Comida Chronicles Part IV

Even more reviews of restaurants that my five friends reading this blog will most likely never eat at.

Mosquito
Barrio: La Ribera
Address: Carrer de Carders, 46
Price Range: Fairly Cheap
The duck. The motherfucking duck. Whoooooweeee. The most flavorful crispy skin ever (actual fact, not hyperbole). Yet somehow the meat is melts in your mouth. This is the kind of succulent duck that Poppy was afraid of.

The dumplings are also ridiculous. A small selection of good draft beers and a massive collection of bottled beer.

The only downside is that it made me think of Joe Shanghai’s for the first time in three months and then I got homesick for NYC. But if you’ve never been to Joe Shanghai’s, your life sucks a little more than mine, and you’ll enjoy Mosquito slightly more than me.

Moritz Brewery
Barrio: Sant Antoni
Address: Ronda de Sant Antoni
Price Range: Fairly cheap
This place is silly. The staff wears terribly weird outfits that appear to be taken from a gamesmaker in Panem (topical reference!!!). The entire establishment would fit right in at Desert Ridge (Scottsdale reference!!!) as it’s massive even by Arizona standards and by BCN standards it borders on the size of VY Canis Majoris (red hypergiant reference!!!).

L’Antic Bocoi del Gòtic

Barrio: El Gotico

Address: Baixada Viladecols, 3

Price Range: Reasonable

This is my fancy place. It's a traditional Catalan restaurant built inside walls from the Roman Empire. Their salmon-and-guacamole salad caused me to reconsider my entire existence on Earth. Their coques (Catalan square pizza thing) are also delicious and they have an apple tartin dessert that completes the whole meal.

On top of all that the the husband-and-wife that own and run the place are incredibly nice and even though I've been there just a few times, they always remember my name. All stupid jokes and exaggerations aside, this is the best place I've eaten at in Barcelona. 

Bo de B

Barrio: El Gotico

Address: Baixada Viladecols, 3

Price Range: Super cheap

This place serves up massive tasty sandwiches for 3 euros and change. It also serves up the paradox that is how even though sometimes the language barrier frustrates me, I still hate hearing English. Then I get upset at myself for getting upset with study-abroad kids who frequent this place. Then I lose my mind a bit more. Then I bite into their sandwich and all is well again. 

Comida Chronicles Part III: The Punch Card Edition

And so it continues... more restaurant reviews that barely review the food.


Montana
Barrio: El Born
Address: Carrer de Comerç, 4
Price: €10.90 for the menu del dia

This place is 1/3 art gallery, 1/6 streetwear shop, 1/6 graffiti accessory shop, 1/6 restaurant, 1/6 cafe. The restaurant only does lunch, but their menu del dia is pretty, pretty damn good. Almost every restaurant in BCN offers up a menu del dia, which gives you a three-course meal (plus bread!) and the drink of your choice for  €8 - €12. It should also be noted that only real bastards up-charge you for an alcoholic beverage.

They offered up some traditional Catalan dishes that I knew were traditional Catalan dishes because the waiter told me really slow in Spanish. Sarah and I had some ground cabbage, a nice mushroom soup, some onion dish, and some meat thing I kinda can’t remember. The desserts were strangely not Catalan but instead a terrible attempt at cheesecake and a decent scoop of icecream with Oreo crumb sprinkles.

Montana is also the first and only place I've been to that's gave me a frequent flier punch card, meaning that 16th menu del dia is going to taste oh-so good.



Carrefour
This is not a restaurant but it's the grocery story that supplies me with the vast majority of my food, so I’m putting in on this list. It was Carrefour that first introduced me to el mundo of tortillas de patatas (like potato latkes on crack) and for that I’m forever grateful.

They also sell discount beer which is all sorts of gangster. I actually have not seen the 40s in real life, but they sell discount cans of store-brand brew for 23 cents a pop.

The closest Carrefour to me is the one directly on Las Ramblas, which means it’s some times over ran by tourists, but most those motherfuckers don’t know about the bottom floor or the secret check-out lanes in the back of the shop. Except for today when I had to wait a good five minutes because apparently motherfuckers do know about the secret registers.

I recently became a Carrefour socio card holder, which means I get no further discounts or promotions but for every €8 I spend I get a sticker and if I collect 15 stickers, and then pay an additional €3.95, I get the right to buy a 10-inch stuffed toy piece of produce.

So really the only advantage of the card is access to what is a €123.95 toy broccoli. Currently I'm at 8 stickers and you better believe that once I get 15, I’m getting that plush broccoli, because that my friends will be a status symbol.

Comida Chronicles: Part II

After a 29M delay, Comida Chronicles is back. Without a vengeance. 

The Dog Is Hot
Barrio: El Raval
Address: Carrer de Joaquin Costa, 47
Price Range: Pretty cheap, around 3.50 a dog

Yeah I wrote about this place before. Yeah the hot dogs are amazing. Yeah, I still find myself thinking about their TDIH's 10 sauces you can throw on any dog. Yeah, just like in the rest of the Spain their Coca-Cola tastes better than it does in the United States*.

The sole downside to TDIH is that the only available seating is a stack of neon-hue-spray-painted wooden cubes – which only seat two and aren’t that comfortable. But they sure do look cool as shit!

On the opposing wall of the neon cubes, is a staircase leading to a small, open mezzanine that hangs above the counter. The back of the always-empty mezzanine level is lined with what appears to be a glass office that’s always shielded by closed blinds. With hopes of discovering a secret hot-dog utopia lined with pillows, I asked if it was possible ascend into said mezzanine, but the TDIH employee, snickered and said no.

So I can only assume that behind the blinds is the same thing that is atop every nightclub in every movie ever: a cache of assault rifles, piles of cocaine, and lots of strippers feeding stacks of money into those cool counting machines. All of which makes sense as to why I was not allowed up there.

*I’ve been told this is because the soda here doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup as it does in the States, where the government subsidizes the corn industry, which over-produces corn. This results in high fructose corn syrup being used in Coca-Cola, which apparently diminishes the taste.

I should probably fact check that or at least look at the Coca-Cola can sitting 5 inches from me as I type this. But that Coca-Cola can is mysteriously written in German and I don’t feel like fact checking. Plus the person who told me that once lived in the United States for 8 months, so he has to know what he’s talking about.

Oviso/ Can Nabo
Barrio: Gótico
Address: Carrer d'Arai, 5 / Carrer Nou de Sant Francesc, 25
Price: Cheap

I grouped them together because their ran by the same company that operates four spots in town, two of them being bars (one boasts itself as BCN’s official “after-skate”). I’ve only been to their food-serving-non-k-grinding spots, Oviso and Can Nabo.

If you were high and wanted a place with good, cheap food and a spot where you could forever stare at oddly-painted walls, I’d recommend Oviso. Their burger is not the best in the world, but it’s big, damn good, and it’s only €5. Their pizza is also spooktacular, while their crepes were the only thing I’ve had that I didn’t like. But if you do somehow fuck up and accidentally get the crepes just focus on the massive peacock paintings that cover the wall and you'll be at least mildly happy.

Be warned that Oviso is cash only and they only accept one form of currency. This may seem like common sense, but I once brought some weird relatives there, who tried to pay the bill with €30 and 8USD. This was before I reminded them that just like the rest of the first world, this European restaurant will only take it’s home country’s currency and we’d have to hit an ATM like a normal human being.

I’ve only been to Can Nabo once, but their braised rabbit was really good. Also their menu del dia is available at night and is only €6, which means Sarah and I each had a three-course-dinner with drinks for €12. I just broke that down in case you were unable to multiple 6 by 2, the trick was the “3” in three-course meal was not actually part of the equation. You’re welcome.

Also, if you’re a drug/hot dog kingpin reading this from the secret lair inside The Dog Is Hot and you want to make sure the feds or rival drug/hot dog dealers are not in a Barnawood restaurant before you try it out yourself. Well fear not because their site has a live video stream from the inside of each restaurant.

Comida Chronicals Part I

I’m going to start writing up all the restaurants I’ve been to over my first three months in Barcelona. Furthermore I’m going to set the bar way too high with my first entry, which I doubt I’ll be able to top.

Pizzas L'Avia 
Barrio: El Raval 
Address: Carrer La Cera 33
Price Range: Insanely Cheap

Like most my love affairs, this one was spawned by cheap empanadas, a mountain of which are piled inside the front window to L'Avia to allure passersby like a cute puppy that’s loaded with juicy ground beef and shaped like a half moon. OK, so maybe it’s not that similar to a puppy.

And like any relationship, L’Avia and I have had our ups and downs, such as when they unexpectedly raised their prices from €1.20 to €1.30 per empanada. I decided to let this sly as Mario was the first to introduce me to crema Catalana, which is the exact same as Crème brûlée, so I figure I owed him one. 

In addition to said empanadas, the fun is in trying to figure each other out. And with the shop’s owner, Mario, there is a lot to figure out. 

Mario’s a portly, bald-headed old Uruguayan who is always there, an impressive feat, since it’s one of the few spot in BCN that’s seems to never close. It's open until 1 am or later six days a week for lunch and dinner with no siestas. It wasn’t until my third visit that I noticed the collection of books sitting on top of the glass cooler showcasing what appears to be every kind of Latin food known to man. 

The books were all written by Mario Mariano Pérez Ruiz. For a moment I wondered if the same man who bakes 12 different kinds of empanadas and cracks jokes at everyone who walks in his restaurant could also be the author of books dissecting the Voynich Manuscript, Pythagoras, Free Mason Society, as well as a collection of short stories he collected while the Barcelona metro system. Then I poked inside one of his book’s jackets to find a picture of the same bald-headed, bespectacled man that stood behind the counter. 

I was not really sure where to go from here, except obviously to Google, which first revealed that although he has a complex understanding of any and all conspiracies related to the pyramid on the back of American dollar bill, his web design skills – or ability to find someone to design his website – are not quite on the same level. 


Secondly I found an interview with Mario, which would be an extremely dense read in English and has proved even more challenging to read in Spanish.


I’ve roughly translated excerpts to understand he’s initiated into the Freemasony and… well I’ll just let this speak for itself.

Miquel: But that is remote viewing ...
Mario: Yes. The above time remote viewing is the geometric figure. And there is another association secret in the U.S. that uses this method to travel in time and space. To leave the body ... prove to be true are asked to bring a little order there. And if there are cases.
Miguel: Yeah of course ....
Mario: No documentation but if there are cases. When Noriega, before entering his house, did astral travel to see what's there. He described that conformed to what is found when they entered.

Again I’m not sure I’d be able to fully grasp all this if it was written in perfect English. I obviously have so many questions, mainly where he finds time to write these novels while he works 100 hours a week.


Additionally I found a Spanish-written blog that echoed my experience with L’Avia to a T. At the end of his post he writes:

Releo todo esto. Temo por mi vida. Me siento rodeado. Lamentablemente, debo regresar por otro alfajor más. Puede ser una trampa, lo sé, pero no tengo otra opción. Iré mañana. Recen por mí.

I reread all this (in reference the aforementioned interview). I fear for my life. I am surrounded. Unfortunately, I must return for another sweet dessert. It can be a trap, I know, but I have no choice. I'll go tomorrow. Pray for me.

Sure I miss my Lower East Side empanadas, which came with a side of Boricua slang, but it turns out conspiracy intellect complements the savory pastries just as well. Plus L'Avia sells bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon or champagne for €4.50. I really can’t afford not to eat here.