I made friends with the Doncurado restaurant manager, Joan (Jo-ahn), who was actually very close in age to me. We drove from the morning excursion, Casa Mila, to Port Vell in Barcelona. It's the largest port in Catalunya and is situated on the northeast coast of the Iberian peninsula.
We had a wonderful view of the Mediterranean sea from our spot on the terrace of El Chipirón. This wooden bridge is called the Rambla de Mar and is connected to Maremàgnum, a big complex of stores and restaurants, such as El Chipirón.
This pan con tomate came out cold and was not nearly as enjoyable, or as fresh, as the pan con tomate I had the night before at Doncurado. However, the marinated olives made up for the disappointing bread.
Ensalada Mediteráneo
Joan and I split this salad which featured white asparagus, a popular European vegetable. I've never seen it in the U.S., but you can easily find jars of white asparagus wherever you go in Spain!
The salad also had a hard boiled egg, shaved onions, carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes atop spring greens dressed in a balsamic vinaigrette.
The salad also had a hard boiled egg, shaved onions, carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes atop spring greens dressed in a balsamic vinaigrette.
Mejillones a la Marinera (Fisherman's Style Mussels)
Spain was my first introduction to mussels and now they rank among the top of my favorite seafoods. I had mussels for the first time in Chón's paella and loved their flavor and texture—creamier than the texture of shrimp. When I saw I could order a whole pot of mussels, I knew that this was the entrée for me!
The pot came with a lid, allowing the mussels to remain piping hot throughout lunch. Fisherman's style meant they were cooked in an aromatic, saffron infused broth. Cooking mussels in their shells keeps them tender and prevents them from cooling off too quickly.
Surprisingly, these mussels weren't white, but a brilliant orange, making for a stunning color combo with the blue shell.
The gold statue is called Quadriga de l'Aurorara and sits on top of the Font de la Cascada.
After lunch, we went to Parc de la Ciutadella, Barcelona's oldest and most popular park. An oasis with many walking paths, lawns studded with colorful flowers, a lake for rowboats, this park is a wonderful way to enjoy nature's beauty.
We stopped at a stand selling horchata, a popular Spanish drink made from chufa nuts, or tiger nuts. Chufa nuts were brought to Spain by the Moors and are mainly grown in Valencia, in eastern Spain. To make horchata, chufa nuts are dried for 3 months, ground, and then mixed with water, sugar, and a little lemon. Filtration is the last step before you can drink a glass of horchata.
In my opinion, horchata tasted a lot like soy milk.
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