After a shitter of a week, we had a lovely Sunday. The sun finally stopped hiding behind the clouds and everyone poured out of their flats and took to the city, to the beach, to the parks...
As it was Rob Roy's birthday last Thursday, we decided to head down to Escriba Xiringuito, which is a restaurant that opens out onto the seafront near Poble Nou. Rob is familiar with the chef there and so he prepared us our own menu of the day... full of tasty treats!
First we started with something called an 'airbag de jamon iberico'. They serve a similar thing at Tickets (Albert Adria's new Tapas gaff) but this was possibly a hundred times the size. Check out this beauty. If I had a minor car accident, I wouldn't mind plunging face first into one of these...
It's simple really. Just a really light, crisped bread smothered with Jamon and served with a delicious emulsion of tomato, oil and garlic.
Next we had some rather wonderful cured tuna sliced ever so thinly, with salmon roe, sesame seeds and guacamole. It was fresh and salty... I couldn't stop myself from spooning it all up. If you ever happen to eat in a restaurant with me, EAT FAST... you snooze, you lose. I mean, I really try to restrain myself but if people are just going to talk then what is a girl supposed to do?
I hope I learn to control myself.
So anyway, where was I? Oh yes. FOOD.
The following dish was crispy fried octopus with basil oil, parmesan, jamon and scrambled eggs.
It was marvellous and didn't lose it's crunch. I'd love this kind of thing for breakfast... I might try to recreate it soon and let you know how it goes...
Next they brought along a little prawn in a bowl of delicious looking creamy liquid. I was thinking 'garlic, dill, white wine' but I was confronted with 'bland, milky and slightly coarse'. It wasn't the best dish but the prawn went down a treat. Look at his little face! It's like he's begging to be taken from the milky weirdness and gobbled up; fulfilling his final destiny.
And so came the Mother of the day. The ULTIMATE paella. My boyfriend is very anti-tourist related behaviour and so I haven't had too many paellas here in Barcelona but luckily this was THE place for paella. It was HUGE and full of little tasty pieces of squid, clams, mussels, prawns, beans, artichokes and rosemary.
It got pretty messy though!
Phew. You would think by now we would be full. I could see the beads of perspiration on my companions faces. God bless the sea breeze that swept in, otherwise we may have all melted from the exertion of such an eating frenzy.
We had a little break with a glass of champagne and then on came the desserts... There were many to choose from but the two below were my favourites...
A delicious strawberry tart.
What a day!
