i.e. headcheese salad), we spent some time by the pool, as our legs (and heads) were exhausted. Around five, we went up to the Parc Guell for an evening stroll around the crazy mosaics, a peek at the Casa Gaudí, and a beer under the palm trees with the green parrots. But we had no dinner ideas, so we gave up and headed back to Madrid-Barcelona.
After ordering a bottle of Martivillí Rueda, we started off with another thing we'd seen at that other table the previous night, "Festival de closca/feast of shellfish," a bounteous dish of steamed mussels, clams, vongole-style clams, and shrimp, with a whisk of parsley oil. There was also a nice plate of xipirons fregits, fried squidlets as good as those at La Trucha. Our mains were Llobaro (sea bass) a la brutesca, and tonyna amb tomàquet confitat i crema de rulo/thick tuna steak with "crystallized" tomato. The tuna was not red in the middle, as ours would be, but was still tender and juicy.
We ended up with a little dessert, a semifred de torró amb xocolata calenta - just sound it out and you'll figure it out. It was luscious.
Looking back at our two and a half weeks here, we seem to have had fish or seafood every day, and just about everything was fresh, tasty, and carefully, even elegantly, prepared. We were also lucky in that the euro had slid down to $1.40, which meant that a 15-euro set menu - which contains not just tourist food, but things the Spaniards eat themselves - came to around $21. In fact, some of our best meals - at La Fabrica, Cuca Fera, La Cuineta, Degusta, Madrid-Barcelona, or La Trucha - didn't go over $90 for both of us, with wine and everything included.
So thanks, ASMOSIA! We loved Spain, and we hope to go back again.
