Mañana 4 en Barcelona: Chocolate con Churros!

Chocolate con churros is a popular midmorning treat in Spain, especially during the winter.  Spanish hot chocolate is much thicker than US hot chocolate—it is too thick for drinking, but perfect for dipping churros!  

There are good chocolaterías and bad ones, and I've experienced both.  My Barcelona experience definitely won me over.

My French friend, Jean, whom I met at my hostel, went with me to get chocolate (cho-ko-lah-ta) con churros on my last morning in Barcelona.  I read on Tourist Guide that La Granja was supposed to be the best in Barcelona.  La Palleresa was also supposed to be very good, but I was warned that it lacked ambience and friendly staff. 

I loved the stonework at La Granja and enjoyed the soothing, jazzy background music. I read that La Palleresa was very sterile with white walls and tables.

Xurreria
 La Granja doesn't actually make their own churros.  Instead, you walk down a few doors to buy them at a Xurreria, where they are made right before your eyes!  I ordered 1 euro's worth of churros (about 5) and Jean ordered 5 euro's worth. He ate about half of them at the restaurant. 
You can see the machine in the corner that cranks out the churros and next to it is the vat of hot oil in which they are fried.


Chocolate con Churros en La Granja

The chocolate was soooo dark and absolutely wonderful! I had the perfect amount of churros to scrape up every last drop.

Barcelona is known for its chocolate.  I brought home two quality Barcelona chocolate bars: one with 85% cacao and one with 70%. Both had very nice mouthfeels, lovely aromas, and complex tastes. Chón gave me a 70% Lindt bar before I left, which was good, but lacked the wonderful mouthfeel of the Barcelona chocolate. I think the sharper edges and less pleasant mouthfeel was due to a lower percentage of cocoa butter.  Unfortunately, cocoa butter percentage is not typically listed on chocolate ingredient labels.

Chocolate con Churros at Bar Ideal en Valladolid

La Granja's chocolate con churros was 10 times better than the chocolate and churros I had at Bar Ideal in Valladolid.  The churros from Xurreria weren't greasy and were very light and crunchy—perfection.

As you can see, the chocolate at Bar Ideal was made with milk chocolate and was much more pudding-like than the chocolate at La Granja.  The churros were very greasy, not sprinkled with sugar, and just sat in your stomach.  The best chocolateria in Valladolid is El Castillo, but they didn't have enough room for my whole Cal Poly class.  

Chocolate con churros is a quintessential Spanish morning treat, so I'm glad I got to experience a great version before leaving Spain!