Qu Qu Catalonian tapas for breakfast

With a massive hangover, probably similar to the one in the movie, we went to Passeig de Gracia to see a two of Gaudi’s masterpieces and have breakfast. We spotted a nice place, recommended by “El Pana Lonely” (Lonely Planet for the ones that didn't read my previous post) some sort of high end tapas, so we decided to give it a try. The place Qu Qu (Quasi Queviures) a modern style tapas/wine bar very well located.

 Quasi Queviures

The place

The Booze

So I opened with an iberico ham montado,the bread Catalan style, tomato and garlic, just nice, simple, and tasty. Then I went for a gazpacho, I love gazpacho, very well executed, nothing like cold tomato soup to help you recover from a hangover. Then a variation of patatas bravas, quite good and I was keen to have them, spicy aioli sauce instead of the traditional tomato one, good traditional flavours again. And finally a montado with txistorra, pretty good the spicy flavour of the txistorra.

Iberico Montado

Gazpacho

Patatas Bravas 

Txistorra

Great place to go and have a couple tapas, relax for a while, and then continue your journey exploring the city.

The lamp fits perfect with Barcelona 

Decor

Gazpacho reminds me the Seinfeld episode “The Soup Nazi”.

Soup Nazi: You are the only one who understands me.

Kramer: You suffer for your soup.

Soup Nazi: Yes. That is right.

Kramer: You demand perfection from yourself, from your soup.

Soup Nazi: How can I tolerate any less from my customer?

Customer: Uh, gazpacho, por favor.

Soup Nazi: Por favor?

Customer: Um, I'm part Spanish.

Soup Nazi: Adios muchacho!

The most populous city in Catalunya

My family is originally from Catalonia, or as my great grandfather would have said Catalunya. And believe it or not until a couple weeks ago I hadn’t been in any city within the region. So I had to do something about that and what better place to change that embarrassing situation than going to Barcelona for a weekend.

Las Ramblas

The city is amazing, an architectural gem, superb food, excellent night life, and the relax of the Mediterranean Sea. The places to visit are Gaudi’s masterpieces La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, Casa Mila (La Pedrera), and Casa Batllo. Also Carrer del Bisbe in the Gothic Quarter, Arc de Triomf, Columbus Monument, Las Ramblas, also you can pass by La Boqueria market or even better having a sunbath in Barceloneta or Bogatell.

Park Guell 

Casa Mila "La Pedrera"

Casa Batllo

La Sagrada Familia

But I couldn’t only do sightseeing I had to enjoy the local cuisine, so I ate as many montados as I could, and went to different places to try the food. For the ones that doesn’t know what is a montado, is basically a kind of tapa with bread and on top anything from shrimps, txistorras, to a classic portion of tortilla.

Montados

This time I didn’t do any research so I had no idea, but my friend Armando had the Lonely Planet Guide, which we nicknamed it “El Pana Lonely” (Pana is kind of slang for friend or mate in Venezuela) so we gave our luck to the our new “Pana” and went to our first gastro-experience.

First Catalonian experience: A Bigger Fish To Fry

Armando was looking for a place in the Gothic quarter he had been before, and he was almost sure that Bar Celta Pulperia was the one. So we arrived to the place which obviously wasn’t the one, but we were so hungry that we didn’t give importance and it was a good test for our “Pana Lonely”.

Bar Celta, you might have a tapa of octopus Paul

The place was a tapas seafood restaurant, a kind of small place, with a huge bar, to have a caña (very small pint) and eat any kind of fried seafood. So we got fried crab, fried squid, and finally a Spanish tortilla. The food was good, the beer cold, and the price reasonable. Good start but not the brightest tapas in Barcelona to be honest, simple fried seafood food, but pretty sure there were better options around the area.

Caña in the bar

Tortilla

Fried seafood 

More fried seafood

Barcelona reminds me the Seinfeld episode “The Hot Tub”.

Jerry: Feel much better here at my home base, Jean-Paul. It's a controlled environment.

Jean-Paul: It's a marathon, you know. 26 miles! I need to get some sleep!

Jerry: Hey, believe me, if I'd been with you there in Barcelona, you'd be polishing that medal right now.

Jean-Paul: Left a comfortable hotel bedroom for this!

Jerry: That wake-up guy was trouble!