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Quick Barcelona Trip


gfweb

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A quick trip to BCN for business.

The AA business class dinner on the way over was much better than usual. The beef looked to have been cooked sous vide, or at least combi oven. It was a real MR. The salad was tasty. An anomaly.

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Hotel breakfast buffet. I really love the Euro hotel breakfast. If they only had a decebnt bagel...

 

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Lunch at a local bar that had its own take on classic tapas. Beer, patatas bravas with mayo and sriracha, fried chicken bits.

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Pre-dinner beer at the hotel

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I had a series of private dinners with menus lovingly selected by my host. First up was a seafood place on the waterfront.

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First the tapas. There were many repetitions of these tasty apps.

Tomato toast with Catalan olive oil and barely grilled sardine. Just great!

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Next was local tuna (not shown) followed by croquettes. Seafood on the right, cod on the left.

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Tomato toast with jamon iberico

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Fresh caught hake steak.

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"working" lunch

Appetizers...the ubiquitous jamon iberico and salmon sandwiches and tomato toast

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"noodle paella" apparently a Catalan standard eaten as much as the classic rice dish. It was OK in a rice-a-roni ish way.

I need to learn more about Catalonia. It is a major political issue in the region. Most natives are bilingual, with Catalan being more close to French than Spanish. They just had a secession vote which was nearly 50:50! There's a Catalan president ( not a presidente, which would be too Spanish for their taste) in waiting.

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Pastries for dessert

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Edited by gfweb (log)
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Dinner in the hills that surround the city

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Appetizers. Tomato bread...foie with fruit...fried squid...ham...sardines

 

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Cheesy urchin. Yuck.

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A local sausage. Beef and veal. Tasty.

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Apple tart with caramel.

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The end to every dinner. A high proof grappa-like drink. Tasted like sweat socks. Foul.

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I preferred this one, only about 80 proof, which was a herbal liquor sort of like Galiano. They said it was what women drink, but my machismo is sufficient to overpower  this flaw in my palate. (Didn't Hemingway drink girly drinks?)

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Dinner at Fonda. The second oldest restaurant in Barcelona, we are told. Chef has 5 Michelin stars in aggregate over his career. None here, but it was great.

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Standard apps.

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Catalonian poke

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Lobster salad. Perfectly cooked.

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Hake and crawfish

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Flight back delayed 2 hours because BCN air traffic control couldn't come to grips with the end of daylight saving time and wouldn't give us a slot across the Atlantic. This shouldn't have been a surprise. Sat at the gate for 2 hours (with champagne) WTF.

 

Lunch was a deeply flawed version of the dinner coming over.

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Casablanca and Caddyshack on the video thing

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A tasty flatbread prior to landing.

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The menus were specially planned and printed for our small anglophone group, hence the English.

 

But I have found many bilingual menus in Spain. Sometimes side by side and sometimes on the obverse.

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Thank you for filling me up with jamon and sardines and tomato bread - not to mention hake! Delicious. I certainly wish jamon iberico was 'ubiquitous' here in my house.

Just fyi, while it is not food related (other than you had to endure that on ground snack as you waited), if the pilot fed you that line about BCN being responsible for your departure delay due to daylight savings time changes ... it was probably hogwash! It is highly unlikely that BCN would have anything to do with NAT track slot assignments and, in any event, everyone in the air traffic management/airline field works on UTC. It was more likely AA (or whatever airline you were flying) which messed up - and I would suspect that it was for their own internal aircraft scheduling reasons in North America. They should have plied you with champagne and caviar.

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I think you are right. I had been having a long twitter conversation with AA the day before because their website had the departure listed an hour early. First AA said it was incorrect, then it wasn't.. then it was.  I just got there early and waited.

 

I am always amazed at how much jamon appears to go to waste there. I would happily stuff it all in my carry-on if I could get it into the country without risking my Global Entry card.

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many thanks

 

much sorrow here that you lead such a tough life.

 

maybe things will brighten up for you.

 

:laugh:

 

after all eG is about to have a new interface  !   maybe that will help you cheer up.

 

:blink:

 

this was not quite the food that " Ill have what Phil is having " on his trip to Barcelona, but id take it any day w

 

no complaints.

Edited by rotuts (log)
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